They’ve Managed to Avoid an Identity Crisis

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In his 34 years as an attorney in Los Angeles, Michael A. Sherman has made a name for himself as a bet-the-company litigator. But that name has also been confused – for Michael S. Sherman, an entertainment lawyer who has been practicing in Los Angeles for nine years longer.

Not only have the two lawyers each received phone calls from the other’s clients, Michael A. said that the two even once used the same cleaners in the early 1980s.

“Lawyers tend to have a similar uniform, of course. So one Michael Sherman had his dress shirts and the other Michael Sherman had his, and there was a heightened level of concern that the cleaners had at the time,” he said. “I don’t remember, but I thought there was a shirt or two that got through.”

Michael S. said he didn’t recall ever sharing a cleaner, but does remember occasionally getting client calls meant for the other Michael Sherman. In turn, some of his entertainment clients – he guessed the late actor Peter Falk might have done this once – also would ring the wrong Sherman.

“I’ll answer the phone, they’ll start talking and I have no clue what they’re talking about,” Michael S. said. “Then it becomes clear they’re talking litigation, and then I say, ‘Maybe you want the other guy.’”

Loving Eviction

For four fortunate years in the late 1960s, a then-young Carl Terzian got to work for Charles Luckman – a onetime “boy wonder of American business” (Luckman was named president of the Pepsodent Co. at the age of 30) who abruptly moved to Los Angeles in 1950 to become an architect. Luckman helped design the Forum in Inglewood, the Federal Building in Westwood and the Theme Building at the Los Angeles International Airport.

Terzian remembers being awed by Luckman’s overall persona when he worked for him from 1965 to 1969.

“He was a polished marketer,” said Terzian, adding that Luckman was also a natural PR expert who zealously involved himself in the non-profit world.

Then, in 1969, Luckman merged his firm into a bigger one. He called Terzian in. He said he thought of Terzian as a son and wanted to give him important advice.

“I think you should go out on your own,” Terzian, now 78, remembers Luckman telling him. But Terzian was stunned to hear what Luckman said next: “I will not underwrite your firm or be a client.”

That was designed to shock Terzian out of any dependency. He had to quickly learn to swim on his own in the treacherous waters of business.

“I was a trembling mess,” said Terzian, who didn’t have a single client when he moved from Luckman’s glamorous office to an empty one at Wilshire Boulevard and Western Avenue. But he got one client, then another, and went on to become one of L.A.’s best-known PR chiefs.

On May 1, Terzian will celebrate the 45th anniversary of his PR firm, and he now says he never would have gone out on his own had Luckman not “kicked me out with love.”

Looking back, he said that he learned much from Luckman. But being evicted “was one of the great blessings of my life.”

Staff reporter Alfred Lee contributed to this column. Page 3 is compiled by editor Charles Crumpley. He can be reached at [email protected].

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