The Life of Reilly
DAN REILLY HAS A SIMPLE GOAL: HE WANTS TO PUT
TOGETHER THE GREATEST TRIAL TEAM IN THE COUNTRY
BY JESSICA GLYNN
PHOTOGRAPHY BY SUSAN GODDARD
THE WRI TING IS ON THE WALL, LI TERALLY,
at Reilly Pozner, where every office is splashed
with a water-based paint that turns walls
into whiteboards. The unique design allows
attorneys conferring on a case to write what
they need to write, and map out what they
need to map out, wherever they happen to be.
In the office of co-founder Dan Reilly, the
walls are currently covered with notes and
charts breaking down Bank of America’s $8.5
billion mortgage-bond settlement to resolve
claims from investors in Countrywide Financial
Corp. mortgage bonds. Reilly is representing
AIG, which is objecting to the settlement
in federal court in New York. He also has
hundreds of cases in the Lehman bankruptcy,
where he is pursuing originators of bad loans.
Reilly’s home base may be Denver but that
hasn’t prevented him from being at the heart
of the country’s mortgage crisis litigation.
It’s complicated work, but that’s Reilly’s
business. His firm of 27 lawyers focuses on
cases that are complex not only in size—
involving millions of documents and billions
of dollars—but in content. They don’t fit
neatly into any legal construct. They are
cases for which the law is not yet developed.
“We’re not setup to do the same case
time after time after time,” Reilly says. “The
smartest lawyers around come to us as
problem-solvers. Our cases require all your
creativity. It’s why it’s stimulating and exciting.”
The firm, which does both defense and
plaintiff work, currently has cases in 40
states. It’s settling thousands of cases
against the makers of the diabetes drug
Avandia and suing 35 defendants on behalf
of 35 insurance guaranty associations over
life insurance losses. Reilly, who lectures
frequently on delivering opening statements
and personalizing corporations, says he and
his staff have the same goal: telling a story
as simply and compellingly as possible.
STORY TELLING RUNS IN REILLY’S FAMILY.
His father was a journalist in the Navy who
traveled the world telling stories. “He would
have been a great lawyer,” Reilly says. “I
think he wanted to be a lawyer. He would
have loved it.”
After graduating from Michigan State
University in 1975, Reilly moved to Denver,
still undecided on a career. Most of his jobs
had been as a laborer: digging swimming
pools, hauling trees, working an assembly
line. His first exposure to lawyers—beyond
his father urging him to become one—
came when he worked for the Professional
Independent Insurance Agents of Colorado.
“I was always impressed by how at the key
point in a big meeting, everybody would look
to whoever the attorney was and say, ‘What
do you think?’ How much significance and
importance was given by those clients to
that trained professional,” Reilly says.
