Britt K. Strottman

On Sept. 9, Strottman marked a grim anniversary for the seventh time.

“You are supposed to feel safe at home,” said the partner in the Oakland office of Meyers Nave. “People were sitting down for dinner and were incinerated.”

She was speaking of the 2010 Pacific Gas & Electric Company gas line rupture that killed eight people in San Bruno. The ensuing legal battles between the city, the utility and the California Public Utilities Commission would consume the next six years of her life.

In a series of cases, Strottman and her team obtained more than $120 million in settlements against the company. They also helped expose a series of inappropriate communications between the utility and its regulator. Along the way, she has become a kind of evangelist for the legal power of local governments.

“It is rare for a city of San Bruno’s size to hire a lawyer and a PR agency and a financial consultant to meet every week for five years with the goal of making sure this never happens again,” Strottman said.

In the last year, Strottman has moved on to new clients. But she has kept the same opponent.

In June, she accepted a $1.6 million out-of-court settlement from PG&E for the City of Carmel over a 2014 incident in which a gas leak destroyed a home. Luckily, the owner wasn’t home and no one was hurt.

She represents Calaveras County in negotiations over a fire that started — oddly, on Sept. 9, 2015 — after PG&E left a single tree standing next to a power line. The Butte Fire devoured more than 70,000 acres and 900 structures, killing two people.

In November, she was part of a team that helped convince PG&E to pay an $85 million settlement to San Luis Obispo County, several coastal cities and a school district over the closure of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. The money will help replace local property taxes and other revenue when the state’s last nuclear power plant shuts down in 2025.

“I am seeing a change in PG&E’s corporate attitude,” Strottman said. “PG&E is not as contentious and litigious.”

— Malcolm Maclachlan