ACLU veteran drawn by Public Counsel's economic justice push

By John Roemer

Daily Journal Staff Writer

It was the lure of a fresh economic justice advocacy model and maybe the appeal of a larger firm that drew Mark D. Rosenbaum and others to Los Angeles' Public Counsel this week, surprising many.

Plus, Rosenbaum had turned 65 and could draw a pension from the ACLU of Southern California, where he'd worked for 40 years.

Once the pro bono arm of the Los Angeles and Beverly Hills bar associations, Public Counsel is now an energized firm eager to attract top talent - some of it from the ACLU - and turn it loose to file impact class actions, building on its deep links to private firms.

"Economic justice in all its forms is the civil rights issue of the 21st century," Rosenbaum said in a media statement. He could not be reached for further comment for this story.

His new approach fits with emerging public attitudes toward the income gulf plaguing American society, as recently denounced by economic populists such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat.

Joining Rosenbaum at Public Counsel this week were name partner Anne K. Richardson of Hadsell Stormer Richardson & Rennick LLP and emeritus professor of public interest law Gary L. Blasi of UCLA School of Law.

"This was a coup for Public Counsel," said Richardson's former law partner, Dan L. Stormer. "Mark is a spectacular attorney, as is Anne, as is Gary."

In opting to move, Rosenbaum may have been attracted by Public Counsel's size and scope.

Public Counsel is a bigger firm with strong ties to the private bar and an emphasis on poverty law, said Sande L. Buhai, an authority on public interest law at Loyola Law School, who tracks the local pro bono players.

"Public Counsel is the grandfather of the pro bono model, with incredible reach into private firms," Buhai said. "Mark will have a lot of support to leverage."

The ACLU model depends largely on its own lawyers, she said. "The ACLU has been an in-house litigation firm with some private bar involvement. Partnering with private lawyers has been a newer thing for them."

Public Counsel has 61 lawyers; the Southern California ACLU has 14. Public Counsel's 2013 revenues were about $11 million, compared to the $6.5 million the ACLU recorded, according to figures posted in their annual reports.

"Some public interest firms would prefer to have the private bar just give money," said Buhai, a former ACLU board member. "The ACLU's core service delivery model has not been impact litigation so much as a focus on protecting the Constitution."

The kinds of class actions that Rosenbaum appeared to envision at Public Counsel are massive undertakings that require the resources large firms can supply, Buhai said.

"As the class action impact litigation model takes off, Mark may have wanted to expand his horizons at Public Counsel," she added.

"We're the law firm for the nonprofit sector," said Public Counsel's communications director, Michael Soller, himself a former ACLU staffer. "The community is our client."

Carol A. Sobel, a Rosenbaum friend and former ACLU colleague who is currently a Santa Monica civil rights attorney, said, "Mark has been so locked into educational cases" at the ACLU. "He qualified for the ACLU pension and saw a great opportunity to build a new program from scratch."

The ACLU, where Rosenbaum exited as chief counsel, has itself long promoted economic justice on behalf of low-income schoolchildren, homeless veterans and others who are economically vulnerable.

Public Counsel's profile rose in 2008 when it launched a bolder, more aggressive litigation posture after Hernan D. Vera took over as president and CEO after years as an O'Melveny & Myers LLP litigator.

Before then, Public Counsel was seen as a staid pro bono clearinghouse that matched law firms with feel-good adoption and homeless cases.

Vera recruited Catherine E. Lhamon from the ACLU, where she had been assistant legal director. She became Public Counsel's director of impact litigation before leaving in 2013 to become assistant secretary for civil rights in the Obama administration's Department of Education.

By 2012, Rosenbaum, still at the ACLU, had taken notice of Public Counsel's growing presence.

"I think over the past few years - and especially with Catherine being head of impact litigation and with leadership giving her free rein to develop a docket consistent with its overall goals - [Public Counsel] has become a very major force in the civil rights community," he told the Daily Journal then.

In 2009, Lhamon and several on Public Counsel's board expanded its litigation program to include an Opportunity Under Law component.

Among its successes: An April filing and settlement with Los Angeles officials that resolved claims by tens of thousands who alleged they were denied benefits under a subsistence program for the destitute. Guillory v. County of Los Angeles, BC 541823 (Los Angeles County Superior Court, filed April 8, 2014).

Those credited with helping originate the economic justice program included three who further illustrated Public Counsel's connections to the private bar: board members Brian R. Strange of Strange & Carpenter, Roman M. Silberfeld of Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi LLP and David G. Johnson of Act 4 Entertainment.

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