Professor Bainbridge...on law, politics, religion, culture & food

Dunno about the footnote, but the subject matter brings back strong personal memories.  I was among the young lawyers representing Mr. Pickens and his partners in the Unocal bid in April 1985, and I vividly recall having to abandon that effort mid-tender offer because of a pre-existing obligation attending a wedding. One of Mr. Pickens’ lieutenants asked if I could get out of it, so I could stay and continue to help with the fight. I explained that the wedding was my own. I remember on the evening of the day before my wedding flying back to Houston from Los Angeles, where we’d just gotten the federal district court to give us an interim victory on some sort of sanctions ruling. (I don’t recall the details, just the rush of soundly beating our opponents on that particular discovery motion. It probably had to do with ongoing depositions of the Unocal directors, though.) Things went substantially less well for our team while I was honeymooning in Spain and Britain, however, both in those proceedings and the parallel ones in Delaware Chancery Court that eventually produced the precedent you wrote and lectured about.