Michael Avenatti, the adrenaline-fueled lawyer taking on President Trump
That setback in 2012 now serves as a parable of resilience in the legend Avenatti has been crafting about himself — both with a string of multimillion-dollar jury verdicts and with his brash, almost nonstop cable news appearances.
.. It is another big bet for an attorney with an enormous appetite for risk whose roster of courthouse adversaries includes mega-corporations, as well as celebrities, such as Paris Hilton and Jim Carrey.
“He is an adrenaline junkie,” says Jonathan Turley, who taught Avenatti at George Washington University’s law school and has stayed in touch since his former student earned his law degree. “I think he needs that adrenaline rush. He lives his life aggressively. In both litigation and in life he shows a certain aggressive style.”
.. The next he’s delving into entrepreneurial pursuits, such as buying Tully’s, a struggling Seattle coffee-shop chain, or blasting around a track while competing as a driver in a professional racecar circuit, sometimes hitting speeds of up to 195 MPH. The main photograph on his website depicts him in a race suit, rather than a business suit.
.. “Initially, I was very skeptical about getting involved because I, much like many Americans, had preconceived notions about Stormy Daniels and her motivations and what she is all about,” Avenatti says.
It took him only about 20 minutes to decide that she was credible, he says, although he won’t reveal what led him to that conclusion.
.. Avenatti’s foil in the Daniels melodrama has been Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, as much as the president.
.. Avenatti has been daring Cohen to appear on television with him to discuss the case. He recently used an enlarged photograph of Cohen as a propduring a contentious appearance on CNN with Cohen’s attorney, David Schwartz.
.. But Avenatti is arguing a broader case about the integrity of the president and his legal team — and drawing from a well-honed playbook of using media appearances as an integral part of his strategy.
.. Brian Panish, a prominent plaintiffs attorney who has worked on cases with Avenatti, compares his former colleague to William Ginsburg, Monica Lewinsky’s attorney famous for appearing on all the Sunday talk shows on the same day during President Clinton’s White House-intern sex scandal. It spawned the term “the full Ginsburg.”
.. his father was unexpectedly laid off, and the son went to work to earn tuition money by doing opposition political research on Republicans and Democrats for a firm owned by Rahm Emanuel
.. His cases included a $10 million defamation lawsuit, which ended in a confidential settlement, that he filed on behalf of a socialite client against Paris Hilton. He was also on the team of lawyers who sued Trump and the producer of “The Apprentice” on behalf a man who said they stole his idea for the hit show. The case ended in a settlement.
.. Avenatti says he’s been lead counsel on $1 billion worth of verdicts and settlements. The biggest, by far, came last year when he won a $454 million jury verdict in a case against Kimberly-Clark and Halyard Health related to claims that the companies knowingly sold defective surgical gowns that were not impermeable to Ebola and HIV, despite representations that they were.
.. Avenatti has also been engaged in a heated financial dispute with a former law partner who’d sued saying he was owed millions in unpaid fees. At a court hearing , a lawyer for one side characterized the level of acrimony as “unbelievable.” But the partners have now settled the case and are back on speaking terms, and Avenatti — employing a few four-letter words, as he is wont to do — says the portrayal of the squabble has been “overblown.”