After he was accused of sexual assault, it didn't take Laker star Kobe Bryant long to surround himself with a formidable defense team.
Hal Haddon and Pamela Mackey, partners in the law firm Haddon, Morgan, Mueller, George, Mackey & Foreman, P.C., have a long history of handling high profile cases and getting charges either dismissed outright or dramatically reduced. In cases where clients have been found guilty, they have often been able to get sentences drastically cut.
Both attorneys began their careers in the Colorado public defender's office, and though it's unknown exactly when Bryant hired them, no one seemed surprised at the choice.
Haddon has built a sterling reputation on the way he's tackled some of the biggest criminal cases in the last 20 years.
In June 1989 more than a 100 federal agents swept into the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant near here and discovered widespread and egregious environmental contamination. Radioactive waste was being illegally dumped into rivers, fields and released into the atmosphere.
The public was outraged and it seemed the culprit, Rockwell International Corp., didn't stand a chance in court.
Then Rockwell hired Haddon, who quickly assembled a legal team that reviewed more than a million documents.
"In a short time he went from massively behind, to even, and then massively ahead," recalled Larry Pozner, an attorney who was part of the defense team. "Hal was the quickest mind at the table, the steadiest hand. It was about as invigorating an environment as a defense lawyer could have."