We have a kindred spirit, 5 delta teams for each major continent, 2 seal teams for the poles, and let the dogs eat. Dont tell anyone, cut the fucking cancer out. Move on.
Yes. Quietly. Yes.
https://lawandmore.typepad.com/law_and_more/2018/10/gabriel-macconaill-sidley-austin-partner-since-2014-commits-suicide.html
Gabriel MacConaill, Sidley Austin Partner Since 2014, Commits Suicide
What is it about high-powered success that seems to be transforming into the killing fields? Or, maybe that's the wrong question.
Meanwhile, on the East Coast, New Yorkers Stacey Radin (clinical psychologist), Kate Spade (fashion designer), and Anthony Bourdain (chef) took their own lives.
Gabriel-MacConaill-Vertical
On the West Coast, Gabriel MacConaill, a partner in BigLaw firm Sidley Austin, also committed suicide. Unlike those three on the East Coast it was by a self-inflicted shotgun wound, not hanging. Here are more details from Abovethelaw.com.
The Sidley Austin website provides the facts. In 2005, MacConaill received his JD from the law school at Penn State. He joined Sidley Austin in 2009. In 2014, he became partner. His special area of expertise has been restructuring. He had been involved in Mattress Firm's bankruptcy filing.
Beyond that, much or all of what is said about the "why" will be speculation.
Human beings, including the person himself or herself, know so little about the pull and push forces going on in an inner life. Of course, there can be factors discussed such as a recent clinical depression or even a sustained history of that condition. But many others also struggle with clinical depression and come out the other side, without committing suicide.
Also some might trot out the statistics that there is a higher rate of suicides in the legal sector than other lines of work. Many recall the cluster of more than a dozen suicides among trial lawyers in Kentucky within a short timeframe.
There are also the platitudes about what the chase to the top of one's industry could cost in emotional, social, and spiritual wear-and-tear. However, the world is jam-packed with high achievers who don't check out.
The reality is that we know so little and the person committing suicide also knows so little about the unconscious dynamics, thought processes, and lack of impulse control which may be drivers in taking one's own life.
In the film "A Star Is Born," musician Jackson Main tried suicide when he was in his early teenage years. The ceiling fan, to which he had tied a belt, fell down. Somehow he got through the next years via fame and addiction. Later, after he lost his hold on his career he tried again and succeeded. To attempt to explain the fatal darkness within him would be pure arrogance.
At Johns Hopkins University, Kay Jamison did take on the issue of suicide in her book "Night Falls Fast." She herself had made a serious suicide attempt. However, her book really leaves this enigma intact.
This blog passes along sympathy to those who loved Gabriel MacConaill. Survivors are the real victims of the decision to commit suicide.
In my extended family, there have been five suicides. There will probably be more. I don't and never will understand all that. Since age 11, I have been plagued with suicidal ideation. But somehow I have maintained the upper hand. Already I have lived on planet earth longer than any member of my family. I am clueless why.
http://members.calbar.ca.gov/fal/Licensee/Detail/269522
All clear with the California Bar
Gabriel Richard MacConaill #269522
License Status: Active
Address: Sidley Austin LLP, 555 W 5th St Ste 4000, Los Angeles, CA 90013
County: Los Angeles County
Phone Number: (213) 896-6125
Fax Number: Not Available
Email: gmacconaill@sidley.com
Law School: Dickinson SOL; Carlisle PA
License Status, Disciplinary and Administrative History
Below you will find all changes of license status due to both non-disciplinary administrative matters and disciplinary actions.
Date License Status Discipline Administrative Action
Present Active
5/19/2010 Admitted to The State Bar of California
From: https://abovethelaw.com/2018/10/biglaw-partners-death-due-to-self-inflicted-gunshot-wound/
Gabriel MacConaill, a 2005 graduate of the Dickinson Law School at Pennsylvania State University, was known as a restructuring expert and had recently secured a lead role in Mattress Firm’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner, MacConaill died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
A spokeswoman from the firm released this statement on MacConaills’s death:
Gabriel MacConaill
We are deeply saddened by the passing of Gabe MacConaill, our valued colleague and partner. He will be fondly remembered by colleagues as well as clients as an outstanding lawyer, partner and friend. Our hearts especially go out to his wife to whom we offer our sincerest condolences.
Representing AOG Entertainment:
http://www.kccllc.net/aog/document/1611090160907000000000005
AOG used to produce American Idol
Somebody was $10 million worth of angry:
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/simon-fuller-eyeing-fraud-claims-916824
" The executive producer of many hit shows asks a bankruptcy court's authorization to investigate.
Simon Fuller, the creator of American Idol and an executive producer on So You Think You Can Dance, is investigating potential claims against Core Media Group, the rights-holder of those shows.
In April, Core filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after Idol's final season aired and Fuller made a multi-million-dollar payment demand. The prospect that Fuller could commence winding-up proceedings on Core affiliate 19 Entertainment in the U.K. caused Core to move quickly, and since then, the debtor has been working with creditors on a plan of reorganization to satisfy nearly $400 million in outstanding debt and get the reality television producer back on its feet.
On Tuesday, Fuller made his biggest move in bankruptcy court to date, bringing an ex parte motion for an order authorizing examination of AOG Entertainment and its Core affiliates.
Fuller now asserts a claim worth more than $10 million thanks to his long-term creative services agreement that provides him profit shares of Idol and So You Think You Can Dance. He cites "intimate knowledge" of the debtors operations and alleges that 19 Entertainment has "received little, if any, benefit from the incurrence of such debt."
Fuller raises the prospect of bringing claims for actual and constructive fraudulent transfers, equitable subordination and disallowance, unjust enrichment, breach of fiduciary duty and aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duty."
$400 million in debt
Four hundred million
Because of American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance
WTF is wrong with Hollywood
FOUR HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS
THOSE PEOPLE ARE RETARDS
AOG Entertainment, which MacConaill represented, is one of 72 "mega cases" currently listed in the Bankruptcy Court of our favorite US Federal Court, the Southern District of New York
http://www.nysb.uscourts.gov/megaCases
Sears made this list; of note is that the SDNY lists their "megacases" all the way back to the Johns-Manville case in 1982.
Sotomayor meme material