Alicia Towler White, a spokeswoman for Wilson Sonsini, declined to comment.
After picking up merger intelligence, Kluger would discuss it with Robinson to decide if they should present it to Bauer. While they successfully executed 30 insider trades, they talked about another 120 possible deals over the 17 years, he said.
"It was pretty clear these had to be big-name companies that were trading at 1 million shares a day to even discuss it with Bauer," he said. "I would call Robinson on every deal I got my hands on, even on deals that didn't make sense."
The men tried to time Bauer's buying to avoid the eve of merger announcements.
Board Meeting
"It was like a board meeting," he said.
Kluger said the cash payments helped him to build a house in Easthampton, New York, eat at better restaurants and pay for the surrogate mother for his three adopted children.
"I was living a somewhat more lavish lifestyle than my salary alone would have allowed," he said. "This was not a constant thing, with money flowing in every 10 seconds. This was twice a year where I would take in 50 or 60 grand."
Bauer was becoming increasingly aggressive in the stock market. He moved $8.4 billion through his account in 2010, prosecutors said. Bauer made $32 million on the nine Wilson Sonsini deals, prosecutors and the SEC said.
Bauer weathered a 2007 SEC investigation into his activities, Kluger said. He said he oversaw an SEC document requesting information from a Wilson Sonsini partner regarding possible insider trading involving Bauer.
Wilson Sonsini told Kluger in the fall of 2010 to get a new job. It was the sixth law firm since 1994 at which he didn't become a partner. He did no work at the firm for the last few months as he looked for other employment.
'Job Hopper'