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Merkle & Magri

"Mad Dog" and "The Invisible Man"

(Originally published in Pinellas County Review, December 1994)

 

By Bob Andelman

 

If they were superheroes, we'd know them as "Mad Dog", "Joe" and "The Invisible Man."

But, alas, they're mere mortals, lawyers at that, recognized professionally as Merkle & Magri.

Perhaps it's unfair that Joe Magri and Ward Meythaler are always perceived to be in Bob Merkle's shadow, in that both are accomplished former Assistant U.S. Attorneys in Tampa. On the other hand, after six years as partners in private practice, Magri and Meythaler enjoy their relative anonymity as much as Merkle enjoys the hot klieg lights of controversy to which he seems preternaturally drawn.

"You really can't sum up this firm by looking at the personality of any one of us," Magri said. "There's never any media walking into my hearings, asking what I've said to (Clearwater City Councilman) Fred Thomas at a roast. I don't miss that; I don't want that as part of my job."

Merkle, of course, is the controversial former U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Florida best-known for his aggressive prosecution and conviction of Colombian drug lord Carlos Lehder. Other notches on his belt include the corruption trials of Hillsborough County Commission members and Nelson Italiano, a once prominent player in Democratic party politics; the indictment and conviction of former Detroit Tigers pitcher Denny McLain; perjury charges against State Rep. Elvin Martinez; the investigation of former Hillsborough State Attorney E.J. Salcines; and the prosecution of Tampa plastic surgeon Dr. Dale B. Dubin on child pornography charges.

He didn't win 'em all, but Merkle certainly left his mark on the office. Replaced by a succession of less colorful characters, some people still think he's the U.S. Attorney.

Shortly after leaving office in 1988, he challenged then political novice Connie Mack for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, a remarkably verbose campaign in which Merkle dubbed his opponent "Cardboard Connie." Merkle lost, but while he was in the race, there was never a dull moment.

Recently, private attorney Merkle, 50, made the daily news as the defendant in a traffic fracas. He was charged with misdemeanor battery and acquitted following a highly-publicized trial. The jurors on his case actually wrote that he "was fully justified in his actions in the defense of his family and himself" and the whole gang dropped by his house afterward to celebrate his innocence. (Merkle said it cost his firm $250,000 in lost billings to defend him; He plans to file a civil suit shortly.)

Merkle's nickname, "Mad Dog" - acquired during his days in the Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney's Office because of his unmatched prosecutorial zeal - returned to haunt him during his own criminal case. That's why Merkle tap-dances between embracing the nickname and orphaning it.

"It's a good image to play off of," he said. "If people think you're a raving maniac and then they encounter thoughtfulness and a sense of humor, it makes them more receptive."

The downside of being the "Mad Dog," however, is endless. "We don't have a wide base of institutional clients. I'm still not invited to country clubs. I'm not asked to sit on the boards of banks," Merkle said. It also has an impact on the type of clients who want his help.

"Because of that image, I get called by people who've been screwed by the system," Merkle said. "The perception is there that I will buck the system and not be intimidated. They say, 'Only you can help me.' It gets where your heart breaks for them. This firm has done more pro bono, proportionately, than anybody else. A lot of it was not planned. A client has no money and I stick with it."

Another drawback is that his fire & brimstone act known far and wide, even by judges and opposing counsel who have never actually seen Merkle in action.

"I can walk into a courtroom and see a look pass across a judge's face - a judge who has never seen me in court - and the judge is thinking, 'When's this guy going to start throwing tables?' " Merkle said. "I have to cope with that, but it's not hard to disabuse."

Attending a deposition in his own case, the prosecution asked the judge to have an armed in a deposition room and videotape the process. "The prosecutor said to me at one time, 'If you hurt me, I'll have you arrested'," according to Merkle. "Absolutely no basis."

Merkle doesn't give himself enough credit. His mere demeanor and presence can be intimidating in a friendly setting, let alone an antagonistic one.

"If you're a litigator, a hard-nosed, hard-ass, you want the reputation," said "The Razor," St. Petersburg attorney Allen Allweiss, himself a former Merkle & Magri client. "It's not being an intimidator, but you're there to tell a judge you're right. You're raising the flag. Merkle's definitely a person who gets other lawyers' attention."

