Big-city firms tap hometown experience

Springfield attorney David Agee played a role in the largest aircraft order in history.

Agee, partner and chairman of the aviation practice group at Husch Blackwell LLP, was among the team of attorneys and other professionals who helped air travel giant American Airlines negotiate a plan to potentially purchase up to 925 new airplanes between 2013 and 2022.

With a price tag of $38.5 billion, the deal “was the largest I’ve been involved in, dollars-wise,” Agee said.

“Doing large transactions like this one is what I like,” he said.

American Airlines announced the deal earlier this summer. It calls for planes to be manufactured by Boeing and AirBus. The airline will take delivery of the new aircraft beginning in 2013, and will use them to replace and update its current fleet. Many of the new aircraft will be more fuel-efficient than existing aircraft, American Airlines officials have said.

Other key players in the deal from Husch Blackwell included Amanda Dysart and Mike Cosby, also of the Springfield office, and Nick Hendon from the firm’s St. Louis office.

Agee has worked with American Airlines for about a decade, but his history with aviation companies goes back even further. He worked on behalf of TWA, a St. Louis-based airline that became part of American Airlines, and represented Springfield’s Ozark Airlines prior to that.

The support of a large, national law firm such as Husch Blackwell provides Agee and others significant advantages when they work on giant deals.

With headquarters in St. Louis and Kansas City and 14 offices stretching from Denver to Washington, D.C., to London, Husch Blackwell has 600 attorneys who work in myriad areas of the law. Having access to that breadth of expertise is a boon not only for Agee, but for other attorneys working in large, national firms that have offices in Springfield.

“Husch Blackwell provides me a platform for doing this level of work,” Agee said.

Tom O’Neal, managing partner of Kansas City-based Polsinelli Shughart PC’s Springfield office, has worked in smaller firms, so he has firsthand knowledge of the power of working for a larger firm. Polsinelli Shughart has more than 540 employees working in 16 cities, from Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles.

“You have access to the broad range of knowledge and experience that 540 attorneys have,” O’Neal said. “It’s a real plus. When you’re part of a three-man firm or even a 10-man firm, you just don’t have the resources you have in a large, national firm.”

Whatever matter might come up for O’Neal or his cohorts in the Springfield office, one of their colleagues in another Polsinelli office has likely worked on a similar matter, or has background knowledge of that industry or issue.

“We have, for example, a very strong group in St. Louis for banking,” said O’Neal, who is able to avail himself of that resource, and offer it to his clients, as well.

He often handles bankruptcy cases, and if one of his clients files for bankruptcy protection outside of Missouri, chances are good Polsinelli will have an attorney in that market who can help O’Neal with the case.

“The main advantage is having the ability to offer a wide variety of services to a client in a wide area,” he said.

Though O’Neal was mum on significant cases he’s worked, he said he has been working for five years on a federal receivership case that involves people from all over the country.

The case is based in the firm’s Kansas City office, but he is able to work on it from Polsinelli Shughart’s Springfield office.

The situation is similar for Springfield attorneys working in the local office of Kansas City, Kan.-based McAnany, VanCleave & Phillips, a firm with 52 attorneys spanning seven Midwestern states.

“They’ve got the backing of this large, corporate firm,” said Phil Sanders, chief operating officer, who works in Kansas City.

“The end result is the client gets much better service,” Sanders added.

The broad spectrum of expertise is important for cases that involve large, national projects or issues, because those cases cross-utilize people from different firm offices, Agee said. That proved to be particularly beneficial for the American Airlines transaction, for which Agee and the others had to work long hours to close the deal within the client’s specified time frame.

“It involves 24/7 work sometimes, and we did that,” Agee said. “We worked 18 hours, slept a few hours and then went back to work.”

The announcement from American Airlines is a positive economic sign, Agee said, indicating the airline will see ongoing and increasing demand for air travel.

“It indicates a positive long-term outlook,” he said.

The deal will involve 460 aircraft from the two manufacturers initially, but the airline has options for 465 more. These new deliveries are expected to pave the way for American to have the youngest and most fuel-efficient fleet among its U.S. airline peers in approximately five years, according to a company news release.

For Agee, it has been gratifying to be part of the American Airlines transaction. He has worked in aviation law for 30 years, and in so doing has traveled the world and met professionals in Hong Kong, Bahrain, London, Switzerland, Brazil and other countries.

“All of the various aviation transactions I’ve done have been to the benefit of the practice I have in Springfield,” Agee said.[[In-content Ad]]