Going Under Cover for Hogan & Hartson

During the period mid-September 1985 to late February 1988 I worked as an agency-supplied temporary employee in the Computer Applications Department of Hogan & Hartson, a law firm in DC. My supervisor was Sheryl Ferguson.

During the period May to July 1986 I worked on a document production task for the client Mercedes-Benz. The matter was an EPA investigation of the German automaker's emission control equipment.

In late June 1986 the client's billing partner, Patrick Raher, called me to his office. (The high-ranking attorneys always seem to find out about me. Why is that?)

Raher told me that representatives of Mercedes were going to be spending a few days at the firm to review Mercedes test data. The documents were housed in one of the firm's conference rooms where the document production task was being carried out by a group of Computer Applications Department employees under the supervison of data base administrator, Esperanza Rebollar, who had just been hired by Hogan. Raher said to me: "I understand that you speak some German." I explained that I knew some German, but not that much. My knowledge of German was sufficient to scan documents and provide a concise summary of the gist of the document. I was self-taught in German. Raher said whatever my level of German, it would be useful for what he had in mind. He explained that the Mercedes engineers were "liars." Yes, he said that. He said he suspected that one of the reasons for the site visit was to abscond with some of the documents. He wanted me to sit in the conference room while the German engineers were reviewing the documents and listen to them. Raher assumed that they would be speaking German. Raher wanted me to report to him if I suspected there was any dirty work afoot.


In the end, I wasn't used for the assignment. The Hogan paralegal Sara Shea was used in place of me.

Here's a memo I wrote to my supervisor about the special assignment:


TO: SHERYL FERGUSON
FROM: GARY FREEDMAN
RE: SPECIAL MERCEDES ASSIGNMENT JULY 1-3, 1986
DATE: JUNE 28, 1986
____________________________

As I related on Friday afternoon, I will be engaged on a special assignment for Mercedes on July 1-3 at the request of Mr. Raher. It may prove unfeasible to perform the special assignment with the required diligence while simultaneously performing my customary tasks at the usual production level. This is to advise in advance that my production level as to customary tasks for the 3-day period may be lower, and, perhaps, far lower, than normal.

With regard to time sheets for the relevant period, the weekly production report will indicate "Mercedes Special Project" (of course the work product will not be quantifiable) and, for obvious reasons, the daily attorney time keeper record will state "document coding." Any customary tasks that I will have been able to accomplish will be noted on the production report. However, it must be emphasized that any customary tasks performed should be considered a "windfall".