Second of two parts.
On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Stephen Cozen huddled with expert witnesses in a seventh-floor conference room of his Center City law firm preparing for what promised to be a bare-knuckle trial over a string of soured movie deals.
Hundreds of millions of dollars were at stake in a dispute over proceeds from Hollywood films including The Truman Show, Runaway Bride, and The General's Daughter. But Cozen's attention was soon diverted by a call from his wife, Sandy.
The World Trade Center had been attacked. Cozen and his associates switched on a TV and with astonishment watched the towers burning and then collapsing.
Like Americans everywhere, Cozen, 67, a hyperactive trial lawyer and onetime college basketball player, was torn between anger at the perpetrators and compassion for the victims.
But there was little time for reflection.
Within hours, Cozen O'Connor was swamped with calls from the insurance companies it represents in handling claims from high-rise office fires, hurricanes and ice storms.
Now the clients were possibly on the hook for far more money than ever before, billions of dollars in property losses at ground zero, business disruptions, and workers' compensation claims.
"They were saying not only are we going to have to pay out billions . . . but they wanted to know whether there was anyone they could recover from," Cozen recalled in an interview. "We tried to get as many facts as we could."
From that flurry of phone calls in the hours and days after the attacks would emerge an ambitious lawsuit: an 812-page complaint that would seek to hold America's closest ally in the Arab world financially liable for the 9/11 attacks.
Just as surely, it would commit Cozen O'Connor to the biggest battle in the firm's history.
It was a sleepy corner of the legal world where a lawyer could earn a good - but not spectacular - income.
Yet it gave Cozen the chance to practice law right away, rather than serve as a glorified apprentice at a larger, more illustrious firm.
In the 1970s and early 1980s, after Cozen's uncle had died and Cozen had taken over, the firm handled a series of cases that would set it on a path of explosive growth and lay the groundwork for its lawsuit against Saudi Arabia.
