Oct. 16, 2014
Liebert Cassidy Whitmore
See more on Liebert Cassidy WhitmoreLos Angeles, San Francisco, Fresno and San Diego | Public sector labor and employment law
The firm is a public sector labor and employment law behemoth with four offices and 72 attorneys. It boasts it has represented 66 percent of California's cities, 88 percent of counties, and 89 percent of community college districts.
In just the past 18 months alone, partner Peter J. Brown has negotiated 26 major labor agreements in Southern California.
Despite the firm's size, managing partner Scott Tiedemann says the firm is a true boutique, advising almost exclusively on public sector labor law with a small smattering of private nonprofit clients mixed in.
"The spirit of public service is consistent throughout all our clients," said Tiedemann, who added that in the handful of occasions he has represent for-profit employers he has not enjoyed it as much. "Profit is not a motive" for the firm's clients.
Unlike in the private sector, where firms frequently relocate or outsource work to avoid unions, local governments aren't going anywhere. As such, Tiedemann said, they have a vested long-term interest in maintaining good relations with their employees.
"They are really always trying to do the right thing," he said. "I always have the feeling we are doing the right thing."
The firm, founded in 1980, devotes its practice evenly between public sector labor and employment law. Some of its bigger clients include the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside, as well as the cities of Los Angeles and El Segundo.
It has represented local government at the bargaining table in both boom and busts. The firm is currently representing the Orange County Fire Authority, which provides fire services to 23 cities and Orange County, in negotiations with a 1,000-member firefighters' union.
The firm has recently been involved with several prominent public sector cases. It is currently representing the Chino Valley Independent Fire District in a case before the California Supreme Court that will decide whether a prevailing defendant in an employment discrimination lawsuit is entitled to recover litigation costs from the plaintiff. Â
The firm successfully defended Los Angeles County in wage-hour litigation and subsequent grievances filed by a firefighters union. When the county's Employee Relations Commission granted the unions' request to arbitrate five class claims in one 10,000-employee arbitration, the firm obtained a writ of mandate overturning the commission's decision.
"When our clients have really high stakes issues, they choose to come to us," he said.
Tiedemann said he knew in law school that he did not want to work for a big full-service firm. He likes that the partners do not have "books of business."
"I share my clients with my partners," he said. They are not his clients, "they are the firm's clients. Our partners don't leave except for retirement. Its a nice thing to be in a small firm.
"We are doing really sophisticated work for public agencies at a level that one might expect at a large national or international law firm."
- Brandon Ortiz
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