Fishwrapper - The Mouthpiece
Sheriff’s lawyer angered press, but, heck, he’s a nice guy — really
Mark Trigg emerged last week as Atlanta’s Main Mouthpiece. The vocation of mouthpiecing generally has a tawdry reputation. Mobsters, for example, have mouthpieces — cigar-chomping, baggy-pants lawyers one step ahead of their own indictment.
Trigg, despite an admitted stumble with the media last week — he called a news conference that was distinctly lacking in news — is a mouthpiece you can like. Actually, it’s his admission that he blundered in summoning the press that underscores his likeability.
Here’s the run-up to the stunning (for a lawyer) candor. For weeks, Atlanta’s scribes have been clamoring to get a comment from Trigg’s latest high-profile client, Fulton County Sheriff Jackie Barrett, on:
- Why jail inmates are being kept — apparently illegally — far past their release dates. Might taxpayers soon be facing the bills from very, very expensive lawsuits from improperly held guests of the jail?
- What prompted Barrett to invest — apparently illegally — $7 million in questionable schemes pushed by a South Florida broker? About $5 million has been recovered, but $2 million may have vaporized.
- How in the world the sheriff justifies never-ending incidents of mismanagement at the jail?
Trigg decided to call a news conference on April 6. Keep in mind that a modern-day press event is a high-tech circus. The Buckhead office building that houses Trigg’s law firm — Miami-based Greenberg Traurig — was surrounded with TV trucks. A forest of antennas reached for the sky. Inside, there was a jungle of cables, cameras and microphones. Technicians jostled cameramen, who tripped over reporters.
After everything was in place, in marched Trigg and Barrett. She was dressed in her trademark bizarre costume ... uh, uniform. It’s a baby-poop shade of brown, festooned with epaulets, braid, stars. Banana republic dictators would fume with envy at the grandeur of Fulton’s jailhouse la jefe. Trigg, meanwhile, towers over the diminutive Barrett. The lawyer is GQ-model perfect — perfect slicked-back hair, perfect Wall Street striped suit, perfect teeth, perfect nails, perfect shine on perfect shoes.
We priests of the First Amendment were waiting for the Big News. After all, Trigg’s shindig forced us to get off our butts and actually do some work. We craved some red meat.
Instead, Barrett was dangled just out of our reach. She said nary a word. Trigg related an anecdote — a parable, if you will — of a Methodist minister who, during a dispute, elected to remain silent. Silence cannot be interpreted as taking one position or another, or, more to the point, it isn’t an implicit confession, Trigg intoned.
He announced that he is investigating the charges against Barrett (as are federal prosecutors). Trigg proclaimed Barrett is under his orders to utter not a word, and the pair marched from the room, chased by a TV reporter bleating that Barrett is a public official and the public has a right to know what the hell is going on.
The door slammed behind Trigg and Barrett, and the media buzzards began venting.
The next morning’s headline in the daily rag — “Barrett ducks questions; sheriff clams up at news conference she called” — wasn’t what Trigg had hoped to read.
Two days later, I had coffee with Trigg, and he mused over the anger from the press. “It was probably a bad idea,” Trigg said of the news conference. “I got them pretty mad at me. Could there have been a more effective way to communicate that, for now, she would have no comment? In retrospect, yes.”
Trigg had hoped for patience and compassionate understanding from the press corps, which is sort of like anticipating that Georgia legislators will act like responsible adults. No way.
For a start, Trigg conceded that he should have made clear that the public wasn’t paying for a silk-stockinged lawyer to represent Barrett. The sheriff is paying her own legal freight.
Here’s what is astounding. Mega-wattage lawyers — and Trigg is high powered — don’t admit mistakes. I think they’re taught that in law school. And yet, Trigg did. Wow, I was thinking, he may still be human.
So, I inquired about memorable defeats. No lawyer wants to reflect on, yech, losses. But Trigg, without hesitation, discussed Nina Hickson, Fulton’s juvenile court chief judge, who resigned the day before the Barrett news conference. Hickson had been under fire since November, when her 4-year-old daughter had been found wandering the streets after the judge had gone to the airport to retrieve luggage.
Trigg urged Hickson not to quit. She didn’t take the advice.
“There was a great hue and cry,” he said. “The media were calling for her head. Did she make a mistake? Absolutely, one inexcusable as a parent. But what are the qualities we look for in a juvenile judge? Judge Hickson has demonstrated a passion for children. She adopted a drug-addicted baby, brought the baby into her home. That’s the sort of person we need as a juvenile judge.”
The list of Trigg’s stellar — or infamous — clients is impressive. He represented former Mayor Bill Campbell when a stealth group of Republicans tried to undermine his 1998 re-election campaign. Would Trigg go to battle today for Campbell against accusations of widespread corruption in his administration? “Whew!” Trigg said. “I won’t touch that one.”
Trigg has successfully defended Atlanta City Council member Debi Starnes against ethics charges. He is one of the attorneys for singer Whitney Houston, whose recent life has been marked by drug rehabilitation and scuffles with her husband, singer Bobby Brown.
Trigg concedes it’s a heady life he leads — especially for a man who started out to be a Methodist minister. “[There are] a lot of preachers and lawyers in my family,” he said, explaining that he had attended Emory University in an innovative law and divinity program.
While in college, he was a minister at a small Methodist church in Lithonia. “I didn’t get a salary, but I got free lodging.” For cash, Trigg sold encyclopedias.
Trigg said he found that he didn’t have a calling to be a pastor. But, he noted, “In law, as in the ministry, a goal is to find justice.”
His finances certainly have improved. Greenberg Traurig, with 1,000-plus lawyers, is the 12th largest law firm in the nation, according to American Lawyer magazine. Its attorneys averaged about $300 an hour — or $570,000 per lawyer — in fees last year. Trigg, as a partner, would be far above average for the firm, both in what he charges and in his paycheck.
