The Businessman
By Ben Hallman
The American Lawyer
June 1, 2007
Charles "Rick" Johnston was stuck at a checkpoint manned by an American soldier, an Iraqi soldier, and the Iraqi soldier's pet squirrel. As Johnston watched, the squirrel wiggled out of its leash and dashed away. The Iraqi soldier gave chase, abandoning his gun, the checkpoint, and his American counterpart. "It's like a Fellini film, the whole place," says Johnston.
Johnston, a partner at Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, spent more than a year in Iraq after the U.S. invasion. He initially worked for Turkcell, a Turkish telecom client, on a bid to win a cell phone license from the U.S.-led coalition Provisional Authority, and also for a consortium of other Baker, Donelson clients on risk assessment issues. Johnston may, in fact, be the only Am Law 200 partner who lived in Iraq after the U.S. invasion. Others certainly came and went, but he stayed long enough to pick up some local habits, including bringing a gun almost everywhere he went.
During his longest stretch in the country, more than a year, ending in late 2004, he traveled Iraq with a bodyguard. He drove to and from Kuwait, Turkey, and Jordan, and stayed with the family of Jalal Talabani, Iraq's Kurdish president, when in Baghdad. He also ate at restaurants, shopped in markets, and talked to children on the street. And what he observed of Iraqi life was sometimes sad, sometimes terrifically interesting, and often oddly funny.
He has the photos to prove it: There's the one of Johnston relaxing in one of Saddam Hussein's thrones. A mural behind the throne depicts a swarm of Iraqi missiles headed off to a distant, presumably American, target. As for the throne itself, he noticed that the twin indentions in the cushion were rather large. (His conclusion: "Saddam had a big ass.") Another photo shows a sign on the door of a Christian church that asks worshipers to please leave their weapons at home. Pistols, the sign says, are okay. "I felt sorry for my colleagues in the government," he says. "They had to stay in the Green Zone the whole time. I wasn't restrained like that. I got around to villages and met with basic, ordinary people."
Turkcell lost the bid to another company, but Johnston stayed on, dividing his time between Baghdad and the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah. He provided risk evaluations for insurance companies and advised oil and gas companies that wanted to be positioned to do business in Iraq, and Iraqi companies looking for counsel on how to do business with the Western world.
Back in his Washington, D.C., office, he continues to field questions about Iraq from clients, but they will not invest, and he will not likely return-not until the security situation improves. He understands their fears, but believes businesses are missing opportunities. "The generalized impression of Iraq that every street has gunfire is inaccurate," he says. "My personal belief is that Iraq deserves a more sophisticated analysis." What does he tell clients who want strategic advice on the legal system? Criminal law traditions in Iraq are relatively evolved, but Iraqis tend to rely on tribal leaders to settle disputes. Lawyers in Iraq, for the most part, are unfamiliar with Western business norms. So when it comes to civil disputes, there are no guarantees. "The courts are not what we want them to be," he says. "Companies need a local partner in Iraq." And not just any partner-one with strong connections. A paper document, if not backed by the right parties, is meaningless, Johnston says. Contracts are only as good as those parties who agree to back them.
This is Johnston's pitch to clients: When, and if, the country stabilizes, he understands the culture and the customs as well as any Western lawyer. He lived there during a period of great change in the country and witnessed the consequences of two radically different cultures trying to share the same space. He knows that many Iraqis, like the wayward soldier with the pet squirrel, are not ready for the new paradigm.
Johnston can relate. Near the end of his stay in Iraq he created a minor Fellini moment of his own. His habit was to carry a (never-used) handgun in the rear waistband of his pants. He lost weight while in Iraq and those pants fit more loosely than they had when he was in the United States. One day, near the end of his stay, he was in a business meeting, standing, talking to the room, when he felt the gun slip into his pants. It travelled down a leg, then out onto the floor, where it landed with an attention-getting clatter. He stopped what he was doing, and, sheepish, picked up the gun.
E-mail Ben Hallman: bhallman@alm.com
|
Law.com Home
