Klinedinst PC

SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA – Klinedinst appellate lawyer Dan Lawton will be a featured presenter at the Pincus Professional Education 9th Annual Advanced Appellate Practice program, taking place in Los Angeles on February 9. 2024.

Mr. Lawton practices litigation in the firm’s appellate and professional liability groups, including civil trial work and complex commercial and intellectual property litigation on behalf of both plaintiffs and defendants. He also has a deep background in civil appeals and is certified as a legal specialist in Appellate Law by the State Bar’s California Board of Legal Specialization.

The program, hosted by Pincus Professional Education, will cover a variety of appellate topics, including:

• Advanced Oral Argument Skills
• Advanced Briefing Topics
• Challenging and Preserving Trial Court Awards
• Seeking Fees and Costs on Appeal
• Statements of Decision
• AI and the Appellate Process
• Behind the Scenes at the 9th Circuit, and more.

Attendees to the program can attend one of two sessions in person, or choose to watch the presentations via a virtual link.

Klinedinst congratulates Mr. Lawton on presenting at the 9th Annual Advanced Appellate Program. To learn more and to register, click here.

About Klinedinst

Klinedinst PC is the go-to firm for clients looking for litigation and trial experience, sophisticated transactional advice, and other solution-oriented legal counsel. Providing legal services across the West, our attorneys are dedicated to fostering trusted relationships with each and every client, to help them achieve their individual goals and objectives. Klinedinst lawyers strive to serve as true business partners, always at the ready to address the legal challenges that businesses are confronted with every day. Whether in court, at the board meeting, or otherwise, KPC is the trusted legal advisor to have by your side.

SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA – Klinedinst PC has added lender liability attorney Brandon J. Mika to its growing roster of legal professionals. Mr. Mika joins the firm’s San Diego office as Counsel.

Mr. Mika works with clients across the state in matters involving financial services, complex lender liability, mortgage banking, real estate and commercial litigation. He joins the firm with a wealth of experience in lender liability litigation including alleged violations of FCRA, FDCPA, RFDCPA, RESPA, TILA, UCL, and HBOR. He also has significant experience working with foreclosure trustees, providing them with counsel on compliance and other complex legal issues.

Before joining the Klinedinst legal team, he represented a number of title insurance companies and major financial institutions.

“We are thrilled Brandon has joined the Klinedinst team,” said Ian A. Rambarran, Shareholder based out of Klinedinst’s Sacramento office. “He has a depth of knowledge in the business litigation arena with a particular focus of financial services litigation that will be very valuable to our local, state, and national clients.”

Mr. Mika is a graduate of Thomas Jefferson School of Law, where he graduated cum laude. While in law school, he was Senior Articles Editor for the Thomas Jefferson Law Review. Mr. Mika also has a dual MBA from San Diego State University, and a Bachelor of Science from the University of Illinois.

Klinedinst welcomes Mr. Mika to the Bank and Credit Union group. To learn more about Mr, Mika, please visit:

klinedinstlaw.com/profiles/attorney/brandon-mika

About Klinedinst

Klinedinst PC is the go-to firm for clients looking for litigation and trial experience, sophisticated transactional advice, and other solution-oriented legal counsel. Providing legal services across the West, our attorneys are dedicated to fostering trusted relationships with each and every client, to help them achieve their individual goals and objectives. Klinedinst lawyers strive to serve as true business partners, always at the ready to address the legal challenges that businesses are confronted with every day. Whether in court, at the board meeting, or otherwise, KPC is the trusted legal advisor to have by your side.

IRVINE, CALIFORNIA – Fred M. Heiser, Managing Shareholder of Klinedinst’s Irvine office, has been elected to the Board of Directors of USLAW NETWORK. The membership elected the next year’s slate of directors on October 5, 2023 during USLAW NETWORK’s fall member meeting in Dana Point, California. 

In his practice, Mr. Heiser works with clients of all sizes handling matters involving business and commercial litigation, commercial general liability, and employment litigation. In addition to litigation, Mr. Heiser partners with companies to strategically develop policies and procedures to minimize their liability risks. 

