異類之不一樣的成功啟示錄 第83期:做自己擅長(zhǎng)的

The winner of a proxy contest was determined in the snake pit. (Officially, it was called the counting room.)

理權(quán)競(jìng)爭(zhēng)人的贏家一般在“龍?zhí)痘⒀?rdquo;中(正式的稱呼是財(cái)務(wù)室)投票決定。

Lawyers for each side met with inspectors of elections, whose job it was approve or eliminate questionable proxies.

雙方的律師會(huì)與選舉監(jiān)察員一起會(huì)面。監(jiān)察員的工作是批準(zhǔn)或否決有疑問(wèn)的投票權(quán)。

The event was often informal, contentious and unruly.

人們?cè)谀菢拥膱?chǎng)合經(jīng)常不拘小節(jié)，常爭(zhēng)吵不休。

Adversaries were sometimes in T-shirts, eating watermelon or sharing a bottle of scotch.

互為對(duì)手的人們有時(shí)穿著T恤衫，吃著西瓜或者共享一瓶蘇格蘭酒，

In rare cases, the results of the snake pit could swing the outcome of a contest and turn on the single ballot.

在“龍?zhí)痘⒀?rdquo;中爭(zhēng)論的結(jié)果，常常很難達(dá)成共識(shí)。

Lawyers occasionally tried to fix an election by engineering the appointment of inspectors who were beholden to them; inspectors commonly smoked cigars provided by each side.

律師們偶爾會(huì)試著通過(guò)任命一個(gè)對(duì)他們心存謝意的監(jiān)察員來(lái)決定一次選舉。通常，監(jiān)察員抽著雙方提供的雪茄。

Management's lawyer would contest the proxies of the insurgents ("I challenge this!") and vice versa....

管理層的律師要從叛變者的手中爭(zhēng)奪投票權(quán)(“我抗議!”)及不道德的……

Lawyers who prevailed in the snake pid excelled at winging it.

處于“龍?zhí)痘⒀?rdquo;中的律師長(zhǎng)于此道。

There were lawyers who knew more about the rules of proxy contests, but no one was better in a fight than Joe Flom.

很多律師知道關(guān)于投票權(quán)的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)規(guī)則，但沒(méi)有人能比弗洛姆更擅長(zhǎng)此道。

Caplan goes on. Flom was fat (a hundred pounds overweight then, one lawyer said...), physically unattractive (to a partner, he resembled a frog), and indifferent to social niceties (he would fart in public or jab a cigar close to the face of someone he was talking to, without apology).

弗洛姆很胖(那時(shí)他至少超重100磅，一位律師回憶說(shuō)……)，體形上一點(diǎn)也不具有吸引力(對(duì)于合伙人來(lái)說(shuō)他就像一只青蛙)，不注意社交禮節(jié)(他會(huì)當(dāng)眾放屁，或者把手上的雪茄戳到那個(gè)跟他談話的人的臉上，而不表示一絲歉意)。

But in the judgement of colleagues and of some adversaries, his will to win was unsurpassed and he was often mastful.

但在與同道者或者競(jìng)爭(zhēng)者進(jìn)行法庭辯護(hù)時(shí)，他的氣勢(shì)總咄咄逼人，結(jié)果總是他占上風(fēng)。

The white-shoe law firms would call in Flom as well when some corporate raider make a run at one of their establishment clients.

那些“白鞋”層次的法律公司一旦發(fā)現(xiàn)有人合伙攻擊他們固有的客戶時(shí)，他們就會(huì)來(lái)找弗洛姆，

They wouldn't touch the case, but they were happy to outsource it to Skadden, Arps.

這些“白鞋”法律公司不喜歡這種案子，但他們很高興把這些業(yè)務(wù)轉(zhuǎn)讓給世達(dá)律師事務(wù)所。

"Flom's early specialty was proxy fights, and that was not what we did, just like we don't do matrimonial work," said Robert Rifkind, a longtime partner at Cravath, Swaine and Moore.

“弗洛姆最初擅長(zhǎng)的是代理人競(jìng)爭(zhēng)的案子，而那不是我們做的領(lǐng)域，就像我們不做婚姻方面的一樣。”羅伯特·瑞弗凱德(RobertRifkind)，美國(guó)凱威律師事務(wù)所的一個(gè)長(zhǎng)期合伙人這樣說(shuō)。

"And therefore we purported not to know about it.

“我們因此就對(duì)外宣稱不了解這方面的情況，

I remember once we had an issue involving a proxy fight, and one of my senor corporate partners said, Well, let's get Joe in.

我記得我們?cè)?jīng)有一件案子牽涉到代理勸斗爭(zhēng)，我的一位高級(jí)合伙人說(shuō)，干脆就讓喬·弗洛姆來(lái)做吧。

And he came to a conference room, and we all sat around and described the problem and he told us what to do and he left.

他來(lái)到我們的一個(gè)會(huì)議室，我們圍成一團(tuán)坐著，向他解釋這個(gè)案子，他聽(tīng)完后，告訴我們應(yīng)該怎樣去做，然后便離開(kāi)了。

And I said, 'We can do that too, you know.'

我說(shuō)，‘大家知道，我們也可以這樣做。’

And the partner said, 'No, no, no, you can't. We're not going to do that.'

但我的合伙人對(duì)我說(shuō)，‘不，不，不，你不能這樣做，我們不想做那些事。’

It was just that we didn't do it."

就這樣，我們沒(méi)有做成這些業(yè)務(wù)。”