Sunday, January 23, 2000
LAWYER CASHES IN ON WEBSITE SALE
By Lisa Allen
Special to The Herald
 This
week a Weston attorney pocketed a sizable six-figure sum for a
coveted address, even though the property didn't have four walls
or a roof. It was an address in cyberspace.
After more than a year in negotiation, executives with Germany's oldest privately held bank, Sal Oppenheim Jr. & Cie, agreed to pay Roy Oppenheim of Weston Hills more than $100,000 for the domain name of his Website, Oppenheim.com.
"It's representative of the new economy," said Oppenheim, a partner in the Weston based law firm of Oppenheim & Pilelsky, P.A., with his wife, Ellen. "The fact that someone would want to pay me for a piece of property that's intangible, an intellectual property without walls or a ceiling shows the importance of the internet."
WEB PIONEER
Oppenheim says he can't believe how his foresight in establishing a Website early has paid off. He employed an architect to design the site and went online with oppenheim.com in 1994, during the emergence of the Internet. "I knew there were other law firms with the name around the world, and I wanted to make sure we were registered early," said Oppenheim, who is immediate past president of the Weston Democratic Club and is director / founder of the Weston Foundation.
Oppenheim, who moved with his wife to South Florida from New York in 1987, knew it was time to make a change when he started receiving email directed to the German Bank. Of the 30 or more messages a day the firm received, nearly half of them were for the bank's personnel.
Oppenheim speaks German, so he was able to understand the content, which proved embarrassing for the bank. Negotiations started more than a year ago with a figure below $20,000 and continued until all sides agreed on a price. The name transfer doesn't mean Oppenheim or his firm - a general practice specializing in real estate, litigation and business related matters - will abandon the Internet. The firm is online with its newly revamped Website, Oppenheimlaw.com.
WESTON
STATE-OF-THE-ART-SITE
"I actually like the new name better," Oppenheim said. "Now it describes what we actually do in the name."
"The irony is that, although we had one of the first Websites, we did not keep it up to date. Because of the name change, it led us to redesign the site and it will be a state-of-the-art example," he added.
The new 30-page site includes a description of the full range of services the firm offers as well as background information on the partners - Roy and his wife Ellen, and their list of associates. The education he received researching the sale and acquiring domain names is paying off in other ways, too. Oppenheim is becoming more active in Internet-related matters, as more business is done on net. This past year alone, the firm has been involved with a number of Internet-related business matters, including the sale of SelectJobs.com. He is also involved with three start-up Internet companies: ClubWallStreet.com, HometownVillage.com and BookLiquidators.com.
"I always thought my parents gave me a good last name, but I did not necessarily think it was worth six figures," Oppenheim said. "It just goes to show how the Internet is becoming so important in our lives."
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