Andy Thibault

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Valvo To Go? Say It Ain't So
By NORM PATTIS
Law Tribune Contributing Writer
February 6, 2006

I am not feeling a whole lot of love just now. It turns out that Vincent Valvo, the publisher and editor of this publication, is leaving The Law Tribune. The world seems less friendly a place.

Valvo stormed onto these pages about six years ago, as near as I can recall. Among his goals, a plan to shake-up the paper. The Trib needed new life, so he went out and got some. I am one of his acquisitions.

I've been spouting off on these pages for five and one-half years now, never missing a weekly edition, even when, as many of you are quick to point out, I have nothing to say. Valvo has also added a host of other columnists. The back couple of pages of the weekly are commentary-rich.

I don't know whether this is a good or a bad thing. I do know that the Judicial Branch once thought the commentary a bad thing. Not long after my column began, the branch cancelled its subscriptions. I not so secretly hoped that it was something I had said. Realistically, I think offense was taken over what another mainstay of the Tribune, Andy Thibault, had said.

It has been great fun writing this column. When a judge secretly admits a sneak peak at the pages, I thrill somehow. To think that the censors in robes can't even police their own ranks thrills me in a reckless sort of way.

So why is Valvo leaving?

As always, truth in the corporate world is a many-faceted thing. Valvo has new opportunities. OK. It is time for a change. OK. But somehow the suspicion lingers that some distant bureaucrat in some other state simply decided to shake things up. The Tribune is owned, after all, by an outfit that used to be called American Lawyer Media. Oddly enough, my 1099 tax form comes from the New York Law Publishing Co. Distant strings pull the levers printing these pages.

Have the corporate bean-counters taken a tally of all the awards this paper has won in the past six years for reporting, commentary and the like? These did not grow on trees. They were a product of an editor with the imagination to let his writers write. This is a good paper for which to write. Not long ago, I accepted an invitation to write for The Hartford Courant's Northeast Magazine. The editorial process there was so slow, constipated and fussy, I gave it up within a year. It is no fun tap-dancing in molasses.

Someone is making a mistake letting Valvo go. The man is a creativity machine. In the time he has led these papers he has experimented boldly. Dan Klau's produced a CD of lawyerly parody; the Trib tried its hand a fiction. (Oh, OK — intended fiction; I know some of you think the news stories are filled with half- and lesser-truths.) And what of the events? I once relented and went to an awards dinner, and marveled at Valvo the impresario. Finding one person to do all that Valvo does will be a challenge.

Why, the man is so charming, his snake oil so good, that my wife and I once did the unheard of: We invited him and his wife to dinner. That may not sound like much of an event to those of you with dominant social genes. But we've had non-family to home for dinner only a handful of times in the past decade. We work with people all day long and somehow can't muster the energy to do so again once the lights go down. A good time was had by all at that rare dinner.

Vince's departure has me driving more carefully, one eye forward, one eye on the rear-view mirror, and always scanning from side to side looking for trouble coming my way. For all I know, I, too, will soon be asked to seek pastures of another hue elsewhere.

Valvo made this a writer's paper. Not all readers liked all that was written. That is what a newspaper should do. Will the Tribune keep stirring the pot? Or will it become a corporate playpen? I don't like wondering whether the new publisher will be ham-handed or not.

Good luck, Valvo. And thanks for offering me this chance to raise Hell. It's been fun.

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