---
alias:
- Alan Tessler
- Allan Tessler
category: Business & Finance
created: 2026-09-22
location: Jackson, Wyoming
summary: Senior managing partner of the New York firm Shea and Gould whom Bill Hamilton's
  affidavit named as Earl Brian's and Hadron's merger lawyer and as a relative of
  INSLAW's investor Daniel Tessler, who denied any relation; later a merchant banker,
  L Brands director and Hudson Institute chairman.
tags:
- Person
- AllanTessler
- PROMIS
- INSLAW
- SheaGould
- HudsonInstitute
updated: 2026-09-22
---

Allan R. Tessler, a Cornell graduate and editor of the Cornell Law Quarterly who served as a Navy lieutenant, began at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen and Hamilton, was counsel to Spengler, Carlson, Gubar and Churchill, and became senior managing partner of Shea & Gould, sitting on the New York firm's executive committee from 1976 to 1988. After the firm dissolved in 1994 he was chairman and chief executive of International Financial Group, a merchant bank, from 1987; co-chief executive and chairman of Data Broadcasting Corporation, later Interactive Data; chairman of Enhance Financial Services Group, an insurance holding company he co-founded that merged into Radian; and chairman and principal shareholder of Great Dane Holdings. He had earlier held senior posts at Ladenburg Thalmann, Devon Securities and Loeb Rhoades and been president of Slater Walker of America, Ameriscribe and Fifth Avenue Coach Lines. He was lead director and finance committee chairman of L Brands, a director of TD Ameritrade and of Interactive Data until November 2006, and chairman emeritus of the Hudson Institute.[^1]

### The INSLAW Affidavit

[Bill Hamilton](/people/bill-hamilton/)'s affidavit in the [INSLAW](/organizations/inslaw/) litigation alleged that [Daniel Tessler](/people/daniel-tessler/), the investment manager who with his wife [Patricia Cloherty](/people/patricia-cloherty/) took over the [53rd Street Ventures](/organizations/53rd-street-ventures/) fund holding INSLAW stock in 1984, "is a relative of Alan Tessler, the senior partner in the New York City law firm of Shea and Gould responsible for [Brian](/people/earl-brian/)'s and [Hadron](/organizations/hadron/)'s mergers and acquisitions work." Daniel Tessler told the special counsel [Nicholas J. Bua](/people/nicholas-j-bua/)'s investigators that he "is not a relative of, and does not even know, Alan Tessler." Bua's report does not record an interview of Allan Tessler, and the statement that Shea and Gould handled Brian's and Hadron's merger work rests on the Hamilton affidavit alone; Tessler's tenure on the firm's executive committee does place him at Shea and Gould through the years in question.[^2]

[^1]: Hudson Institute, "Allan R. Tessler, Chairman Emeritus," institutional biography, archived at http://web.archive.org/web/20211204105456/https://www.hudson.org/experts/679-allan-r-tessler-mdash-i-chairman-emeritus--i ; the executive committee dates are from a Cornell University Library finding aid for the Shea and Gould records, not examined.
[^2]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.,* March 1993, pp. 90-94 and addendum. https://archive.org/details/InslawPROMISBuaReport