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McBride's law firm often foe to his allies
By WES ALLISON, Times Staff Writer
But under McBride's leadership, Holland & Knight advocated positions that clash with his campaign promises of being friendly to the environment, consumers and labor: oil companies' seeking to drill off Florida's coast, a cement plant on the Ichetucknee River, payday loan practices that critics say prey on the poor. And while McBride says he's proud of his endorsements from organized labor, including the Florida AFL-CIO, his firm has a history of helping corporate clients fend off union organizing efforts. Holland & Knight, with more than 1,100 attorneys, is a national firm whose partners are expected to recruit new clients and service old ones, and clients typically were not preapproved by McBride, the managing partner from 1992 to June 2001. But now McBride is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor. Some critics, Democrats as well as Republicans, say it is important to note that the firm's success is based largely on fighting environmental and consumer causes. That work also helped make McBride a wealthy man. When the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees was debating whom to endorse for governor earlier this summer, Holland & Knight's history of antilabor positions was among the factors that prompted the union to endorse Democrat Janet Reno. "On one hand, you have a man who says I'm prolabor, I'm proworker," AFSCME spokesman Doug Martin said. "Yet when you look at the law firm, they seem to be quite proud of their union-busting." In 1999, Holland & Knight's Martha Barnett lobbied for the payday loan industry, whose members charge 380 to 400 percent interest for short-term loans. The Florida Public Interest Research Group joined the U.S. Navy, churches and consumer groups in pushing legislation to cap the rates and change the lenders' collection practices, but Holland & Knight's heft helped kill those reforms, said Mark Ferrulo, director of Florida PIRG. "This is an issue where poor people were being preyed upon by legalized loan sharks," Ferrulo said. "Martha Barnett had a lot of legitimacy, so it made things very hard for us." Attorneys and lobbyists for environmental causes said Holland & Knight has been in the middle of some of Florida's biggest environmental cases. For years, it has represented the phosphate industry, developers, road builders and manufacturers. "They have a white hat that would go on top of the head of a pin, and a black hat that would go on top of Mount Rushmore," said David Guest, director of the Florida office of Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law firm. Larry Sellers, a Holland & Knight lawyer in Tallahassee, helped craft a law passed this year that will make it harder for citizens and environmental groups to block development. Susie Caplowe, a Tallahassee environmental lobbyist, said Holland & Knight had pushed that change for years. The firm also is counsel of record for the Suwannee American Cement Co. Inc., which is building a controversial cement plant on the Ichetucknee River, north of Gainesville. Caplowe, who has discussed her concerns with McBride, said his former job wouldn't preclude him from getting the support of environmentalists if he won the Democratic primary next month, but he would have some explaining to do. "We would need some reassurances and concrete assurances from Mr. McBride and what his platform would be, and how is he going to restore the access to the courts and the environmental and public health regulations that have been whittled away over the years, often times spearheaded by that particular law firm and others," she said. In 1998, Holland & Knight lobbied the Legislature on behalf of DBT Online, which Secretary of State Katherine Harris hired to build a database to cull felons from voter rolls. In the 2000 election, the company -- now known as ChoicePoint -- was blamed for wrongfully identifying thousands of voters as felons. Few lawyers want to be held accountable for the clients they represent. McBride said he could divorce his personal opinions from the work his firm did. Many attorneys disagree with their clients, but that doesn't stop them from serving as advocates, he said. "Historically, my personal feelings have been on the other sides of those issues," McBride said. "Now I'm not representing clients, and I can be a total proponent, and it's liberating." His argument is similar to that made by supporters of Raul Cantero, recently appointed to the Florida Supreme Court by Gov. Jeb Bush. Cantero helped free a Miami man accused of being a terrorist. That didn't mean Cantero endorsed terrorism, his supporters argued. Still, the Bush campaign says McBride should be held accountable for the firm's entire record. "Bill McBride is running for governor based upon his record at Holland & Knight," said Bush campaign spokesman Todd Harris. "Voters deserve to know that record in its entirety, not simply the parts of it that McBride has found convenient to tell people about." In 2000, the last full year he managed Holland & Knight, McBride earned about $560,000. He said he rarely approved or rejected clients. He typically got involved only when the interests of a potential client might conflict with the interests of an existing client, and he always tried to get around those conflicts. "If it was paying work, and we had no legal conflict, my presumption was we take the work, because that's the business we're in," McBride said. In a fundraising dispute over Toyota donations to Connie Mack in the 1988 U.S. Senate race, Holland & Knight represented Mack, a Republican, against Democrat Buddy MacKay even though McBride was a MacKay fundraising chairman. MacKay blamed his loss largely on that infusion of Toyota funds, which helped pay for advertising. McBride said he still thinks about that case. "But the issue presented to us was whether we were lawyers for hire," he said. In another case, McBride recalled, Holland & Knight represented Mary Barley, an Everglades activist who is now a Democratic candidate for agriculture commissioner, even though some partners feared it would hurt the firm's lucrative relationship with the sugar industry. Like most lobbying firms, Holland & Knight represents a mix of clients. They include the American Cancer Society, Tropicana Foods, myriad health agencies, Sarasota County and the newspaper industry. In Congress, the firm lobbies for Murphy Oil and ChevronTexaco Corp., which owned leases to drill in the Gulf of Mexico. It also represents St. Joe Co., the state's largest private landowner and a major Republican donor. And like most major firms with an emphasis on corporate law, Holland & Knight has attorneys who represent employers against their employees and help ward off unions. McBride has been endorsed by the Florida Teachers Association and the state AFL-CIO, but some members say they understand the inherent conflict, and don't hold it against him. McBride's bid for governor has gotten a lot of support within Holland & Knight. But the firm also has not been shy about covering its bases: It recently gave the state Republican Party $50,000, adding to the $50,000 it gave earlier in the campaign. By contrast, the firm gave just $25,000 to the Florida Democratic Party this summer. Republicans, after all, control the governor's office, the Legislature, the Cabinet and most of the congressional delegation. Guest, at Earthjustice, said he doesn't fault McBride for the firm's clients and praised its free legal work for the poor. It spent years, for example, persuading the Legislature to compensate victims of the 1923 Rosewood massacre. It also doesn't file "slap suits" aimed solely at silencing opposition. "At the same time, I think it's fair to say that there is no industry and there is no issue so odious that they will not take money to represent them," Guest said.
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