The National Law Journal's L.A. Legal Pad

Chicago's Bell Boyd opens San Diego IP office

Chicago's Bell Boyd opened its first office on the West Coast in San Diego. The office will focus on intellectual property law in the life sciences and also general corporate services.

Two new partners at the firm, Dr. Stephanie L. Seidman and David Fisher, are heading up the office. Seidman is a biotechnology scientist and patent attorney. Fisher, a corporate lawyer, brings three associates from the San Diego firm Fisher Thurber that he managed.

Those joining the office as associates include Cheryl Allaire, Gregory Brucia and Alidad Vakili from Fisher Thurber and Frank Miskiel from Fish & Richardson. Seidman, previously at Fish & Richardson, is also bringing seven technology specialists, who aren't lawyers, with backgrounds in molecular biology, immunology and organic chemistry.

Fledgling firm's attracts big clients

At a time when white-collar criminal lawyers are scattering to big firms, one L.A. boutique is accumulating big clients.

Tom Brown, who co-founded Brown & White two years ago after leaving Sheppard Mullin with Kenneth White, was hired as counsel to Melvyn Weiss, who faces charges in a federal kickback case.

The fledgling firm's sprint out of the starting gate places the partners one step further from a high-profile fees dispute that ended shortly before they decamped from their former firm.

Read the full story here

Mother-daughter firm takes charge

When Erica Pruetz was eight she mimicked her mother's legal papers writing a compliant about a bath toy.

Now Erica and her mother Adrian are both attorneys and have started their own firm, the Pruetz Law Group.

They were already working together at Quinn Emanuel but, craving hands-on experience and client interaction, decided to try starting their own firm.

Even though they're just two attorneys, they're finding a lot of client interest at their Manhattan Beach firm, which will move near L.A. International Airport in February.

Part of that may have to do with Andrian Pruetz, who was a partner at Quinn Emanuel and launched its intellectual property practice.

Read the full story in The Recorder

Former lawyers, clients alleged unethical practices at the Pacific Law Center

San Diego's Pacific Law Center has been hit with lawsuits, a judge's ruling and action by the Better Business Bureau in recent months, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported Sunday.

Former clients said they didn't get enough time with an attorney at the firm, which has 25 lawyers on staff and claims to have to have served 10,000 clients since it opened four years ago, and were given unrealistic assessments of their case.

The Union-Tribune says court documents and interviews with nearly a dozen lawyers who left the firm but didn't sue speak to non-lawyer "legal assistants" raising clients' expectations beyond what's achievable so they'll hire the firm.

Two former lawyers for the firm, who are suing, claim they were terminated for objecting to unethical practices like unlicensed clerks signing clients and doling out legal advice.

Also, the Better Business Bureau lowered the firms rating from satisfactory to neutral after 38 complaints over the last three years and a judge criticized the firm for seeking public funds for indigent defendants in two cases where the clients had paid thousands of dollars in fees.

Gordon & Rees defectors form San Diego firm

Four former partners of Gordon & Rees have formed a new law firm in San Diego called Andrews Lagasse Branch & Bell.

Three of the lawyers specialize in employment law. Jonathan Andrews headed Gordon & Rees’s diversity and partner/associate committees, as well as its pro bono program in San Diego. Jennifer Branch was head of the firm’s San Diego summer associate program. And Margaret “Margi” Bell co-chaired the San
Diego office’s employment group.

The fourth lawyer, Traci Lagasse, specializes in construction law, toxic torts and professional liability litigation. She served as co-chairwoman of the Gordon & Rees’s San Diego construction group and represents architects and engineers.

Andrews Lagasse Branch & Bell, which officially opened on Oct. 22, includes a former associate at Gordon & Reese and a satellite office in Los Angeles.

- Amanda Bronstad

Women choosing not to fly solo

The National Law Journal reports that even though women are frustrated with the lack of friendly-family environment of big firms, they’re not opting to go solo. The story is based on a 10-Year study by NALP and others, which found that there were many reasons women didn’t go into solo practices, but that “the reliability of steady pay and benefits at multilawyer firms outweigh the scheduling freedom that solo work can provide.”

When women do start their own practices, they often develop narrow specialties, like San Marco’s Stephanie Caballero, who started a reproduction-focused family law practice handling surrogacy and fertility issues three years ago. She initially worked from her home and now has an office with two assistants, the paper reports. The arrangement allows her to spend time with her 6-year-old twins.

Law Schools Sluggishly Improve Solo Solutions

When Compton, Calif. solo Luz Herrera started her practice, the Harvard Law School graduate had no idea how to bill or create a retainer agreement, what to charge clients for consultation, where to drum up business — or who to ask for help.  Law students still don’t get much help in the way of business training or practice management, but some schools are starting to take some steps to correct that. See The National Law Journal’s story at….   http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1175072637157

Eye on Judge Lodge

The Daily Journal has an article profiling Santa Barbara Superior Court Judge Joseph Lodge, the longest serving judge in the state. Lodge, who was elected to the bench in 1958 recalls when judges didn't have to be lawyers, which meant one of his colleagues was a milkman. The judge who has a reputation for being unorthodox, tells the DJ that he thinks there are "too many prisoners". Read more at:

State's Longest-Serving Judge Casts a Wise Eye on Defendants
http://www.dailyjournal.com/law/index.cfm (password required)