Bradley to Join L.A. Office of S.F. Law Firm

Mayor Tom Bradley announced Monday that he will join the Los Angeles office of Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison, a venerable San Francisco-based corporate law firm with developing links to South-Central Los Angeles and the Far East that parallel the mayor’s areas of interest.

The mayor’s announcement follows his disclosure last week that after 19 years in office he will not seek another term. Bradley said he will start his new job after his term expires at the end of June.

The 74-year-old mayor, who received his law degree while working as a Los Angeles police officer and attending night classes at Southwestern University School of Law, will be joining the state’s seventh-largest law firm and one of the most well regarded.

“Brobeck is one of the old-time, heavyweight San Francisco law firms,” said Prof. Richard Marcus of Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. “It has a longstanding reputation for litigation--a full service law firm that provides for legal needs across the gamut.”

Bradley’s major role with the firm will be to introduce it to potential new clients locally and in the Far East, where Bradley has traveled extensively in promoting foreign trade opportunities for the city.

Maura Kendrick, the firm’s director of public relations, said Bradley was offered the job in hopes that his contacts will help the firm expand its overseas client base.

Bradley said he received a number of job inquiries from law firms and businesses, but he said he was initially drawn to Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison because of the firm’s commitment to Rebuild L.A., the project created by Bradley to funnel public and private investment into riot-damaged areas of the city.

“It was their involvement, offering a million dollars in pro bono services to Rebuild L.A. that sparked my attention in the first place,” said Bradley, speaking at a City Hall news conference and flanked by John Larson, the law firm’s general partner.

Bradley added: “I have many contacts not in only in the state of California but in the Pacific Rim, the Far East as well. I expect to use those contacts to expand the business of the law firm.”

The mayor said he sought advice from the city’s Ethics Commission before negotiating with the firm because of the firm’s work on behalf of clients with business before the city. The voter-approved ethics law prohibits city officials from negotiating jobs with firms doing business with the city. Bradley also will be barred from representing anyone before a city agency for one year after he leaves office.

Bradley said he was confident, after consulting with the Ethics Commission, that he did not violate the city’s Governmental Ethics Ordinance in negotiating to join the law firm while serving as mayor.

“This firm had no contracts with the city,” Bradley said. And, he said, it only occasionally represented clients who were negotiating with the city. “There will be no conflict of interest,” he said.

Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison represents at least two clients with business before the city. It also played a key role in securing a commitment by Vons to build two supermarkets in riot-damaged neighborhoods.

Correspondence made available to reporters by the mayor’s office indicates that Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison represents Browning-Ferris Industries of California in its efforts to win clearance to expand the controversial Sunshine Canyon landfill. The firm also represents Cyclean Inc., which has requested a zoning variance to operate an asphalt-recycling facility.

That information was disclosed in a letter to Bradley from the law firm. The letter also states that the firm is representing clients in six civil cases in which the city is also a party.

Based on that letter, Ben Bycel, executive director of the Ethics Commission, told Bradley he was not violating the ethics law. For there to be a violation, Bycel said, the law firm’s clients would have to have business pending before Bradley or his office.

The possibility that the business of a Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison client might end up before the mayor in the future does not bar the mayor from negotiating with the firm now, Bycel said. In the event that a matter involving a client of the firm does come before Bradley, the mayor would have to recuse himself, perhaps passing the decision to City Council President John Ferraro.

Because there is no method of recusal spelled out in the law, “we would have to create one,” said Rebecca Avila, deputy director of the Ethics Commission.

Bradley said Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison presented him with the job offer last Thursday and he accepted it that afternoon, the same day he announced that he will not run again for mayor.

Deputy Mayor Mark Fabiani said Monday, however, that the mayor’s retirement announcement did not hinge on the job offer from the law firm. “Not at all,” Fabiani said. “He was going ahead with the announcement regardless.”

Bradley’s relationship with the firm will be “of counsel,” meaning a contractual association as opposed to being a partner with an equity interest in the firm. Bradley would not say how much he is to be paid.

A nationwide survey by the National Law Journal last fall placed the firm as 37th-largest in the country--with 394 lawyers, 129 of whom were partners. Starting salaries ranged from $65,000 to $70,000 annually.

Charles S. Vogel, a former president of the State Bar of California and now with the firm of Sidley & Austin, said the appointment of the mayor will enhance Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison’s visibility in Los Angeles and “be a positive message to the minority community.”

According to a news release issued by the mayor’s office Monday, the law firm has committed $1 million in free legal services to the city as part of its contribution to the riot-recovery effort.

The release also said the firm is working with a network of grass-roots organizations and major corporations to help develop jobs and businesses in South-Central Los Angeles.

The firm reported that about 55% of its work is devoted to litigation, with 30% going to corporation and securities activity, 9% to real estate transactions and 6% to tax matters. Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison performs extensive work for defendants in product liability suits. The firm numbers among its clients Southern Pacific, which it represented in the July, 1991, train derailment near Dunsmuir, resulting in the spill of 19,000 gallons of herbicide.

Times staff writers Philip Hager in San Francisco and John Schwada in Los Angeles contributed to this article.