Aleshire & Wynder

Irvine

Public agency law

Since its founding in Orange County in 2003 by David J. Aleshire and William W. Wynder, Aleshire & Wynder LLP has focused on the legal needs of California's municipal governments. The firm has grown from 10 attorneys and six clients to its current roster of 70 attorneys serving 25 cities, 30 special districts and 50 other public entities.

The firm is in a transition phase, as the founding partners consider retirement and elevate new leaders from within. "We're largely a homegrown group of lawyers who have been together here a good long time," Wynder said. "It's time the old guard steps aside and lets the youngsters take us to the next level."

Wynder, who has been in practice since 1978, jokes that when he took the bar exam, "All you had to know was the Ten Commandments."

The hope is to expand to 100 lawyers and grow its presence in Northern California, said managing partner Sanaz "Sunny" Soltani, a cum laude graduate of Loyola Law School who has been with the firm since she joined as a founding associate. Also, on the executive committee overseeing the transition: equity partners Adrian R. Guerra, who serves as city attorney for several municipalities, and W. Keith Lemieux Jr., who chairs the firm's water practice.

"We're committed to a DEI model," said Soltani, who specializes in defending rent control ordinances and who was born in Iran. "We want our firm to look like the communities we serve."

The firm has added offices in Oakland, Los Angeles, San Diego, Fresno, Riverside and Westlake Village. Among its major projects, Aleshire & Wynder constructs sports stadiums, resolves water disputes, preserves rent control and negotiates contracts to bring the 2028 Olympics to Los Angeles.

After Wynder announced his retirement last year, a case came along that lured him into moving to of counsel status and postponing his exit. As the longtime city attorney for Carson, home to the largest oil refineries on the West Coast, Wynder negotiated a huge boost to municipal revenues with an oil industry business license tax that brought in some $89 million. Companies paid under protest and sued; Wynder and Soltani successfully demurred. An appeal is being briefed. Tesoro Refining & Marketing Co. et al., B335686 (2d DCA, filed Jan. 26, 2024).

Meanwhile, Aleshire worked as city attorney for Richmond to pressure Chevron Corp., which operates a major oil refinery there, to agree to pay the city $550 million over 10 years in exchange for dropping a refining business license tax measure from the November ballot.

In another recent success, Soltani and colleagues prevailed for a coalition of cities challenging a new state lot-splitting law that allows property owners to divide their lots and build additional units. In May, a Los Angeles trial judge ruled the law, state Senate Bill 9, is unconstitutional because it doesn't fulfill its stated purpose of providing housing restricted to low-income residents. The state has appealed the judgment and a $220,000 attorney fee award. City of Redondo Beach et al. v. Bonta et al., B338990 (2d DCA, filed June 5, 2024).

"We're about protecting local control, and this is just one of the new laws that chip away at that," Soltani said.

-- John Roemer