Lawyers out of the woods

Whether a one-night hook-up or a long-running romance, a relationship without marriage rarely requires lawyers.

Tiger Woods’s sex life, on the other hand, has been a holiday gift to lawyers from one US coast to the other, and overseas, too.

Of course he hired a criminal defense lawyer, Mark NeJame, after the car crash that broke open his secrets. He exercised his right to remain silent when police sought him out, most probably on advice of counsel. But when more than a dozen alleged paramours emerged, the legal issues grew more interesting.

Woods’s London lawyers won a court order this month barring British news organisations from publishing what purported to be nude photos of Woods but which his legal team claimed didn’t exist.

 

More lawyers no doubt were called in when companies that pay the formerly squeaky-clean Woods to endorse their products no longer wanted to associate with him. And you can bet whatever Woods says these days, which isn’t much, has been vetted by attorneys.

But what about all those women? Some have enlisted counsel, too, and you have to wonder why.

Rumors of hush money float about in tabloids and on celebrity gossip Web sites. If you’re looking for that kind of payoff, you wouldn’t want just anybody negotiating it. And attempting it yourself might land you in the sort of trouble plaguing Robert “Joe” Halderman, accused of trying to blackmail David Letterman over the talk show host’s sexual peccadilloes.

In Wood’s case, the first to be outed was Rachel Uchitel, who was reportedly the reason for an argument between Woods and his wife the night of the crash. She’s hired Hollywood lawyer Gloria Allred, who’s had lots of experience representing women with links to celebrities.

Allred complained to ABC when a joke-cracking panel on “The View” implied that Uchitel was a prostitute. Earlier, Uchitel was the one accused of slander when she trashed the friends who had exposed her relationship with Woods.

Then Uchitel dropped her denials of a Woods liaison, and Allred scheduled a press conference at her office in Los Angeles to reveal all about the relationship, only to abruptly cancel it. Speculation that Woods is agreeing to pay Uchitel millions of dollars to keep her mouth shut followed. The Daily Beast web site says the sum could be as much as $5 million and reports that Woods has a team of lawyers trying to squelch these sorts of stories.

Another woman reportedly an Allred client, Rogers, said Woods fathered her 5-year-old child. She acknowledges he isn’t the only candidate for paternity.

There are other ways to profit from an affair with a celebrity, such as writing a book, as Monica Lewinsky did. Porn star Holly Sampson, who wants people to understand that Woods was single when she dated him, says she’s working on a film whose script is titled, “Holly Sampson Golf Project.”

In addition to Rogers and Uchitel, at least two other women linked to Woods have reportedly lawyered up. Jamie Jungers and Julie Postle, both cocktail waitresses, have hired Michael O’Quinn of Orlando.

Woods’s lawyers are pros at handling this sort of thing. The Daily Beast reports he’s represented by Lavely & Singer of Los Angeles, which boasts on its website that it specialises in going up against tabloids and other media for “the publication of articles which defame the clients or invade their privacy”. The firm persuaded the National Enquirer to spike an earlier story of a Woods affair, The Daily Beast says.

And speaking of the Enquirer, which broke open Woods’s secret life with the first story on Uchitel, the newspaper also broke the news of former US Senator John Edwards’ affair with Rielle Hunter.

Hunter and an Edwards aide at first claimed through lawyers that the aide was her baby’s father. Now they admit all that was a lie. How do we know they changed their story? For one thing, it’s all in court papers written by, you guessed it, lawyers.