USLAW NETWORK is an association of approximately 100 independent, full-service firms, representing more than 6,000 attorneys across the U.S., Canada, Latin America, and Asia. Membership in USLAW is by invitation only, open to top-rated law firms that have substantial trial experience. With their regional and jurisdictional knowledge, USLAW member firms provide legal representation to major corporations, insurance companies, and large and small businesses. Matters handled by member firms include commercial and business law, employment and labor law, litigation, and other business-related areas of law.

Mr. Heiser has a long working relationship with USLAW NETWORK, as well as other member firms within the organization. He previously served in an ex officio role as the liaison between Future USLAW Leaders group and the board.

When not helping clients with their legal needs, Mr. Heiser is active in the community. In 2014, he was elected to serve on the Board of Directors for the Opera League of Los Angeles, becoming one of the youngest members to serve on the Board. He has been previously recognized as a Rising Star by Southern California Super Lawyers.® He is also a former President of Washington and Lee University’s Los Angeles Alumni Chapter, and remains an active member of the Chapter in Los Angeles and Orange County.

Klinedinst congratulates Mr. Heiser on joining the Board of Directors for USLAW NETWORK. For more information on Mr. Heiser, please learn more at:

https://klinedinstlaw.com/profiles/attorney/frederick-heiser

About Klinedinst

Klinedinst is the go-to firm for clients looking for litigation, trial experience, transactional representation, and legal counsel. The firm’s offices in Irvine, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego, and Seattle service clients across the West, handling matters in California, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona. What sets Klinedinst apart is the relationship our attorneys foster with each and every client. Klinedinst lawyers are indispensable strategic partners to business leaders, helping to achieve business objectives and create proactive solutions to resolve the many legal challenges that businesses are confronted with every day.  Whether vigorously advocating for business clients in court, or guiding business transactions and negotiations, Klinedinst is the trusted legal advisor to have by your side.

SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA – Klinedinst PC has announced the opening of its San Diego office at 501 W Broadway, now located on the 11th floor in Suite 1100.

This is the first move from its longtime office since the firm relocated to 501 W Broadway in 1991. Formerly known as the Koll Center, the 501 W Broadway building is a Class A office with both Energy Star and LEED GOLD certifications. The 21-story high-rise is blocks away from both state and federal courthouses, and offers convenient access to San Diego International Airport (SAN), the I-5 freeway, Amtrak rail service, and the San Diego Trolley.

Over the years, the firm expanded from a footprint that occupied half of a floor, to one that occupied nearly two floors. The firm had expanded in 2015 to a multi-floor space that included a dedicated conference center. However, the COVID-19 pandemic and the shift to remote and hybrid work schedules provided an opportunity for the firm to better utilize its space and re-imagine what the law firm of tomorrow could look like.

“We learned many lessons post-pandemic when we introduced our hybrid remote work policy,” said Susan S. Nahama, Chief Operating Officer of Klinedinst PC. “Within a very short time frame, the usage of office space has changed dramatically, and our new suite brings all that learning together under one roof.”

The ultra-modern office consolidates working space from two floors into one. It includes an open floor plan, upgraded kitchen, new collaboration areas, enhanced security, flexible hoteling offices, and state-of-the-art conference rooms.

Nahama added, “Our San Diego office will still be the largest in our network, and promises to provide an amazing experience for employees and clients visiting on-site. We cannot wait to introduce our team members, partners, and clients to the new space.”

Our new San Diego address is:

KLINEDINST PC
501 W Broadway, Ste. 1100
San Diego, CA 92101-3575

The Klinedinst San Diego office is open and ready for business. Learn more at:

www.klinedinstlaw.com/san-diego

About Klinedinst

Klinedinst PC is the go-to firm for clients looking for litigation and trial experience, sophisticated transactional advice, and other solution-oriented legal counsel. Providing legal services across the West, our attorneys are dedicated to fostering trusted relationships with each and every client, to help them achieve their individual goals and objectives. Klinedinst lawyers strive to serve as true business partners, always at the ready to address the legal challenges that businesses are confronted with every day. Whether in court, at the board meeting, or otherwise, KPC is the trusted legal advisor to have by your side.

SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA – Senior Counsel Tara R. Burd was sworn-in as Chair of the California Lawyers Association (CLA). Ms. Burd took the oath during the CLA’s Annual Meeting in San Diego on September 23, 2023.

Ms. Burd is a Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust & Probate Law by the State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization. In her practice, Ms. Burd represents clients and estates in complex trust litigation cases, probate administration, and professional liability defense.

Ms. Burd first became involved with The State Bar of California Sections in 2016. She hosted the first annual networking event in San Diego, bringing together real property attorneys with professionals including agents, brokers, and appraisers. She joined the State Bar of California’s Real Property Law Section’s Executive Committee in the Fall of 2016.

In 2017, then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation that effectively split the State Bar of California into two entities, separating the disciplinary and licensing functions of the State Bar of California from the educational programming and advocacy functions. These roles became the basis of the newly-formed California Lawyers Association. Ms. Burd continued to serve through the transfer of the Sections to CLA, when the organization overnight became one of the largest voluntary bar associations in the country with over 100,000 members.

From 2019-2020, Ms. Burd served as the Real Property Law Section Co-Chair In 2021, Ms. Burd was asked to serve the organization’s Membership Engagement Committee. From those efforts, the Indian Law Committee, Environment Social Governance (ESG) Committee, and Cannabis Industry Practitioners’ Group were formed. She was elected to Vice-Chair in 2022, working closely with leadership to help the organization continue its growth, and was elected to become Chair this past summer.

As Chair, Ms. Burd will be focusing awareness of CLA’s community outreach, advocacy efforts, and international relationships to our members. She aims to also expand cross-organization committees, helping to unite the Sections and increase efficiency. “More collaboration between CLA’s Sections will encourage engagement across the entire organization,” said Ms. Burd. “During the year ahead, we will continue inviting members of California’s legal community to expand participation and fully take advantage of all the meaningful opportunities that CLA has to offer.”

Klinedinst congratulates Ms. Burd on officially becoming Chair of CLA. For more information on Ms. Burd, please learn more at:

https://klinedinstlaw.com/profiles/attorney/tara-burd

About Klinedinst

Klinedinst is the go-to firm for clients looking for litigation, trial experience, transactional representation, and legal counsel. The firm’s offices in Irvine, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego, and Seattle service clients across the West, handling matters in California, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona. What sets Klinedinst apart is the relationship our attorneys foster with each and every client. Klinedinst lawyers are indispensable strategic partners to business leaders, helping to achieve business objectives and create proactive solutions to resolve the many legal challenges that businesses are confronted with every day.  Whether vigorously advocating for business clients in court, or guiding business transactions and negotiations, Klinedinst is the trusted legal advisor to have by your side.

PHOENIX, ARIZONA – Klinedinst Senior Counsel Nicole Pelcic has been appointed to a three-year term on the Civil Practice and Procedure Committee of the State Bar of Arizona.

The Civil Practice and Procedure Committee is charged with studying and making recommendations on proposals and/or issues involving the various rules impacting civil practice as submitted by the Bar, third parties, and court-appointed committees and commissions.  Committee members also help prepare petitions regarding rule amendments and comments on third-party petitions as deemed necessary, and assist the superior court with local-rule conformance and restyling efforts.

Attorneys, State Bar of Arizona governance, and the general public can make suggestions to the Civil Practice and Procedure Committee regarding proposals or concerns about the rules of procedure in Arizona. Those procedural rules can have a substantive impact on the parties’ rights, a fact that the Committee considers very carefully before making any recommendations.

