Embattled Temple president turns to lawyer known for negotiating exit deals

The lawyer whom embattled Temple University president Neil D. Theobald has hired as he tries to stave off his ouster by the university board has a long history of representing college presidents who need to negotiate exit deals once relationships have soured.

Raymond D. Cotton, a Washington lawyer who works for the Boston-based Mintz Levin firm, is a nationally known expert on college presidential compensation.

"Inside the industry, Ray is the 911 call you make when you're in trouble," said Shelly Weiss Storbeck, managing partner of Storbeck/Pimentel & Associates, an executive search firm in Media. "He is the expert on presidential contracts."

Theobald, 59, lost the support of Temple's board of trustees in recent months and drew a vote of no confidence last Tuesday, when the board announced its intention to dismiss him this week. The board blamed Theobald for a $22 million deficit in its merit scholarship fund and for his handling of the dismissal of the university provost, Hai-Lung Dai.

A day after the vote, Theobald hired Cotton, 73, who has represented scores of college presidents, boards of trustees, and nonprofit executives since 1981. He has worked with the University of Florida, the University of California system, Rutgers University, the University of Maryland, the University of North Carolina, and Pennsylvania State University, among others.

Two years ago, he negotiated the departure of Stockton University president Herman J. Saatkamp Jr. after his failed attempt to locate a campus in the former Showboat casino in Atlantic City.

He helped to make one former Massachusetts college president one of the highest-paid in the nation - an arrangement that drew IRS scrutiny, according to the Boston Globe - and negotiated a deal for another to be paid at full salary for a yearlong sabbatical after his departure.

Cotton, an Asbury Park, N.J., native who has an undergraduate degree from Monmouth University, and degrees from Harvard's law school and its school of public health, said he had investigated the allegations against Theobald and found them "baseless." He declined to elaborate.

Last week, his firm released a list of Theobald's accomplishments at Temple, including record fund-raising, a jump in U.S. News & World Report rankings, and a boost in research.

Kevin Feeley, a spokesman for Temple's board, said Theobald was taking too much credit for those achievements.

"Frankly, it exaggerates Neil Theobald's accomplishments at Temple," he said of the list compiled by Cotton's firm. "Ironically, it points to the success of initiatives dealing with enrollment and rankings that were led by Hai-Lung Dai, whose abrupt dismissal by Dr. Theobald is what generated so much concern among members of the board."

He said the board was pleased that with the hiring of Cotton, Theobald seems "to share the board's desire to find a resolution that preserves the interest of the university, its students, its faculty and its future."

Cotton declined to discuss his strategy for navigating Theobald's conflict with the board.

In general, he said, he tries to avoid litigation. But he said he usually partners with a local trial lawyer who is prepared to go to court if necessary. It rarely is, he said. Cotton said he typically urges both sides "not to let their emotions take over."

"Even though a board may feel strongly that they don't like an outgoing president," he said, "they need to put those personal feelings aside and always do what's best for the institution, whether [they] like it or not."

While departing university presidents have to be concerned about possible damage to their reputations - and the loss of income - the institutions have to grapple with the effects of negative publicity. So, whatever their differences, both sides have reason to negotiate, he said.

"If each side is a little unhappy," he said, "that's good, too."

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