“But I would pay for the chance to litigate cases,” he said. “That’s the truth.”
Trigg, despite an admitted stumble with the media last week — he called a news conference that was distinctly lacking in news — is a mouthpiece you can like. Actually, it’s his admission that he blundered in summoning the press that underscores his likeability.
Here’s the run-up to the stunning (for a lawyer) candor. For weeks, Atlanta’s scribes have been clamoring to get a comment from Trigg’s latest high-profile client, Fulton County Sheriff Jackie Barrett, on:
- Why jail inmates are being kept — apparently illegally — far past their release dates. Might taxpayers soon be facing the bills from very, very expensive lawsuits from improperly held guests of the jail?
- What prompted Barrett to invest — apparently illegally — $7 million in questionable schemes pushed by a South Florida broker? About $5 million has been recovered, but $2 million may have vaporized.
- How in the world the sheriff justifies never-ending incidents of mismanagement at the jail?
Trigg decided to call a news conference on April 6. Keep in mind that a modern-day press event is a high-tech circus. The Buckhead office building that houses Trigg’s law firm — Miami-based Greenberg Traurig — was surrounded with TV trucks. A forest of antennas reached for the sky. Inside, there was a jungle of cables, cameras and microphones. Technicians jostled cameramen, who tripped over reporters.
After everything was in place, in marched Trigg and Barrett. She was dressed in her trademark bizarre costume ... uh, uniform. It’s a baby-poop shade of brown, festooned with epaulets, braid, stars. Banana republic dictators would fume with envy at the grandeur of Fulton’s jailhouse la jefe. Trigg, meanwhile, towers over the diminutive Barrett. The lawyer is GQ-model perfect — perfect slicked-back hair, perfect Wall Street striped suit, perfect teeth, perfect nails, perfect shine on perfect shoes.
We priests of the First Amendment were waiting for the Big News. After all, Trigg’s shindig forced us to get off our butts and actually do some work. We craved some red meat.
Instead, Barrett was dangled just out of our reach. She said nary a word. Trigg related an anecdote — a parable, if you will — of a Methodist minister who, during a dispute, elected to remain silent. Silence cannot be interpreted as taking one position or another, or, more to the point, it isn’t an implicit confession, Trigg intoned.
He announced that he is investigating the charges against Barrett (as are federal prosecutors). Trigg proclaimed Barrett is under his orders to utter not a word, and the pair marched from the room, chased by a TV reporter bleating that Barrett is a public official and the public has a right to know what the hell is going on.
The door slammed behind Trigg and Barrett, and the media buzzards began venting.
The next morning’s headline in the daily rag — “Barrett ducks questions; sheriff clams up at news conference she called” — wasn’t what Trigg had hoped to read.
Two days later, I had coffee with Trigg, and he mused over the anger from the press. “It was probably a bad idea,” Trigg said of the news conference. “I got them pretty mad at me. Could there have been a more effective way to communicate that, for now, she would have no comment? In retrospect, yes.”
Trigg had hoped for patience and compassionate understanding from the press corps, which is sort of like anticipating that Georgia legislators will act like responsible adults. No way.
For a start, Trigg conceded that he should have made clear that the public wasn’t paying for a silk-stockinged lawyer to represent Barrett. The sheriff is paying her own legal freight.
Here’s what is astounding. Mega-wattage lawyers — and Trigg is high powered — don’t admit mistakes. I think they’re taught that in law school. And yet, Trigg did. Wow, I was thinking, he may still be human.
So, I inquired about memorable defeats. No lawyer wants to reflect on, yech, losses. But Trigg, without hesitation, discussed Nina Hickson, Fulton’s juvenile court chief judge, who resigned the day before the Barrett news conference. Hickson had been under fire since November, when her 4-year-old daughter had been found wandering the streets after the judge had gone to the airport to retrieve luggage.
Trigg urged Hickson not to quit. She didn’t take the advice.
“There was a great hue and cry,” he said. “The media were calling for her head. Did she make a mistake? Absolutely, one inexcusable as a parent. But what are the qualities we look for in a juvenile judge? Judge Hickson has demonstrated a passion for children. She adopted a drug-addicted baby, brought the baby into her home. That’s the sort of person we need as a juvenile judge.”
The list of Trigg’s stellar — or infamous — clients is impressive. He represented former Mayor Bill Campbell when a stealth group of Republicans tried to undermine his 1998 re-election campaign. Would Trigg go to battle today for Campbell against accusations of widespread corruption in his administration? “Whew!” Trigg said. “I won’t touch that one.”
Trigg has successfully defended Atlanta City Council member Debi Starnes against ethics charges. He is one of the attorneys for singer Whitney Houston, whose recent life has been marked by drug rehabilitation and scuffles with her husband, singer Bobby Brown.
Trigg concedes it’s a heady life he leads — especially for a man who started out to be a Methodist minister. “[There are] a lot of preachers and lawyers in my family,” he said, explaining that he had attended Emory University in an innovative law and divinity program.
While in college, he was a minister at a small Methodist church in Lithonia. “I didn’t get a salary, but I got free lodging.” For cash, Trigg sold encyclopedias.
Trigg said he found that he didn’t have a calling to be a pastor. But, he noted, “In law, as in the ministry, a goal is to find justice.”
His finances certainly have improved. Greenberg Traurig, with 1,000-plus lawyers, is the 12th largest law firm in the nation, according to American Lawyer magazine. Its attorneys averaged about $300 an hour — or $570,000 per lawyer — in fees last year. Trigg, as a partner, would be far above average for the firm, both in what he charges and in his paycheck.
“But I would pay for the chance to litigate cases,” he said. “That’s the truth.”