By Lem Satterfield, FanHouse
The path of attorney Judd Burstein was laid by his mother Beatrice, who was a judge in New York, and his father Herbert, a former labor lawyer. With the exception perhaps of permitting their son to attend Woodstock -- "They should never have let me go" -- Burstein's parents were fairly strict, even as they allowed room for expression and growth.
A 56-year-old New York-based trial lawyer, Burstein's past clients have included boxers Manny Pacquiao, Oscar de la Hoya and Lennox Lewis, and promoters Don King and Lou DiBella.
Among Burstein's current charges are WBA welterweight (147 pounds) champion Shane Mosley, who is involved in a libel and defamation of character suit against BALCO founder Victor Conte; and Golden Boy Promotions' CEO Richard Schaefer against Pacquiao in the latter's defamation of character filing that also names as defendants de la Hoya, Floyd Mayweather Sr., and Roger Mayweather, the latter of whom trains boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr.
In this, his second Q&A with FanHouse, the 56-year-old Burstein admits that he sometimes pushes the envelope when trying a case and dealing with the press.
FanHouse: Picking up where we left off in the last interview, can you discuss how you could go from suing to representing Don King?
Judd Burstein: You know, I have such a bizarre relationship with Don King, of whom I've grown to be very fond. And I think that I've learned some lessons about over-lawyering from dealing with him.
I don't know if some of the positions I took for boxing clients in relationship to King were, in retrospect, were necessarily the right decisions. Or I may have been overly-assuming that Don King was looking to screw somebody.
That wasn't always the case. It was almost an insult to King.
So given your relationship with Don King, have you amended your previous statement about him?
Yes, I have. 'Don King has been a cancer in boxing, and I've been the chemotherapy.' But today, I would add, that 'When he finally hired me, I helped the cancer go into remission.'
Have you ever been told or do you think that you push the envelope with some of your methods and strategies?
I think that it's a lawyer's job to push the envelope. I know that people thought that my recent comments to the New York Daily News reporter pushed the envelope. But I felt that the threat that I made, which was only to his career, of course, was the product of almost two years of trying to get this guy to write a fair story about Shane Mosley.
I've never dealt with a reporter who, if he did get around to calling me, called me with like 15 minutes left before the deadline when it was something that he had been working on all day and could have called me earlier.
I felt that, at that point, he already had slanted everything that he wrote. He just can't write anything that is remotely fair. Although the statement that I made about him was extreme, it was the result of what I believe was a reporter going one step too far, yet again.
What can you say about Shane Mosley's case against Victor Conte?
All of that is off the table for discussion, although I've already said that my dog could win that case for Shane.
Can you shed light on what it is like to be representing Richard Schaefer in a case against a former client of yours, Manny Pacquiao, and how you reconcile that?
That's a fair question. There are very strict ethical rules that govern when a lawyer can represent someone against a former client. I'm paraphrasing, but, the rule is that the cases can't, in any way, be related.
I represented Manny Pacquiao when he was fighting, I think, at 126 pounds, only on the issue of whether or not he had been defrauded and was entitled to get out of a contract with Murad Muhammad. And this happened five years ago.
Manny Pacquiao is now suing Richard Schaefer for things that were supposedly said in 2009, which bares absolutely no relation to my representation of Manny back in 2005. But I will say this: There are lots of cases in boxing that I turn down not because there are the ethical rules for lawyers barring it, although that is sometimes the case.
But it's been because I generally don't believe in suing former clients.
Are there any conditions under which you would sue former clients?
I make an exception for people who I do not believe treated me in an equitable manner. And I don't really want to go into the details, but I don't think that Manny Pacquiao treated me in an equitable manner. That was, to me, the reason I felt no bar to representing someone against him.
People have come to me and asked me, 'Would you sue Don King?' And I've said, 'No.' I mean, not that I couldn't. I just, you know, I think that Don, when we were together, was treating me fairly. And there's no reason for me to then go after him. It just makes me uncomfortable.
Are there others that fall under the same situation as Don King?
On a friendship basis, there are guys like Lou DiBella, Gary Shaw, who I would never sue in a million years. Not that I couldn't, but I just wouldn't. It just goes against what I believe I would do to somebody.
In my mind -- and I don't want to use the phrase, 'double-cross' -- but when somebody breaches the relationship on their end, then I then would say, 'Okay, all bets are off.' Other than that, it would be going against what I believe to be the ethical rules concerning my conduct as a lawyer.
Can you comment on Manny Pacquiao's case against Richard Schaefer?
The cases that I've really focused on are the cases against Richard and Oscar, because we're working together on this. I don't think that Jesus Christ could come down off of the cross and win Manny's case against Richard and Oscar.
You're saying that Manny's case has no roots or legs to stand on?
It's a shockingly stupid case. Suing two people for only expressing an opinion, and it's not that anyone else hasn't expressed similar opinions. That's an opinion that half of the people in boxing have expressed. And they [Schaefer and de la Hoya] never said, as a fact, that Pacquiao was using performance enhancing drugs.
What they said was ...given a whole host of factors that are public, that, you know, this is why they have an opinion. And the opinion is only that there's a reason to ask questions about Manny. This is America. They have a right to express their opinion.
On the other hand, I think that Manny has been very, very poorly advised. And I think that it's a shame. I think that he's throwing hundreds of thousands of dollars down the tubes on a case that can't be won and that is then going to make him look terrible when he loses it.
But if, as you say, it's such an open and shut ruling for Richard and Oscar, why would someone with the reputation of a Daniel Petrocelli -- who got a conviction against O.J. Simpson on that civil suit -- why would he take on a case such as this?
Let me say this, because I try not to develop adverse relationships with other lawyers. So let me say this about my view of Daniel Petrocelli's ethics and talent: He dresses very well.
What is your reaction concerning Shane Mosley's recent retaliatory statements about Floyd Mayweather and his security guards, implying steroid use on their part?
I don't think that it makes a difference. I think that it's a lot about nothing.
But didn't you laugh at Shane's statements and think that they were funny?
I did think that it was funny. And knowing Shane well enough, I know that he was just fooling around with them on it. You know, frankly, Shane doesn't care. Shane believes that if the guy [Mayweather] were cheating that he'd still win. So it doesn't make a difference to him.
But I will tell you that, I mean, those guys, those security guards, they do look like they could be on steroids. Floyd had better hope that you can't, you know, go and get a bad test just through osmosis.
Are you now a boxing fan and absorbed by the culture?
I have always been a huge boxing fan. Going back to the days before pay-per-view, and, going to closed circuit events to see Muhammad Ali and to see Larry Holmes and to see Sugar Ray Leonard. I was just always in love with boxing.
And boxing is the only area of business in my life that I've actually gone out and pursued and had dinners with people and stayed in touch with people. I mean, you can't get me to have lunch with people in New York. It's a joke. I'm not interested. And I don't need to schmooze people to get business.
But I loved the sport of boxing, and I made an effort to get into it. There are things that I love about it and there are things that I hate about it. I think there are some really good people in the sport, and there are some really terrible people in the sport.
I think that it's going through a transition period now, in terms of the new stars that are going to be coming in. But, at it's best, while an incredibly cruel sport at times, it has a unique beauty to it, in terms of, you know, conditioning, courage, skill, speed, and all of those factors.
It can be a real thing of beauty. And I don't necessarily think that a great fight has to be a fight that ends in a knockout. You can just look at two guys who are spectacular fighters engaged in a tactical battle and who maybe the casual fan won't appreciate it. But the more knowledgeable fans really get what that's about.
Source: boxing.fanhouse.com
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