William V. O'Connor

Unmanned aircraft systems, or drones, have drastically changed the aviation industry over the past year with attorneys like O'Connor scrambling to meet the legal needs of old and new clients.

O'Connor co-leads the drone practice group at Morrison & Foerster, which incorporates various practices from agriculture to energy.

"Getting the group going was an organic process," he said. "I needed to formalize the group, and I didn't want it to be a bunch of aviation attorneys, but cross-practice and cross-office. It's been wildly successful over the last year."

Even with a year of law firms creating specialized drone practices to meet client demand, the federal government has yet to adopt a regulatory framework on drones. O'Connor helps clients file for an exemption to the Federal Aviation Administration's Section 333 of the Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 to fly a drone in the national airspace.

"The challenging part is the work, of course, because the issue is there's a lot of regulatory uncertainties," he said.

As the industry dealt with drones in 2014, it also grappled with three major airline disasters and the aftermath of 2013's Asiana Airlines 214 crash in San Francisco. O'Connor said litigation from these disasters may come stateside in the next year.

O'Connor was also a lead attorney for the city of Santa Monica suing the federal government for requiring it to operate the city's airport in perpetuity under a decades-old contract. The city wants the right to determine the property's use. City of Santa Monica v. USA, et al., 213cv8046 (9th Cir., filed April 11, 2014).

Santa Monica Airport is 2 miles from O'Connor's hometown of Venice Beach, where he developed a love for aviation, flying his father's plane. Now with a 11-month-old daughter with wife Terren O'Connor of Cooley LLP and a new practice he's just helping others fly.

- Kibkabe Araya