"Inside baseball" lawyering for Senate hearings

The Blog of LegalTimes has an instructive backgrounder on some of the puppet masters who help stage events such as the recent/ongoing Goldman Sachs Senate not-hearings.

Goldman Lawyer's General Advice: Devour Senators' Time

O’Melveny & Myers partner K. Lee Blalack II spoke to The American Lawyer for a March 2009 story about what it’s like to prepare clients for a congressional hearing. His advice: a congressional hearing room is not a forum for getting at the truth. A day in the klieg lights, he said, should end with minimal damage to reputation while not complicating a client’s position in other investigations or litigation.

“Long, thoughtful pauses followed by rambling non-responsive answers can easily devour half of a member’s allotted questioning time,” Blalack told The American Lawyer, which is a sibling publication of The National Law Journal and The Blog of Legal Times.

Blalack formerly worked for the committee that’s hosting the hearing, the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

Much more in the link.