Ms. Pelcic is an experienced real estate, business, and municipal liability attorney. Based in Phoenix, she represents a wide range of clients, including business owners, homeowners, real estate brokers, homeowners’ associations (HOAs), and contractors in a variety of litigation. She is adept at handling cases not only through initial discovery and motion stages, but also at the trial and appellate levels.

“This is a wonderful selection by the State Bar of Arizona,” said Teresa M. Beck, Managing Shareholder of Arizona and Nevada. “We are very proud that Nicole has taken this role on, and know that she will have a very positive impact on the Committee and the important work it performs.”

Klinedinst PC congratulates Ms. Pelcic on her appointment, and thanks her for her contributions to the Arizona legal community. To learn about Ms. Pelcic and her practice, please visit

www.klinedinstlaw.com/profiles/attorney/nicole-pelcic

About Klinedinst

Klinedinst PC is the go-to firm for clients looking for litigation and trial experience, sophisticated transactional advice, and other solution-oriented legal counsel. Providing legal services across the West, our attorneys are dedicated to fostering trusted relationships with each and every client, to help them achieve their individual goals and objectives. Klinedinst lawyers strive to serve as true business partners, always at the ready to address the legal challenges that businesses are confronted with every day. Whether in court, at the board meeting, or otherwise, KPC is the trusted legal advisor to have by your side.

SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA – Shareholder Dan Lawton has built a practice focused on civil trial work, intellectual property, and complex commercial litigation. He is certified as a legal specialist in Appellate Law by the State Bar’s California Board of Legal Specialization. Over the years. he has also taken on numerous pro bono cases, and one of those cases inspired Mr. Lawton to publish a new book. Titled ABOVE THE GROUND, Mr. Lawton takes the reader along on a journey through one of the darkest periods of Northern Ireland’s history.

Dan Lawton recently joined Autumn Snō, a San Diego-based artist and teacher, to discuss the process and the inspiration for his new book.

AS: Your new book, ABOVE THE GROUND: A True Story About The Troubles in Northern Ireland, shares the struggles and triumphs of Kevin Barry Artt and his experience with wrongful conviction. What is The Troubles and where does Artt’s case begin?

DL: The Troubles was an unconventional conflict among three sets of groups: the governments of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Irish Republicans who sought a united Ireland free of British sovereignty, and Loyalists who opposed a united Ireland and wished for Northern Ireland to remain a part of the U.K.

The modern Troubles lasted from 1968 until 1998 with the Good Friday Agreement. The Troubles manifested themselves sporadically, in a variety of ugly ways: murders, riots, civil disturbances, hijackings, bombings, punishment beatings (or “kneecappings”), and otherwise. A big part of it was the Irish Republican Army, a guerrilla force which targeted British security forces. Other combatants included Loyalist paramilitary groups who opposed Britain’s withdrawal from Northern Ireland. Violent killings attributed to the Troubles exceeded 3,700 deaths, most of whom were civilians. The number of injured topped 47,000. The other human and economic costs of the Troubles are hard to calculate with precision.

Artt’s case began in 1981, when he was charged with the IRA murder of Albert Miles, a British prison official. It didn’t really end until 2020, when the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal issued its ruling in his case. It was a marathon all right.

AS: What was it about Artt’s case that was so compelling, not only for you to take on as a pro bono client, but to then write a book about?

DL: The Artt case was to me unique. There have been a lot of stories about the Troubles down the years — some Hollywood movies, some novels, some nonfiction books, even “The Ferryman,” the brilliant play starring Tom Daugherty in San Diego. But none of them involved an innocent man, falsely convicted of an IRA murder, who takes part in the most daring and famous prison escape in history, the Maze escape of 1983, who gets justice in the end. I wanted to bring that story to anyone who would listen. It has themes of survival and redemption, but it also has takeaways about how legal and policing systems can become a kind of meat grinder that can chew up innocent people. That’s still going on in a lot of places today, including in parts of the U.S.

AS: Kevin Barry Artt’s case spanned two continents and took nearly forty years. As you were creating this book and sorting through a wealth of information, how did you decide what to include and what would have to be left behind? How has your work as an attorney shaped this process?

