apparent from the start. When asked if he tends to answer
questions with a question, he replies, with a stand-up comic’s
timing, “What do you mean?”
Still, it’s a surprise when he’s asked about a disco ball that lies
on a table in the corner of his office and he leaps from his seat and
plays a clip from a Disney management retreat from several years
ago. Dancing With the Stars, an ABC show, had just debuted, and
Iger declared that as an icebreaker, several top Disney executives
would be paired with the professional dancers and compete before
the some 250 employees who came to the retreat.
Braverman, who was voted the winner by the majority of those
attendees, was paired with Russian dancer Anna Trebunskaya
and trained for six hours before making his debut. On the tape, as
Ricky Martin’s pulsating “She Bangs” plays, Braverman cha-cha-chas with athletic exuberance, cocking his hat and grinning like a
modern-day Gene Kelly.
“What Alan did there was no surprise,” Iger says. “I know he
has talent that extends beyond the talent he brings to the office.
And he takes every task seriously with an idea to doing it well. He
doesn’t phone anything in.”
Braverman, watching himself on tape, laughs uproariously. “I was
more nervous than I was at my bar mitzvah,” he says, adding that he
wasn’t much of a dancer before this. “Anna’s mother, who was also
a dancer, came to one of the practices and said the most important
thing you can do in a dance competition is to look like you’re having
fun and get into it. And then people will have fun with you.”
And perhaps, in a way, that captures what WilmerHale’s Perlstein
means when he says, “Alan must deal with an enormous range of
personalities in the glare of enormous press and coverage and not
miss a step.” Indeed, Braverman’s tap dance as general counsel is
acting as the legal safeguard to a company dedicated to fun.
Good Thinking.
Practical Solutions.
Bankruptcy and Creditors’ Rights
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Standing (L to R): Adam C. Silverstein, David W. Morse, Richard G. Haddad, Glenn B. Rice, Jonathan N. Helfat, Richard L. Stehl Seated (L to R): Melanie L. Cyganowski, Daniel Wallen, Valerie S. Mason, Scott L. Hazan
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We congratulate our attorneys
recognized in Super Lawyers® – Business Edition 2011.
OTTERBOURG, STEINDLER, HOUSTON & ROSEN, P.C.
230 PARK AVENUE NEW YORK NY 10169 • 212 661-9100 • www.oshr.com
SUPER LAWYERS / BUSINESS EDITION 2011
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