Carolyn Hoecker Luedtke

Building contractor Jacobs Facilities Inc. was in trouble after the California Judicial Council contended it did not have to pay $23 million for Jacobs' repairing and maintaining courthouses across the state because of a lapse in Jacobs' state contractor's license. A trial court found for Jacobs, but a state appellate panel tentatively sided with the council. Jacobs called Luedtke and her Munger Tolles colleague John W. Spiegel to try to get the money.

"The statute in California has very strict licensing rules to protect consumers," Luedtke said. At a retrial on the issue, she and her team argued that the licensing issue arose amid a brief period of corporate confusion while Jacobs' parent company reorganized its subsidiaries and that her client had been in substantial compliance in good faith with the law. After a monthlong bench trial in 2016, San Francisco County Superior Court Judge A. James Robertson II required the council to pay for the work performed and that Jacobs was entitled to costs. Judicial Council of California v. Jacobs Facilities Inc., CGC-09-495036 (S.F. Super. Ct., filed Dec. 7, 2009).

"It was supposed to be a three-day trial but it turned into a three-week marathon with detailed testimony about the nature of my client's performance," Luedtke said. "There were interesting questions of statutory interpretation, and in the end the judge restored the earlier judgment. We were quite pleased, because the appellate decision, if it stood, would have been devastating to contractors." The Judicial Council has announced it will appeal.

Luedtke was tapped to be a key player on the Munger Tolles team providing pro bono support through working groups organized by the San Francisco district attorney to investigate potential bias in the San Francisco Police Department in response to rising concern over officer conduct. The yearlong investigation found that the SFPD suffered from a lack of oversight as well as institutional biases.

In the Jacobs case as in others, Luedtke said there's a positive aspect to being called in by a client to take over a case from previous counsel. "For a trial lawyer, it's all teed up for you," she said. "Parachuting in on the eve of trial lets you tell the client's story in your own way with the evidentiary cards you have been dealt. It's fun."

— John Roemer