DL: The volume of the records of the two cases — one in Northern Ireland, one in the federal courts in California — was large. There were many witnesses to be interviewed on both sides of the Atlantic. “What to leave in, what to leave out” was hard for me. You look at a room full of banker’s boxes and wonder where to start.

Books seem to be getting shorter and shorter nowadays. Cutting what started out as a 267,000 word manuscript down to 105,000 words took some time. In the end, the most compelling parts of the story to me were the assassination attempts against Kevin in Belfast, the Diplock court show trial in which he was falsely convicted there in 1983, and his escape from the Maze prison and journey to California. I hope the reader will like the finished product.

As a lawyer, I find I’m constantly having to cut stuff — parts of briefs that seem to drag, passages of opening statements and closing arguments that consume undue time in front of the jury, PowerPoint slides that are too cluttered with data and not punchy enough. What I’m always going for is to tell the story in a vivid way that will grab the audience. I had to exercise those muscles in composing and then editing this book. Someone told me, “You have to kill your babies.” What they meant was, you have to dedicate yourself to cutting material that you once thought was really good and into which you put some labor, and do it without feeling bad about all the time you wasted writing pages that no one will ever read. Think about the reader, not about yourself.

AS: When you attended the University of Notre Dame and Georgetown University Law School, did you have any foresight that pro bono work would lead you to meet a client who would then inspire you to become a non-fiction author?  What about Artt’s case urged you to bring his story into the minds of many?

DL: I wish I could say, “yes, I did,” but I didn’t. As a college student, I thought I would either enter the Foreign Service and work for the State Department or else become a radio broadcaster. Law didn’t occur to me until federal prosecutors falsely charged my dad in 1980. I attended his trial and got to watch Don Marks and Tony Brooklier in front of the jury every day. The jury acquitted him. If he’d been convicted, who knows what would have happened to our family and his ability to earn a living. I saw what lawyers could do against a big scary machine, and I learned that prosecutors and judges can go off the rails and wreak injustices on innocent people. That got me thinking about law school.

AS: Imagine you are ten years old, again. You are the oldest of four kids and growing up just outside of Anaheim, California. What books and stories interested you then? What advice would you give to that version of yourself, knowing you’ll grow up to be a storyteller?

DL: I liked Mark Twain. In “Huckleberry Finn” and “Tom Sawyer,” his protagonists were boys my age. There were plenty of scary moments, but there was comedy too, and I liked the combination of those things, and how they outsmarted the grown-ups. I devoured “The Hardy Boys” and Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Three Investigators” series. They also involved kids as protagonists. They were trying to solve crimes and deal with adults who seemed a little dumb at times. I think I read every “Peanuts” comic strip and comic book that Charles Schulz ever wrote. We had a whole shelf of them in our house. It wasn’t what you would call literature, but it was my favorite part of the newspaper every morning. I just wanted Charlie Brown to get to kick that football, but he never got to do it thanks to you-know-who. For some reason I related to that. I must have felt like him a lot.

Advice I would give to myself? I would say, “Listen.”

ABOVE THE GROUND: The True Story of the Troubles in Northern Ireland is now available online and at neighborhood bookstores. More information can be found at:

abovethegroundbook.com

Klinedinst congratulates Mr. Lawton on pursuing his passion to write this compelling new book. To learn more about Mr. Lawton, please visit:

klinedinstlaw.com/profiles/attorney/dan-lawton

About Klinedinst

Klinedinst PC is the go-to firm for clients looking for litigation and trial experience, sophisticated transactional advice, and other solution-oriented legal counsel. Providing legal services across the West, our attorneys are dedicated to fostering trusted relationships with each and every client, to help them achieve their individual goals and objectives. Klinedinst lawyers strive to serve as true business partners, always at the ready to address the legal challenges that businesses are confronted with every day. Whether in court, at the board meeting, or otherwise, KPC is the trusted legal advisor to have by your side.