Target of alleged terrorist attack in Dallas houses two large firms

A whole lot of Dallas lawyers are going to work today in a building that’s making national news. Fountain Place, 1445 Ross Ave., in downtown Dallas was reportedly the scene of an attempted terrorist attack foiled by undercover FBI agents on Thursday. According to The Dallas Morning News, a man was arrested after he parked a vehicle -- packed with fake explosives supplied by the FBI as part of a sting operation -- in the underground parking garage of the building. The building is home to the Dallas offices of two large firms, Hunton & Williams, which employs about 120 lawyers, and Bracewell & Guiliani, which employees about 50 lawyers. “It is certainly a wake-up call,” says Sandy Brown, managing partner of the Dallas office of Bracewell. “We’re going to have a briefing this afternoon with the building. And after that the FBI is coming over here to meet  with one or two representatives of each tenant. And then we’ll have an officewide meeting, all hands on deck kind of thing, after that.” The incident brought back many memories for Jonathan Neerman, an associate with Hunton & Williams who was working as a CIA agent and counterterrorist analyst on Sept. 11. Like many lawyers who work in the building, Neerman didn’t learn about the incident until after work hours. “I immediately had flashbacks to 9/11 and 9/12. The questions we were trained to ask were the same ones I have been thinking about for the last 12 hours,’’ Neerman says. “Is he working alone or with a group? Did he select the target or did the FBI select the target? Was he doing it on behalf of an organization or an organization internationally? What were his methods?’’ Neerman hopes he is allowed to participate in meetings the FBI has about the incident with building tenants. “They need to  make everybody comfortable -- what it was and what it’s not. Here’s what you don’t want:  [Y]ou don’t want people to think that this [alleged] terrorist planted a real bomb that didn’t detonate properly. The tenants need to know that.”
-- John Council