Legal News

On the Softly-Talking, Big-Stick-Carrying Irving Picard

By Ashby Jones

So just who is this Irving Picard?

If the question — about the man attempting to recover money on behalf of Madoff victims — furrows your brow, you’re likely not alone. After all, while Picard has been quite aggressive (and successful) in his recovery efforts, filling his legal briefs with provocative language, Picard otherwise shuns the spotlight.

We’re talking really shuns the spotlight.

In this recent story, the WSJ’s Michael Rothfeld talks about Picard’s strange split personas. On the one hand, writes Rothfeld:

He sits a few rows back at important court hearings, quietly observing the army of lawyers at his disposal. He rarely speaks in public. Riding the train from the New York suburbs to his office high above Rockefeller Center, he attracts nary a glance.

Rothfeld calls Picard “devoutly anonymous,” and writes that he “looks more the part of unassuming accountant than celebrity attorney.” If he enjoys his role, continues Rothfeld, you wouldn’t know it: “In public now, he often seems to wear the burden of his duty on his face: a convoy of lines encircling his eyes, mouth slanted seriously downward, only to turn upward on occasion into a shy grin.”

But on the other hand, Picard certainly hasn’t shied away from his duties as trustee. He has attacked institutions from J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. to the New York Mets, and angered some Madoff victims in pursuit of the billions lost in the fraud. His quest has produced successes: $10 billion, half the $20 billion he estimates investors lost in Madoff’s scheme. He has filed more than 1,000 lawsuits in the case, seeking in excess of $100 billion.

That said, people who have long known him said that for a bankruptcy attorney, he is uncommonly composed, compassionate and fair, with a sharp sense of what, or who, is right and wrong. To wit: He created a hardship program for Madoff investors, who, for lack of employment prospects and assets, can’t repay false profits they made, and approved 275 applications through December.

But flashy, he is not. Check out his extracurriculars, according to Rothfled:

Mr. Picard was born and raised in Fall River, Mass., the son of a doctor and a homemaker. He walks for relaxation and enjoys the theater, checking in periodically on who is playing at Carnegie Hall.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on March 07, 2011 (boomark / email).