'Drake's Favorite Lawyer' and 4 More Move to Katten Muchin
Steven Reisman, co-chair of the restructuring and insolvency group at Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle, is leading a five-lawyer team heading to Katten Muchin Rosenman in New York.
March 26, 2018 at 06:19 PM
5 minute read
You used to call Steven Reisman at Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle when you needed a bankruptcy lawyer. That's where he started his legal career. And now he's here: Katten Muchin Rosenman.
Reisman will be making some new friends at a new firm even if his buddy, hip-hop superstar Drake, is opposed to that idea (#NoNewFriends). Reisman will be the head of Katten Muchin's New York restructuring practice as he makes the move with four other partners from Curtis, where Reisman worked as a summer associate and has practiced since graduating law school in 1990.
This is no two-bit Big Law hire. It's a hire of Two Dollar Steve, the nickname Reisman has earned in the hip-hop world thanks to his penchant for handing out $2 bills. It has made him something of a celebrity, with Vice News labeling him “Drake's favorite lawyer.”
Reisman and his $2 bills, which he has handed out for years in an effort to spread good fortune and health, have made cameos in all kinds of celebrity-clad Instagram photos and Snapchat stories, hanging with the likes of A$AP Rocky, Big Sean, Ed Sheeran, Jay-Z, Michael Strahan and the list goes on.
One story about Reisman has a handler for Justin Bieber confronting the former Curtis partner at a show as he showered the stage with $2 bills. “It's not that kind of show, buddy,” said the unnamed handler.
Reisman has ended up on Hugh Jackman's radar—even if the Australian actor figured the silver-haired, middle-aged dad in front of him at a New York Yankees game was just another rich (if overly generous) fan. Reisman has officially reached “iconic levels,” as Drake captioned an Instagram photo as $2 bills dripped out of the “Hotline Bling” singer's hand.
And who would have guessed Drake would dress up as the Big Law partner for Halloween in 2016? But that, Drake might say, was God's plan for the man who disperses Thomas Jeffersons.
While many lawyers go to great lengths to ingratiate themselves with famous and rich people, that is not Reisman's story. Perhaps the most unique part about his connection to the hip-hop world is that he is not a lawyer to singers nor celebrities and he doesn't want to be. He hands out $2 bills to people from all walks of life in an effort to spread happiness and good luck.
“I'm a believer that hard work and perseverance and drive many times leads to great success,” Reisman said Monday. “But I also believe people have an obligation to give back. Either through charity or their time and, for those who can, with their dollars. And that was my thinking [around handing out $2 bills]. Just trying to make the world a better place. Put a smile on their face and make them have a better day.”
As for the hip-hop artists? He loves their music and he just enjoys their company.
“If you represent them,” he told Vice last year, “it takes away from that.”
Instead, Reisman has a Chambers & Partners-rated restructuring practice.
The other partners leaving Curtis with him for Katten Muchin are restructuring experts Shaya Rochester and Cindi Giglio, bankruptcy litigator Theresa Foudy and corporate partner Evan Borenstein.
The group has a broad restructuring practice representing public companies, private clients and governmental agencies in domestic and international matters. The team represents debtors, independent directors, secured lenders, shareholders, distressed investors and others involved in restructuring cases.
Reisman graduated from the St. John's University School of Law in 1990 and worked at Curtis for his entire career up until Monday. A Curtis spokesman did not immediately return a request for comment about the departures to Katten Muchin.
Reisman said it was difficult to leave a firm where he spent nearly 29 years. But Katten Muchin approached him about a year ago and after a series of discussions and meetings, Reisman said it was clear the firm offered a bigger, stronger platform for the future of his practice.
“Each of the individuals that I met with impressed me as creative, smart, client-oriented, driven professionals,” Reisman said. “So that won me over.”
Reisman said on the night he accepted the offer to join Katten Muchin he went to scout the firm's New York offices after typical business hours. He left a few $2 bills on the desks of his new colleagues.
“I'm sure I'll have the opportunity to hand them out in the future for good luck and good health,” Reisman said.
Foudy said she was impressed with Katten Muchin as the Chicago-founded firm, formed via the 2002 merger between Chicago's Katten Muchin Zavis and New York's Rosenman & Colin, was looking to grow its restructuring practice. And if Foudy's perspective on Reisman is any indication, the group should have no problem making friends at its new firm.
“Steven has a very dynamic personality, so just about anybody who meets him ends up falling in love with him,” Foudy said.
To clear up one rumor about Reisman: He said he has not commissioned an artist to create a giant $100 Canadian bill for Drake.
“Drake's a great artist and a great friend,” Reisman said. “He buys his own art.”
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