May 25, 2017
Susan L. Brandt-Hawley
See more on Susan L. Brandt-HawleyBrandt-Hawley Law Group Glen Ellen
Brandt-Hawley gets to experience something many attorneys do not - seeing her victories out in the real world.
Take the Guerneville Bridge, recently seen in news photos stretched just above the flooding Russian River. In a 1988 case, she stopped the California Department of Transportation from demolishing the 1922 structure. It is now such a beloved symbol of the town the local radio station is named after it.
She won again on April 25, when a Los Angeles judge ruled in favor of her client, the Los Angeles Conservancy. The group sued to preserve the Lytton Savings building, a distinctive postwar bank in Hollywood.
Brandt-Hawley has long made her career in a very specific corner of the law: the interaction between the California Environmental Quality Act and historic preservation.
"People think of CEQA as only involving the natural environment, air and water," said the founder of the Brandt-Hawley Law Group in Glen Ellen. "But from the beginning CEQA also applied to the built environment."
Her firm bills itself as "preservation lawyers." Appropriately, the firm resides in a house built in 1905.
They often work with local preservation societies who want to save buildings that aren't yet listed on historic registries. Sometimes cases are filed just ahead of a wrecking ball.
Through a concept known as adaptive reuse, she said, an existing structure can often become an integral part of the new development slated for the area. For instance, architect Frank Gehry is working on a design to integrate the Lytton Savings building into the 330,000 square foot development going up around it.
"It's not a matter of stopping development," Brandt-Hawley said. "It's about incorporating resources when you can, rather than demolishing them."
She has won a long list of awards for her work, including the Daily Journal's California Lawyer of the Year in 2001 in the environmental law category. That recognized her role in a case that now prevents public entities from avoiding CEQA review for projects placed on local ballot measures.
"It was one of the first California Supreme Court cases to take on historical resources," she said.
It wasn't the only time her work was preserved in precedent; Brandt-Hawley can claim roles in precedents in all six California courts of appeal. She is the vice president of the California Academy of Appellate Lawyers.
— Malcolm Maclachlan
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