A 'Cleaner' of Athletes' Dirty Laundry

Which makes it ironic that as he takes on what might be his highest-profile case yet -- the plight of Bush, who has been sued for $291,000 by Lake, a San Diego sports marketer who claims Bush and his family took money from him -- Cornwell is fighting. Already, he has spent hours attacking the credibility of Lake, even going as far as to bring an armed security guard to depositions, claiming Lake has threatened Bush. He said he has "ceded the court of public opinion" to Bush's accusers and added that he is not concerned with the potential of NCAA violations that might force Bush to return his Heisman Trophy. He said he is simply trying to win a lawsuit.

But why fight over $291,000? Bush, with his rookie contract and countless endorsement deals, is worth tens of millions. It would seem he could settle with Lake without even making a dent in his fortune.

Cornwell said a previous suit brought by one of Lake's former associates was for more than $3 million and he has seen athletes settle in similar cases, only to have the people they settled with come after them for still more money.

"I'm not smart enough to play in a game where there are no rules," he said. "It's about control. It's about using your tools to bring about the desired result. Getting into an amorphous environment where there are no rules? That's the wrong environment for me."

Then a few minutes later, he added: "Very often it's a bull's-eye issue. And very often in these issues or transactions I take the bull's-eye off of the [client] and put it on myself and say, 'Now you've got a problem.' "

A Lawyer and a Player

One of Cornwell's mentors, Jeff Moorad, the chief executive of the Arizona Diamondbacks who worked with Cornwell in Steinberg's office, sounded discouraged when he received a call asking about Cornwell's representation of troubled athletes.

"I think David offers a lot more," he said. "David has a deep wealth of experience in sports business, whether it's on the management side or the players' side. I can assure you of this: If I'm running a football team, David would be one of our number one hires. And it would not be as our general counsel. It would be on the business side in some function."

Cornwell admits that the idea appeals to him. Maybe someday it will be time to move on to something else, though that may be hard to do now that he has the ever-growing market of players' problems mostly to himself. Every week seems to bring new challenges and new troubles, more examples that work like his must still be needed.

"My thought is if David had Barry Bonds from the beginning, [Bonds] would not be where he is now," said Franklin "Brock" Gowdy, a San Francisco lawyer who worked with Cornwell as they fought to save Steinberg's agency several years ago. "There are a lot of good lawyers out there who don't understand the sports world. And there are a lot of people who understand sports but aren't great lawyers.

"He's both."