District Taps Pillsbury Winthrop To Guide Belmont Construction

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District Taps Pillsbury Winthrop To Guide Belmont Construction

LAW by Amanda Bronstad

Talk about a tough assignment.

The L.A. office of Pillsbury Winthrop LLC has been retained by the Los Angeles Unified School District to be lead counsel in negotiating the construction contract for the Belmont Learning Complex.

Pillsbury Winthrop already has a 15-attorney team helping the school district identify sites for 85 new schools, said James Rishwain, head of the firm’s global real estate practice and co-managing partner of the Century City office. But the firm has brought in a number of its experts to handle the completion of Belmont, including construction law partner Robert James and land use partner Ronald Van Buskirk.

“Belmont has its own unique set of issues and is of extreme importance to the community and the district, and we’re taking a higher profile position within the team,” Rishwain said.

Belmont, stymied after the realization the site was contaminated, has been an ongoing irritant and embarrassment to the school district, which subsequently sued its primary legal counsel at the time, O’Melveny & Myers LLP, for giving bad legal advice on the project.

O’Melveny and the school district settled April 9 for $3 million. About two-thirds of the settlement will go toward Belmont’s development.

Munger’s Defense

Chicago-based Kirkland & Ellis, under increasing scrutiny for its role as counsel to former Enron Corp. Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow, has retained Munger Tolles & Olson LLP.

Named in a suit by Enron shareholders for its alleged role in structuring the off-balance sheet partnerships at the heart of the energy giant’s collapse, Kirkland will use Munger as counsel in attorney-client matters, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Though a Kirkland & Ellis official confirmed the relationship, Munger Tolles’ co-managing partner Ruth Fisher declined to comment or confirm the firm’s involvement with Kirkland & Ellis.

Kirkland & Ellis was named along with Houston legal counsel Vinson & Elkins LLP in the shareholder suit, which was originally filed in December 2001. Along with the two law firms, nine investment banks were added to the complaint in an April 8 amendment.

Munger Tolles, which has represented clients from Berkshire Hathaway Inc. to Michael Ovitz, has its work cut out for it if the Enron shareholders prove Kirkland & Ellis knowingly conspired to commit fraud, said Max Blecher of Blecher & Collins PC.

Still, he said, Munger is up to the defense.

“They leave no stone unturned. They’re less accommodating, and they’re more unyielding in their pursuit of you…They’ll give the other side a bad time.”

DGA Deal

The general counsel of the Directors Guild of America, Elliott Williams, is retiring after 21 years and will be replaced by Atlanta labor law attorney Robert Giolito.

Williams, who joined the DGA’s legal department in 1978 and became general counsel three years later, will remain a legal consultant to the guild. Giolito will join the DGA April 22. Williams

Giolito, founding partner of Atlanta-based Stanford Fagan & Giolito, has represented the American Federation of Musicians and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. He said he prefers entertainment work because the labor unions have more pull than unions in other industries.

“We have bargaining strength,” Giolito said. “In labor relations, there is more of an equality on both sides. They really do approach the table as equals, and that’s very important.”

Staff reporter Amanda Bronstad can be reached at (323) 549-5225 ext. 225, or at

[email protected].

Latham, Not L.A.

Latham & Watkins is officially no longer a Los Angeles-based law firm at least, according to industry publication American Lawyer magazine.

American Lawyer, which publishes the widely read “Am Law 100” survey of 100 corporate law firms, determined that more than 55 percent of Latham & Watkins’ 1,400 attorneys are now outside California, making it a “national” law firm.

Martha Jordon, managing partner of Latham & Watkins’ L.A. office, said the firm has been trying to cut its L.A. ties for years. The firm’s managing partner, Robert Dell, has been in San Francisco since 1994.

“We consider ourselves to have outgrown our image as a local firm several decades ago,” Jordon said. “That’s not to say L.A. is bad, but a huge proportion of the work we do is global work. It’s not based solely in L.A.”

A law firm’s headquarters means little to clients, said Blane Prescott, the West Coast partner for consulting firm Altman Weil Inc. But in corporate deals, being based in London or New York makes the firm look better to other lawyers, he said.

“This gets too much play and interest by law firms, but it has some minor importance,” Prescott said. Being headquartered outside those two markets, he said, “makes you look as though you’re not competitive with the premiere firms, most of whom sprouted out of New York or London. L.A. is not one the prime financial markets in the world.”

Jordon said that the view that Latham & Watkins was “L.A.-based” was really a media creation.

“It’s not that we’re a New York or D.C. firm,” she said. “We are not a headquarters-type business, and we understand that. It’s just something that’s taken the press some time to acknowledge.”

Last year, Latham & Watkins was ranked No. 4 in the nation in revenues in American Lawyer’s list of top 100 corporate firms. It was ranked No. 21 nationwide in profits per partner. Among L.A. firms, Latham & Watkins was ranked No. 1 in both categories. Paul Hastings Janofsky & Walker LLP was the only major L.A. firm designated without a headquarters on the list.

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