LIKE NETFLIX FOR A NUCLEAR SUB
Sheldon Sloan was already a patriotic guy: He wholeheartedly supports the war on terror and is proud to sing America’s praises. But the moderate Republican and president-elect of the State Bar has reached new flag-waving heights.
Last week Sloan, of counsel at Los Angeles’ Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith, put out word that his good friend Thomas Fick was on the lookout for movie DVDs to be handed over to America’s sailors, especially those serving on the country’s fleet of nuclear submarines.
Fick is executive director of Project: Hollywood Cares, a nonprofit group that tries to boost the morale of American military personnel with care packages full of DVDs they can watch during down times.
Sloan knows Fick, a former naval officer, through his local golf club, and decided to use his vast Hollywood connections to aid the cause.
“All of us have a bunch of old DVDs that just sit there day in and day out, and never get watched,” Sloan said in an e-mail sent to friends and acquaintances. “I am asking you all to just send those unused DVDs to me at my office, and I will get them to Tom.”
Sloan is particularly interested right now in getting DVDs to submariners, who he said normally get one or two new DVDs from the government each month.
“They’re out there like six months to a year under water,” he said, and “are hungering for DVDs.”
According to Sloan, Fick has already provided 300 DVDs to the crews of two nuclear subs based in San Diego. But Sloan knows there are plenty of DVDs lying around L.A. � and other parts of the state � just going to waste.
“If you are in show biz,” he said in his e-mail message, “and have new ones or ones from movies that didn’t do so well, so what � just send a hundred of the same. It’s OK.”
Sloan has already gotten a promise of another 300 DVDs from fellow State Bar governor James Penrod, a former naval pilot and a partner at San Francisco’s Morgan, Lewis & Bockius.
And Sloan’s not shy about hitting up family. Actor Jim Belushi is married to one of his daughters, while another daughter is an executive vice president of production for Lions Gate Films. If they don’t have spare DVDs, he said, he’ll be shocked.
DVDs can be mailed to Sloan’s office at 11111 Santa Monica Blvd., Suite 230, Los Angeles, CA 90025, or directly to Project: Hollywood Cares at 10900 Bluffside Drive, Suite 319, Studio City, CA 91604.
� Mike McKee
SKEET SHOOTING, FOR A CAUSE
For a good cause, lawyers, staff and summer associates at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe will open their wallets � and their summer homes.
The firm’s annual charity auction, organized by partner Lynne Hermle and summer associate Julia Riechert, raised more than $42,000 Thursday for two local organizations. To get there, Orrick lawyers from all over the world offered up some rare and exotic treats, like a week’s stay at a French country home in Normandy, a weekend in an apartment in Paris and a day of skeet shooting.
“It took us a couple of months to organize everything, but the summer associates really played a huge role in getting everyone to participate,” said Hermle, who started the event six years ago and declared this a particularly good year.
The firm also held an online auction that included opera tickets, a Walt Disney World vacation in Florida and a lunch with some of the firm’s leaders.
During the live auction Thursday, partner William Anthony Jr. auctioned off a week’s stay at his home near Lake Tahoe, including use of his motorized paddle boat and his 1981 “mint condition” Corvette. Silicon Valley Managing Partner Gary Weiss offered a dinner for 16 people at his new Victorian home. And Hermle teamed up with associate Jessica Perry and of counsel Joseph Liburt to offer monthly desserts for a year, including heirloom family recipes.
Partner Neel Chatterjee auctioned off an authentic Indian dinner and summer associate Tina Naicker offered a Fijian dinner for six. And partner G. Hopkins Guy III, a Virginia native, offered to take along 14 people for a day of skeet shooting, which he assured everyone would be “the safest, most fun thing you could do outdoors.”
Partner Monte Cooper won the hotly contested online bidding for a lunch with Orrick chairman Ralph Baxter, with a bid of $750.
“I plan to take full advantage of the offer to have lunch with Ralph in any city where OHS is located,” said Cooper. He’s preparing to make lunch reservations at either one of the firm’s two offices in Italy, he added.
This year’s auction proceeds will benefit the Family Service Agency Intergenerational Center of San Mateo, as well as the Boys and Girls Club of Menlo Park.
� Xenia P. Kobylarz
