In their role as advisers to the Iraqi Oil Ministry, American government lawyers and private-sector consultants provided template contracts and detailed suggestions on drafting the contracts, advisers and a senior State Department official said.
Hiring a lawyer for residential real estate transactions is not standard practice; instead, real estate agents typically handle the legal work, with the seller's agent drafting the contracts.
He even let them draft the contract, it said.
He helped draft the Contract with America, which helped the Republicans take over the House.
He had worked for Dick Armey in the House and had helped draft the Contract with America.
"Sit-downs usually happen when there are anxious parties on both sides who don't want to wait for their attorneys to draft the contract," he said.
The trial over that lawsuit shifted in tone on Thursday, when Steven L. Fasman, a lawyer at MacAndrews, who drafted the contract that is at the heart of the case, took the stand to testify in Federal District Court in Manhattan.
Frank Luntz, the consultant who helped draft the Contract With America, which helped bring House Republicans to power in 1995, said he could not recall a politician who had taken a step as bold as Mr. Bloomberg's.
Judge Carter wrote: "This leaves only plaintiff's own self-serving testimony that he drafted the contract, that he and Dash signed it and that he lost track of it in 1998.
