L.A. City Attorney’s Office Hates to Go Outside

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The Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office received another $1 million in funding for outside counsel earlier this month, but business has actually been shrinking for local law firms wanting to work with the city.

Since taking office, City Attorney Carmen Trutanich has tried to keep legal work in-house, as he promised during his campaign, said Assistant City Attorney Anne Haley, who oversees outside counsel spending. As a result, general fund spending on outside counsel this fiscal year through April was down 46 percent compared with the prior year.

The City Attorney’s Office also has asked law firms to take a voluntary 15 percent cut in their rates, Haley said.

“We can’t control the litigiousness of society,” she said. “But we’re just having to do more in-house because it’s pretty clear that we city attorneys cost less than outside counsel.”

The $1 million, approved by the City Council on June 9, will be split among seven firms working on cases that were ongoing when Trutanich took office. The cases are generally class-action labor and employment cases too massive to do in-house.

About $700,000 of the additional $1 million will go to Albright Yee & Schmit LLP and Liebert Cassidy Whitmore. The L.A. firms were among those who agreed to take a pay cut.

Neither firm returned calls for comment.

“The law firms understand,” Haley said. “They read the papers, and know the city is in a bad fiscal way.”

College Buddies

When Norman Levine and Bruce Andelson were students at Stanford Law School decades ago, they didn’t think that they’d be working together one day at a corporate law firm.

Today, Levine is the managing partner of Century City-based Greenberg Glusker Fields Claman & Machtinger LLP. Earlier this month, he recruited Andelson to leave the Santa Monica office of Boston-based Bingham McCutchen LLP.

“Back then none of us thought we would be in law firms, really. Those were the late ’60s, early ’70s,” said Andelson with a laugh. “I always wanted to be a lawyer, I just wasn’t sure I was going to be in corporate law firms.”

Andelson, who joined as a partner, handles mergers and acquisitions, executive compensation issues and other corporate law. He said his book of business topped $1 million annually and that he plans on bringing all of his clients, including Columbia Manufacturing Corp. of Gardena and Commercial Property Management of Los Angeles.

“Bingham is a great firm for the biggest clients with the most important matters that have very, very large legal budgets,” Andelson said. “It really didn’t suit my clients and my practice, which is very much a middle-market practice. I’ve been able to come here and reduce my rate by 20 to 25 percent.”

Andelson previously worked at Alschuler Grossman, which was folded into Bingham McCutchen in 2007.

Levine said Greenberg Glusker was more analogous to Alschuler.

“Bingham, though an outstanding firm, is just a different focus. Bruce is pretty much consistent with our business strategy, which is to focus on the type of businesses that exist in Los Angeles,” Levine said. “Our typical corporate client is not a Fortune 500 company. It’s a midmarket, closely held or small cap business, which is much more compatible, we think, with a regional law firm in Los Angeles.”

Tapping In

Century City-based boutique bankruptcy firm Levene Neale Bender Rankin & Brill LLP has a new name partner.

Beginning July 1, the firm will change its name to Levene Neale Bender Yoo & Brill LLP, after the election of Timothy J. Yoo as name partner.

David Levene, co-managing partner of the firm, said Yoo’s name would help tap into new kinds of clients, including those in L.A.’s Korean-American community.

“He has a lot of connections in the Korean business community, and having his name on the door makes it easier to go out and market and establish yourself to that community,” Levene said.

Already this year, Yoo has handled bankruptcies for Central Metal, Freshia Markets and the Doubletree Hotel in Carson, which are all local Korean-American-owned businesses.

Yoo was a partner at Robinson Diamant & Wolkowitz, and joined Levene Neale when the two firms merged in January of this year. Yoo also has brought to the firm an expertise as a court-appointed bankruptcy trustee.

“It’s an honor to have my name next to these guys whom I consider to be nationally recognized,” Yoo said. “One of my focuses here has been to act as a trustee in both Chapter 7 and Chapter 11 cases, and to open up that realm of trustee work.”

Staff reporter Alfred Lee can be reached at [email protected] or at (323) 549-5225, ext. 221.

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