"Have you ever watched him in a courtroom?" asked Clearwater attorney Jeff Albinson, an associate at Merkle & Magri from 1989-91. "Unbelievable. And he can be intentionally confrontational. One time we were doing a trial in Orlando and the judge allowed this witness to testify - first - who we had never heard of. On cross-examination, Bob was able to turn that witness around. It was a helluva cross. Right after that, the judge had to break and take a call and the other side made us an immediate offer to settle. It was unbelievable."

Denis deVlaming, a Clearwater criminal defense attorney who represented Merkle in his assault case, has seen the Jeckyll & Hyde sideshow that is Merkle in court.

"When he's not in front of a jury, people might seem him be very aggressive," deVlaming said. "When the jury comes in, you'll see a change in style. It's more than being nice. He knows when the spotlight is on, what the jury might react to. He knows the difference between what a jury or a judge might respond to. He knows what sells in front of a jury."

Even his own partners understand the perception of the Mad Dog, if not necessarily endorsing the appellation.

"The fact of the matter is, that's Bob," Magri said. "Bob is not going through this world, this room, or any situation, quietly. He's a man of strong beliefs. He's a good man who tries to do what he feels is right. In these circumstances, every now and again, you're going to tick people off. Bob doesn't mind doing that."

A career government employee who spent 1971-77 as a trial attorney with U.S. Department of Justice and 1977-81 as assistant state attorney for Florida's Sixth Judicial Circuit on his way to being tabbed by Ronald Reagan as U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Florida in 1982, Merkle had never been in private practice. But that's the alien territory in which he found himself by late 1988, struggling in downtown Clearwater as a sole practitioner without a huge staff and with a reticent telephone system.

Before long he was joined in exile by his former chief assistant, Magri. They formed a partnership and relocated to fancy digs at Waterford Plaza on Rocky Point.

If Magri is the named but little-known partner, where does that leave the firm's third and final partner, Meythaler? He's the Invisible Man, the third partner in what most people think is a two-man firm.

"He likes that, Ward does," Albinson said. "He's a very unselfish person. He has no ego problems."

Meythaler joined the firm a few months after Merkle and Magri formed it; not too late in the big picture to change the sign on the door or the language on letterhead, but all three agreed Merkle, Magri & Meythaler didn't have the same ring to it as Merkle & Magri. And Meythaler prefers the giant shadow cast by Merkle.

So what kind of firm do the three Ms run? Complex civil litigation, primarily, although with a former U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Florida (Merkle), a former Acting U.S. Attorney (Magri), and a former Assistant U.S. Attorney (Meythaler), there's no lack of demand for their services as criminal defenders, either.

Magri, whose biggest client is Anchor Glass, specializes in civil litigation - business, insurance coverage and product liability. He handles a few personal injury cases. Meythaler's practice mixes civil and criminal. "The civil tends to be plaintiff product liability and fraud cases," he says. "And like Bob, I do some criminal work and want to do more, once we get caught up on our existing civil."

Unlike Merkle, whose entire career before this firm was in public service, Magri and Meythaler both left comfortable, well-paying jobs in private firms to join the U.S. Attorney's office in Tampa. Magri, a graduate of Fairfield University in Connecticut who received his J.D. from the University of California, Hastings School of Law, specialized in commercial, insurance and administrative litigation for Cummings & Lockwood at their Connecticut and Washington, D.C. offices. The firm was co-founded by Homer Cummings, Attorney General under FDR. He joined Merkle in 1982.

"The firm had a number of people who had gone in and out of the Department of Justice," Magri recalled. "I had this real belief that I'd go back to private practice. I liked it. Our firm in Connecticut represented big corporations. There was a different perspective. For example, I did all of Texaco's upstream work. So when I left, I thought I might come back in three years. But in Tampa, we got up to our asses in cases. We were doing things that were fun."

When Merkle left office, Magri moved into his position as Acting U.S. Attorney from June 1988 through September 1988.

"Joe is a great lawyer," Merkle said. "He evokes tremendous respect wherever he foes. He's thoughtful, articulate - he's got it all."

Outside the courtroom, Merkle said its not his mercurial temper the public needs fear - it's Magri's. "I'm the one who's cool on the golf course," he said. "Joe's the one who throws his clubs."

