An Essay: On the Second Day of Christmas ... by gimleteye

(Part 10)  The international law firm, Greenberg Traurig, deserves its own niche in the 12 Days of Christmas. Greenberg is one of the largest and most sophisticated law firms in the nation. Locally it is the black hat operator of what is known to insiders as the practice of "environmental land use law". The firm was ubiquitous in zoning changes and permitting issues during the building boom, with local attorneys as familiar in the hallways and offices of city and county government in Miami as the staff who worked there.

Greenberg's most famous corrupt associate was lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who now agrees that the hammer and anvil style lobbying he deployed to such effectiveness has destroyed Congress. There are no similar apologies by the law firm that employed Abramoff for the bread-and-butter business lines of the housing boom in South Florida and elsewhere, based on the relentless conversion of farmland and wetlands to suburban sprawl in Miami-Dade County. During the 1980’s and 1990’s, Bob Traurig—one of the firm’s founding partners—regularly appeared at local legislative meetings, often taking a prominent seat in the back while younger attorneys, like Miguel de Grandy and Lucia Dougherty, finessed rezoning approvals on behalf of sprawl and condo clients, speaking from the speaker’s podium in the well of the county commission. 

 The 2004 Christmas edition of the now defunct Sunpost held a place for Greenberg Traurig, through one of its key Miami attorneys. “Pedro Martin is a senior partner and principal shareholder at Greenberg Traurig and has been representing developers and lending institutions in residential real estate since the 1970s … and the chief executive officer of Terra International, a Miami-based real estate company that focuses on luxury, high-rise development in urban core neighborhoods throughout South Florida.”

Martin’s outside business interests are hardly exceptional at Greenberg Traurig. Abramoff ran a multi-million dollar business operation; a full service provider for key members of Congress. His staffers “were footsoldiers in the Florida recount” that delivered the presidency to George W. Bush. 

In “The Twelve Days of Christmas”, special attention has been paid to the way local zoning and permitting during the building boom acted as small cogs in the machine connecting up to the explosion of trillions of dollars of financial derivatives based on home and commercial mortgages.

NY Times business writer Morgensen sums it up well: “Of all the partners in the homeownership push, no industry contributed more to the corrupt of the lending process than Wall Street.” (“Reckless Endangerment”, page 267) But Wall Street needed the biggest pipe possible to deliver a flood of mortgages from which to craft mortgage-backed securities and then to pile leverage on leverage. The pipe was wide by virtue of political operations at the local level, through local operatives (and environmental land use attorneys) who understood how to exert leverage—like Abramoff did with the most powerful leaders in Congress, mostly Republican—to ensure that “speed in execution” transferred farmland and environmentally sensitive wetlands into zoning classifications that could rapidly convert to platted subdivisions or ocean-front condos.

If mortgage originators were the equivalent of drug pushers, Morgensen writes, “hanging around the a schoolyard and the ratings agencies were the narcotics cops looking the other way, brokerage firms providing capital to the anything-goes lenders were the overseers of the cartel.” Like any criminal syndicate, the cartel needed foot soldiers; the corner dealers and wholesale supply chain reaching down into “what the market wants”.

It is ironic that the property of the Miami's only daily newspaper was originally contracted for sale through a Greenberg Traurig entrepreneur. In 2005 Martin agreed to but never closed on the contract to purchase 10 acres for $190 million. Martin was quoted saying the deal was probably going to close in a few months, but that didn't happen. “Mr. Martin ended up making a deal with Mr. Siffin to flip the contract to Citisquare for $230 million and paid the media company a $10 million non-refundable deposit. Calls to Mr. Martin and Mr. Siffin were not returned.” (Miami Today, January 14, 2010)

The Miami Herald—with extensive and lauded investigative reporting talent—mostly failed to reach up towards explaining to readers the origins in speculation of the biggest real estate collapse in US economic history and certainly the most important in Florida’s. Reporters who had chronicled the rapid loss of South Miami Dade farmland to suburban sprawl during the vapor phase of the housing boom were prohibited from publishing their extensive report. It is even more an irony that the entire Herald headquarters property was sold to be a casino for $230 million in 2011. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

The 2004 edition of the now defunct Sunpost gushes, “Under Martin's leadership, Terra has grown dramatically in the last three years. Terra completed its first development, Nautica, this summer. Terra also began construction on Quantum on the Bay in the Miami Arts District where the groundbreaking was kicked off by a free concert in Margaret Pace Park attended by 3,000 people in August. After becoming one of Downtown Dadeland's pioneers last year with the development of Metropolis at Dadeland, the first of two towers is near completion and the project is sold out. Martin's newest endeavor, 900 Biscayne Bay in downtown Miami, will be a luxurious bayfront property with a boutique feel. The developer has raised $88.5 million dollars in equity since 2001 and is close to reaching the $1 billion dollars sales mark by year's end.”

"Metropolitan Miami will rise to become Miami’s foremost business address. Set for completion in 2010, the tower will stand 47 stories tall in the heart of Miami’s proud renaissance.” But the cornerstone, massive development in downtown Miami struggled through financing and syndication. Ultimately, the big downtown Miami landmark, its joint venture patners MDM Development Group and MetLife Insurance Co., and its $1.5 billion financing package held by HSBC, RBC Bank, and Bank of Scotland was in the category of too-big-to-fail. The key tenant is Greenberg Traurig.

According to the website, Raw Story, during the 2000 presidential recount in Florida, “Greenberg had 39 lawyers and 13 paralegals on the ground… In his Greenberg Traurig biography, which has since been stripped, the firm wrote, “Jack is directly involved in the Republican party and conservative movement leadership structures and is one of the leading fund raisers for the party and its congressional candidates.” (Article originally published, May 5, 2005) http://rawstory.com/exclusives/byrne/abramoff_florida_recount_bush_505.htm

There is no similar focus, except on this day before Christmas, of the legal lobbying efforts that put Greenberg Traurig at the center of the housing boom in South Florida, or the vital role its attorneys played.  (to be continued…)