David Osnos: 50 Years of Practicing Friendship

There are plenty of lawyers in Washington who are better known, or work for larger and more prestigious firms, who make more money or have more political juice.

But I doubt you could find a lawyer who is more beloved and respected by clients, colleagues and legal adversaries than David Osnos, who this week celebrated his 50th year at Arent Fox.

Don't get me wrong -- Osnos has had plenty of success over the years. He was probably the biggest-grossing partner at Arent Fox, the venerable Washington firm, for more than 25 years while serving five terms as chairman of its executive committee. His blue-chip list of clients includes Clark Construction; Washington Real Estate Investment Trust; VSE, the government contracting firm; and Abe Pollin's sports and real estate empire. And, during the real estate crisis of 1990, when developer Conrad Cafritz was about to go down the tubes, he turned to Osnos to work things out with a legion of creditors demanding immediate repayment of the billion of dollars they were owed.

At a low-key celebration this week at Arent Fox, Pollin recalled a day, decades ago, when the accountant for his family's construction business came to him with a tax problem requiring legal advice. A meeting ensued with one of the city's leading tax lawyers, Al Arent, who asked to bring his new associate, fresh out of Harvard Law School.

"I don't remember what the issue was or how it was resolved," Pollin said. "But I can tell you that was the last time I ever spoke with Al Arent. . . . Ever since, David has been my left hand and my right hand, my confidant and my friend."

Osnos was there in Montreal when Pollin, a relatively obscure owner of a National Basketball Association franchise, beat 15 other bidders for a professional hockey franchise for Washington. He was there when a frustrated Pollin told Mayor Marion Barry that he'd finance a sports arena himself in the then-decrepit East End and negotiated the tricky details for Pollin with bankers and a passel of city agencies. And Osnos was in the room when Michael Jordan rose from his seat and shouted at Pollin for breaking a promise to keep him on as the head of the Wizards' basketball operations -- and the diminutive Pollin stared right back and told the most famous man in basketball there was no such promise.

In many ways, Osnos is a throwback to a more genteel time, when lawyers were generalists more than specialists, counselors more than hired guns. The firm he has helped shape is one of the last of the old Washington firms to resist the trend toward national and international consolidation -- a mid-size firm known for a handful of specialties, a roster dominated by regional clients and a culture that remains more like a partnership than a loose association of competing professionals.

When Osnos arrived in 1956, law firms were still divided on ethnic and religious lines, and Arent Fox was perhaps a comfortable choice for a Jewish kid from a comfortable home in Detroit, where his father owned a discount department store. Osnos is credited with saving the firm during its first real crisis by engineering the transition from a governing structure built around carpool conversations of the founding partners to something more democratic and enduring.

In that, as in most of his legal work, Osnos is impressive not only in his mastery of legal details but also in his keen business judgment and psychological insights.

"David knows what the parties need and want better than anyone I've ever seen -- in many cases, better than the parties themselves," says Fred Klein, a real estate partner at DLA Piper.

Osnos is the antithesis of the typical New York lawyer who tries to dominate the room with blusters and threats and demands for the sun, knowing his client would be happy with the moon. "With David," says Bruce Parmley of Hogan & Hartson, "it's never about him. It's never about outsmarting the other guy or getting the last nickel. It's always about making sure that everyone walks away feeling they got what they most wanted and what they were entitled to."

A conversation this week over chopped steak and coleslaw at Morton's confirmed Osnos's reputation as a keen listener and wonderful raconteur. He spices his stories with allusions to opera, references to wine, quotes from Mencken and Shelley -- even lyrics from the Rolling Stones. On a winter's evening, you're apt to find him in Section 100, Row D at the Verizon Center, cheering on the Wizards and lecturing the guys in striped shirts on the finer points of refereeing. He's been a longtime board member of the Jewish Community Center in Rockville and Mount St. Mary's University in Maryland.

Unlike many lawyers who have reached his age and success, Osnos has remained with the same firm, and the same wife, for 50 years. He lives in the same suburban Maryland house where he brought up his kids. An artificial knee and hip have slowed him down a bit recently, and he has long since passed off many of his clients to younger partners.

But even now, after 22 years as Osnos's protege, Arent Fox partner Rich Brand knows there's one question he must research prior to any meeting with Osnos clients he's inherited: "What does David think?"

Even if they don't ask it, says Brand, it's the question he always asks himself.

Steven Pearlstein can be reached atpearlsteins@washpost.com.