Meythaler, a graduate of Iowa State University who received his law degree from Harvard, was the youngest person ever to make partner at Chicago's Keck, Mahin & Cate, a firm of 90 lawyers at the time, 150 now. He spent 11 years with that firm before walking away from a partnership in 1984 to be an assistant in the Middle District of Florida under Merkle.

"In Chicago, I was doing general litigation with very little trial work. I wanted to do more trial work. I also wanted to live in Florida. And I wasn't married then so I had less financial incentive to stay. I took an enormous cut in pay to work for the government. I decided it was more important to do what I wanted to do."

Once settled in Florida, Meythaler never thought about going back to Chicago. And when he finally left the Middle District office a few months after Merkle and Magri, his first choice was to continue working with the men who had made the law challenging again.

Meythaler has many fans of his work, among them attorney Allen Allweiss. While Merkle got all the attention in the press for representing Allweiss against Home Shopping Network, Meythaler actually worked most closely with Allweiss.

"Ward is, in my view, a fabulous lawyer," Allweiss said. "He is a very understated, extremely competent and very bright lawyer. A great lawyer. He'll never blow his own horn. He doesn't pound his chest. He's been overshadowed by Bob, but Ward is a very significant person in that law office."

According to legend, Meythaler arrives at the office daily at 4 a.m. It's a work habit that goes back to his days as a national champion, All-American gymnast at Iowa State University.

"He's a Harvard guy. And he's a real perfectionist," Jeff Albinson said. "He insists that everything he does is the best quality he can do. I've seen him rewrite and rewrite things until the secretaries wanted to kill him."

Merkle & Magri, the firm, is fleshed out by associates as different as partners Merkle, Magri and Meythaler themselves. "I've got all stripes in here, Democrats, Republicans," Merkle says. "I may even have an atheist or two. I don't care. All I care is that they comport themselves as professionals."

Their offices on the 11th floor - and ancillary space on the second - is jammed with 10 lawyers and support staff, but the partners are looking for at least one more associate in the near future.

"I prefer the small firm," Meythaler said. "The question is, how small?"

"I don't know that our goal is numbers," Magri agreed. "I'd like to see our firm be a capable, respected firm that has good cases and good clients. I think we have some of these things, some more than others. But there's always an ability to be better."

Merkle said adjusting to life in private practice after a career on the government's payroll has been a distinct learning experience.

"Dealing with individual clients is a lot different than dealing with an institutional client such as the State of Florida or the United States of America," he said. "As a prosecutor, I dealt with real victims of crime. But (in private practice) it took me a while to figure out what I could and couldn't do in terms of taking on the world. It was hard to say no. That kind of shortcoming can put you out of business so you're not in a position to help anybody."

Will politics ever again beckon Merkle? He recently turned up at a roast of Clearwater City Councilman Fred Thomas in the guise of God, singing his recently penned parody of President Clinton and the First Lady. It seems the more eagerly he doth protest, the greater the impression he's preparing for the inevitable.

"A lot of people ask, and I'm not foreclosing the possibility, but I have no burning ambition," Merkle said. "There's a lot of reasons I have not gotten back into a political situation. All of them make a lot of sense to me. I have a responsibility to this firm, to my family, to my kids. I don't have the money or the political (organization) to launch a campaign. I don't have the burning desire to see my name in lights. When you think about it, what sense does it make to put your future in the hands of an electorate that doesn't know who or what you are?

"The day may well come that I run for something," Merkle said, "and there's a lot of people out there who are afraid I'm gonna do it. I could mount a campaign for any office, state or national, and bring the same credibility I brought against Mack - my group of issues and reasoned debate. But that kind of approach gets demolished by the slick demagoguery of TV commercials. And who's going to listen?

"I'm just going about the business of being a lawyer right now," he said.

Bay Area Law Firm Profile

Firm: Merkle & Magri
Founded: 1989
Location: Tampa
Number of partners: 3; Bob Merkle; Joe Magri; Ward Meythaler
Associates: 7; Cherie A. Parker; Ralph L. Gonzales; Ann E. Barlow; Gerald J. Roble; Dawn Weiger O'Neill; Juliet Teresa Wyne; David J. Plante
Major client: Anchor Glass
Areas of law: Civil litigation and criminal defense
Big lawsuits: Allen Allweiss v. Home Shopping Network
Revenue
: "Our billings have gone up every year," Merkle said.


end

 

©2000, All rights reserved. No portion may be reproduced without the express written permission of the author.


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