Prominent Land Attorney Ends an Era in the Valley

For more than a decade during the go-go ‘80s and early ‘90s, real estate developers with big problems and deep pockets flocked to the Ventura Boulevard law firm of Reznik & Reznik for advice that helped alter the commercial face of the San Fernando Valley.

After all, Benjamin M. Reznik, the firm’s intense, silver-haired co-founder, was not only the Valley’s best-known land-use attorney, he also possessed formidable connections in politics and business.

The law firm’s quiet closure last month, however, has raised a series of questions, ranging from why a seemingly robust firm would shut its doors when real estate is rebounding to whether one of the Valley’s most visible leaders will continue to exert the same influence from his new West Los Angeles law office.

“We were getting involved in regional projects [and] it was totally tapping out our resources,” said Reznik, who along with wife and law partner Janice Kamenir-Reznik has settled in at the prestigious, 140-lawyer Century City firm of Jeffer, Mangels, Butler & Marmaro.

“Our additional resources at this larger firm are going to help us do some even bigger projects in the Valley.”

*

Some say the move is a natural progression for the 46-year-old Reznik.

“He is very, very ambitious, and he’s played out this line as far as he could,” said a close observer of the Valley’s development scene. “South of the mountains you have some really big players. He wants to play there.”

But the Reznik Building at 15456 Ventura Blvd.--now up for sale--was also the scene of considerable strife in the year leading up to the firm’s dissolution, according to several sources and public records. Reznik & Reznik had been suffering from cash-flow problems, according to the sources, and some partners were not being paid on time.

Four of the firm’s nonequity partners were gone by July, and they later filed complaints with the California Labor Commission over portions of a profit-sharing plan they contend is owed to them as well as a lot along Malibu’s pristine Lechuza Beach, which sources said was signed over to the firm by a client who owed more than $500,000 in legal fees.

The property’s value, which depends on whether it can be developed, remains in question. A labor commissioner has declined to rule on claims involving the site, but a hearing on the profit-sharing claims of the Rezniks’ former partners is expected to be scheduled.

*

For their part, the Rezniks deny that their firm was in financial trouble and they contend the partners’ complaints are without merit. Furthermore, they said that with the exception of Fred N. Gaines, the partners who filed complaints with the labor commission had been let go.

Of those three lawyers, William M. Samoska has opened his own practice and Alan Kheel and Albert M. Cohen have joined other firms. All three vehemently deny that they were ousted, saying they left on their own.

The firm’s closure marks the end of an era in which the Valley’s commercial development and political sophistication underwent dramatic change. So prominent was the Reznik firm that “in the ‘80s, they represented virtually every major developer,” one observer said.

The firm’s demise also comes on the heels of term limits for City Council members, which could sharply curtail the City Hall influence of Reznik and other entrenched lobbyists, some suggest.

“They can no longer develop these long-term relationships,” said Gerald Silver, president of the Encino Homeowners Assn.

UCLA sweethearts, the Rezniks established the firm in 1982, with Janice concentrating on environmental law and Ben on zoning and land-use legalities. In one battle after another over the use of land, much of it along Ventura Boulevard, Ben Reznik gained a reputation as a hard-charging lawyer with the ability to push through projects facing enormous opposition.

In one highly publicized land dispute, he secured a $10.4-million settlement from the city after a group of residents from Studio City blocked a client’s plans for a housing development in Fryman Canyon.

*

Reznik also served on the advisory panel that helped city planners shape Ventura Boulevard’s zoning master plan. And he angered homeowners when, shortly after it was adopted, he filed a $10-million lawsuit on behalf of client Jacky Gamliel challenging the zoning plan he helped frame.

Reznik was also the legal brain behind an unsuccessful 1993 challenge to the Ralphs supermarket at Ventura and Topanga Canyon boulevards. His client, Stan Weiss, owns the adjacent shopping center anchored by a Vons.

But the Rezniks are more than lawyers.

Janice Reznik, 45, a prominent name in her own right, is past president of the California Women’s Law Center and California Women Lawyers and is involved in numerous Jewish groups. Ben Reznik served as chairman of the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn., is on the board at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center and is a prominent Democratic Party fund-raiser.

*

At Jeffer, Mangels, Ben Reznik will continue to specialize in land-use and zoning law, heading the firm’s newly formed administrative law practice group. Janice Kamenir-Reznik will lead the firm’s newly expanded environmental law practice group. Five other attorneys previously employed by Reznik & Reznik have followed the couple to the Westside firm.

Although the Rezniks will continue to live in Encino with their three children, their departure from the Sherman Oaks practice has raised concerns that the Valley has lost one of its most influential leaders, with access to everyone from Mayor Richard Riordan to Washington’s political elite.

“He is one of the consummate leaders in the Valley,” said Richard Close, another West L.A. attorney who, as president of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn., was a frequent opponent of Reznik’s clients. Reznik’s “involvement in the Valley will be decreased by his physical location on the Westside,” Close predicted.

Others say Reznik will continue to play an active role in Valley affairs. “He’ll still be involved,” said VICA President Bonny Herman.

Members of the legal and development communities have also begun speculating about whether Reznik’s reign as the Valley’s premier land-use attorney will survive his move to Century City, or whether his former protege, Gaines, 38, might inherit the role.

The affable Gaines, who has opened a new firm in Warner Center with two other former Reznik lawyers--L. Elizabeth Strahlstrom and Sherman Stacey--has acquired a strong reputation of his own in both the political and legal arenas. President-elect of the San Fernando Valley Bar Assn., Gaines is also on the board of VICA and chairs the County Library Commission.

One of Gaines’ specialties during his years at Reznik & Reznik was opposing trip fees, or the money developers were supposed to pay the city for traffic improvements along Ventura Boulevard. The fees were finally omitted from a revised version of the Ventura Boulevard Specific Plan approved by the City Council last year.

*

One woman said she had been interested in hiring Gaines until she learned he was already representing her opponent. “I had heard he was the best in town,” she said.

Said Gaines: “Gaines & Strahlstrom is now the largest pure land-use firm in the Valley. . . . And we’re happy to have that niche.”

Having spent 15 years carving out that niche for himself, Reznik says he has no plans to relinquish his status in the Valley--either as a lawyer or a civic volunteer. In fact, Reznik said, his new firm is planning to open a small satellite office in the Valley--perhaps in the Reznik Building.

“We’ve been involved for 20 years and we’re not about to abandon that,” he said, adding, “I think we’ll have even more to offer.”