The addition of former Special Assistant City Attorney Jane Usher as a partner to Musick Peeler & Garrett is the latest boost for the downtown L.A. law firm, which has grown quickly in recent years.
Usher brings decades of experience of public service to the firm’s real estate and public law practices. She handled transition duties for Carmen Trutanich’s administration and wrote Proposition D, the medical marijuana initiative adopted by voters last year. Previously, she served as president of the Los Angeles Planning Commission from 2005 to 2008 and as counsel to Mayor Tom Bradley.
“Law firms in our city have followed one of two trends: They either had to become regionalized and California focused like Musick Peeler or they have become large firms with offices around the world,” she said. “I am a very local lawyer and happily so, and Musick Peeler and I are a good match.”
Her clients include government agencies, developers and charter schools. Usher, 58, said that she plans to register herself and the firm as lobbyists once her one-year restriction ends on lobbying after leaving public office.
Musick Peeler has rebounded strongly since the downturn. The firm has added attorneys in several practice areas, and now has 84 attorneys in Los Angeles County, up from 66 in 2011.
“There has been a jump,” said Managing Partner Joe De Briyn. “I think we’re attractive to a number of attorneys throughout the state, at a much more competitive rate structure.”
The firm’s rates, in the $400 to $550 hourly range, are appealing to midmarket companies in Los Angeles, he said. The firm has been expanding in its real estate, insurance, white collar and environmental practices, among others.
Moving South
The Central Coast’s oldest law firm has opened an L.A. office. Hudson Martin Ferrante Street Witten & June, which has counted John Steinbeck and Henry Miller among its clients, opened an outpost in downtown Los Angeles earlier this year.
The eight-attorney Monterey firm handles a lot of transactional work related to the tourism and hospitality industries integral to the Central Coast. It began finding itself involved in more private placement deals and licensing work for restaurants and other businesses in Los Angeles, prompting Managing Partner Jeannette Witten to decide to expand geographically.
“Obviously, Los Angeles, and downtown especially with its revitalization, has embraced gourmet food and wine,” said Witten, 40. “It’s really welcomed our clients with open arms.”
Leading the L.A. office will be Amy G. June, also head of the firm’s litigation department. June, also 40, joined the firm from Boston’s Bingham McCutchen, where she had been counsel in the L.A. and Palo Alto offices. She decided to go the small-firm route and formed a firm with Witten last year; they merged with Hudson Martin several months later.
“We’re very excited about moving in that direction and think it’s going to be a good area of growth for us,” she said of the L.A. outpost.
Bankruptcy Recruit
Bankruptcy and restructuring attorney Robert Klyman has jumped from one downtown L.A. powerhouse to another, joining Gibson Dunn & Crutcher from Latham & Watkins. The two are the largest firms by revenue headquartered in Los Angeles.
Klyman’s practice spans a wide range of aspects of corporate bankruptcy. He represents large debtors, bondholders and purchasers of assets in bankruptcy, among others.
“I was looking for a platform that had few business conflicts and had a big New York, Los Angeles and international presence, because that’s the nature of my practice. Gibson fit that bill entirely,” he said.
Despite the struggles of some restructuring practices amid a national drop in bankruptcy filings, Klyman, 49, said he has remained busy.
He added that he’s seeing a continuing shakeup in the energy industry, as well as shorter bankruptcy cases. He projected there will be more of an appetite for international companies to make acquisitions through the bankruptcy process in the United States and more cross-border restructuring by large global corporations.
Movement of bankruptcy partners among top-level firms has not been unusual lately, as firms pursue different strategies adapting to the bankruptcy slowdown, said Sandy Lechtick, president of Woodland Hills legal search firm Esquire Inc.
Staff reporter Alfred Lee can be reached at [email protected] or (323) 549-5225, ext. 221.
