Bradford B. Kuhn

Kuhn has been a key player in Southern California's push to fight gridlock, representing local officials in the tough process of acquiring the land needed to build new infrastructure such as light rail and bus rapid transit. Kuhn, who chairs the firm's eminent domain and valuation practice group, has been representing Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority in its $6.3 billion extension of the Metro Purple line along Wilshire Boulevard into the city's Westside and the Exposition Metro Line Construction Authority in its extension of the Expo line to connect Culver City and Santa Monica.

One of the biggest disputes to break out over these projects was the Expo authority's need to condemn property housing the popular Bergamot Station Arts Center. After failing to reach agreement with one of the gallery owners, Kuhn helped lead the trial team to fight the gallery's claim for $10 million in compensation. He shut out the gallery's bid to produce experts and shortly after they settled the case for less than 1 percent of what the gallery sought. In another Expo line dispute, Kuhn led a three-week jury trial over the condemnation of a commercial property necessary to build a grade separation. The jury came back with a property valuation the same as Kuhn had posited.

He also helped San Bernardino's public transit agency Omnitrans build a 16-mile bus rapid transit project hold onto crucial federal funding by meeting a tight deadline to acquire roughly 150 parcels along San Bernardino's major commercial corridor.

Taking people's property "is a very sensitive issue and one of the best approaches is to treat it that way ... and really put in the time and attention and focus early on to see how you can minimize the impacts," Kuhn said.

- Fiona Smith