Title:  Partner
Employer:  Levine, Blaszak, Block & Boothby, LLP
Featured In:
State of the TEM Market, Part 2 of 2, 7/1/09
State of the TEM Market, Part 1 of 2, 6/17/09
All Bow Down to the Global Master, 1/16/08
Privacy Smivacy FCC's New CPNI Rules, 4/12/07
New Flavors of Local Access, 10/12/06
Telecom Negotiation Opportunities in a Post-Merger World, 9/29/06
I Want My FET, 6/7/06
Nickname/Alias:  Hank

What I'm Best Known For (in the Telecom World):

Representing large users in negotiating (and, if necessary, fighting) with carriers.

Other Primary Areas of Expertise:

Telecom tax -- Have now beaten the government 6 times in a row in cases to throw out the excise tax on long distance communications
Telecom regulation and policy

Summary of Professional Background:

BA – Yale ’72  JD- Harvard ’76.  Wilmer Cutler & Pickering – 76-81.  Morrison & Foerster- 81-93, where I was the founder and first chair of the Communications Group.  Since 1993, partner at Levine, Blaszak, Block & Boothby

Prediction on the Future of Telecom & Telecom Managers:

Telecom has a bright future.  Telecom Managers will adapt or die.

Weirdest Thing People Usually Don't Know about Me:

I collect rare books – particularly Supreme Court biographies and early telephone/telegraph/radio/television/computer books.  I have a couple of copies of Bell’s first published article on telephony, which dates from 1876. 

When I'm not talking or doing something in relation to telecom, I'm usually...

Reading (mostly history and political science) or working for my synagogue (I’m a VP)

Book and author I'm currently reading:

His Excellency, Ellis’s biography of George Washington; and Doris Kearn’s Team of Rivals, a biography/analysis of Abraham Lincoln’s political talents

CD currently or most recently in my car stereo:

The History of the English Language, Part III [a series of lectures by Prof Seth Lerer of Stanford Univ.]

The stupidest thing I've ever seen anyone do or say in relation to a phone:

That would be a very, very long list.  How about this one – last week an exec for a very large telecom company sent the 15th draft of a new agreement to a Fortune 100 client.  It had been edited in about three places to provide that the draft would be null and void if not accepted by the customer on or before November 21, 2005.