Rob Bogdanowicz and Aaron Burke are two science fiction fanatics, best friends, and now, law partners at Burke Bogdanowicz, a litigation boutique they started together last month.
As young boys growing up in the eighties, both considered RoboCop as one of the defining movies of their childhoods.
“I had a RoboCop action figure and so did Rob,” Burke said.
“It’s one of those films that got me to really become the nerd that I am,” Bogdanowicz said.
So you can imagine their surprise and delight when producers with Netflix called Bogdanowicz Thursday morning. Netflix was in Dallas filming an episode about RoboCop for The Movies That Made Us, a Netflix docuseries that takes viewers behind the scenes of popular movies filmed in the 1980s and 1990s.
It turned out that Burke Bogdanowicz’s offices in Suite 4000 of downtown Dallas’ Renaissance Tower is the very location the final boardroom scene of RoboCop was filmed. The crew wanted to know if they could come film an interview with RoboCop writer and co-producer Ed Neumeier at the firm’s offices later that day.
Any fan of RoboCop or late eighties sci-fi films knows the scene: The story’s villain, Dick Jones, gets fired from his position as senior vice president of Omni Consumer Products, nullifying a provision that forbade RoboCop from targeting OCP executives.
“Dick, you’re FIRED!” screams The Old Man as Jones holds him hostage.
“Thank you,” RoboCop says as he shoots Jones, sending him crashing through the window to his death.
“I turn around and look out my window and I’m like, ‘Holy shit, he’s right,’” Bogdanowicz recalled.
The producers offered to pay the firm, but Bogdanowicz struck a deal that he found more appealing: a thank you to Burke Bogdanowicz in the episode’s credits and an agreement that the lawyers could meet Neumeier. The crew appeared about an hour later and filmed the episode.
For about 30 minutes, Bogdanowicz and Burke reminisced with Neumeier about the film and what it meant to them growing up. RoboCop was actually the first R-rated movie Bogdanowicz was allowed to see, and he got in trouble with his dad for sneaking into the movie theater to watch one of Neumeier’s other R-rated films, Starship Troopers.
“We already loved this office,” Burke said, “but this was just icing on the cake.”
Currently at six lawyers, Burke Bogdanowicz represents clients in trials and high-stakes business litigation, including construction defect, products liability, real estate, trade secrets, labor and employment and insurance matters. Burke came from Fee, Smith, Sharp & Vitullo, while Bogdanowicz came from Calhoun, Bhella & Sechrest.