In Suing Law Firm, District Takes Risks

The Los Angeles Board of Education’s decision to sue its real estate attorney for malpractice could deny the school district the services of experienced lawyers on other important matters, including collective bargaining, officials said Friday.

Besides representing the district on the environmentally plagued Belmont Learning Complex, over which it is being sued, O’Melveny & Myers has long advised the district on a wide range of legal issues.

The firm recently negotiated a labor contract that requires contractors to hire union labor for school bond construction projects, a provision facing possible litigation. It is also the district’s counsel in a complicated case seeking to recover about $50 million from the Donald Trump organization over the scuttled condemnation of the former Ambassador Hotel.

Although neither O’Melveny nor the district has yet severed their relationship, it appears likely that one or both will.

“We’re going to look at that immediately and carefully, but that appears quite probable,” said district general counsel Richard K. Mason.

The school board decided to take on one of the city’s oldest and most prestigious law firms in the wake of a report by its top auditor, Don Mullinax. The report, made public Tuesday, recommended that the board sue the firm and four other contractors for problems with the project west of downtown.

The suit contends that O’Melveny partner David Cartwright misled district officials and the school board by repeatedly downplaying the significance of contamination on the site of the half-completed high school. Recent studies have shown that explosive methane pervades the 35-acre site that is on a former oil field, requiring the district to conduct costly remediation or abandon the project.

Robert Bonner, a partner with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, the law firm defending O’Melveny, said both parties will have to evaluate their relationship, but that it was possible for the firm to continue representing the district on matters other than Belmont.

The firm has handled negotiations with the district’s nine employee bargaining units whose three-year contracts with all those groups expire in June. Negotiations on new contracts, to start early next year, are expected to hinge on two contentious issues--pay and employee accountability.

Replacing the knowledge and experience of the O’Melveny attorneys would be difficult, Mason conceded.

“O’Melveny, in particular in bargaining, has been our main resource for counsel for 30 years,” Mason said. “There has been a long line of eminent negotiators for the district, through and including [bargaining expert] Fram Virjee. His replacement will face a formidable task.”

The legal community’s reactions to the board’s action were varied Friday.

USC law professor Erwin Chemerinsky said the district is pursuing a sound course.

“Because of the seriousness of the allegations, I think it’s appropriate for the school board to pursue litigation, even if it means they’re going to need to find counsel for other matters,” said Chemerinsky, an expert in public responsibility law.

But Laurie Levenson, associate dean of Loyola Law School, said the firm will probably argue that district officials are making it a scapegoat for their errors.

“You’re really taking on an establishment,” she said. “One would think O’Melveny & Myers would fight hard to protect its reputation.”

The suit, filed Thursday by the firm McClincock, Weston, Benshoof, Rochefort, Rubalcava & MacCuish, makes no allegation of a conflict of interest--a primary contention in the Mullinax report.

The complaint quoted Cartwright as telling district officials that their concerns about the need for further environmental assessment reflected an “iconic devotion to [the California Environmental Quality Act] as a moral [rather than procedural] statute.”

Speaking on behalf of O’Melveny, Bonner said he was gratified that there was no conflict allegation, but that he saw absolutely no basis for any malpractice claim.