Kaye, McLane, Bednarski & Litt LLP

Criminal Defense and Civil Rights

Los Angeles

Kaye, McLane, Bednarski & Litt opened its doors in 2003 when three senior deputy federal public defenders decided to band together in the name of civil rights.

"We all come from a world based on a righteousness for being the voice for people," said Ronald O. Kaye. "It takes that kind of consciousness to help people from often oppressive government prosecution and hold that system accountable through civil rights work."

The original trio of Kaye, David S. McLane and Marilyn E. Bednarski started out, naturally, doing criminal defense work. But overtime, after a couple high-profile cases and the addition of respected civil rights attorney Barrett S. Litt, the practice has migrated to a heavy load of civil rights cases, including wrongful imprisonment and class actions.

"The only way to hold municipalities accountable is by sticking them with a huge judgment, either through a trial or settlement, because it applies the pressure to create change," Kaye said. "It's a natural outgrowth of our public defender service."

The firm's big breakthrough into civil rights came from a wrongful imprisonment case filed against the City of Long Beach in 2004. The case involved a veteran who served 24 years in custody after being accused of murder. The case ultimately made it to the U.S. Supreme Court and settled. Goldstein v. City of Long Beach, 603 F.Supp.2d 1242 (2009).

Since then, the firm has had an influx of civil rights cases linked to errors in the criminal justice system, according to Kaye.

Most recently, the firm represented gangsters who alleged they were being beaten at Men's Central Jail. Rodriguez v. County of Los Angeles, 10-cv-06342 (C.D. Cal., filed Aug. 25, 2010). The firm helped the men sue 28 deputy sheriffs for what they characterized as systemic beatings. In May, the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed an award of $710,000 in compensatory damages and $240,000 in punitive damages for the plaintiffs and $6 million in attorney fees, the largest attorney award for fees in a non-class action jail case in California history, according to Kaye, based on the difficulty of the litigation and the challenge of representing convicted inmates against law enforcement in a jail conflict.

"It was a super risky case representing plaintiffs inherently perceived as untrustworthy, but we went to trial and it was a wonderful investment," Kaye said. "The business model piggybacks on the lawyering."

The firm still maintains a foothold in criminal trials. Bednarski, who handles most criminal cases for the firm, said that staying in criminal court is essential to the firm's success going forward.

In one recent case, Bednarski successfully swayed a federal court to suppress evidence against her client, a suspected drug trafficker, because of the warrantless use of a GPS tracker. United States v. Ignjatov, 17-222(A)-JGB (C.D. Cal., filed Nov. 8, 2017). The decision is one of first impression in the 9th Circuit.

"Our first three years we were almost entirely criminal so we figured out how to litigate well and stay within our means," Bednarski said. "We have enough money to do the intensive work that may come up and a lot of it has to do with carefully choosing cases."

Whether it's criminal or civil, the partners at Kaye, McLane, Bednarski & Litt scrutinize each case that comes to them to make sure they're taking the right risks.

"We're very careful about the cases we take," Bednarski said. "So far we've been right in our instincts and vetting process. We're super collaborative; we figure out weaknesses, and sometimes you take a greater risk because you feel like it's the right thing to do."

-- Paula Lehman-Ewing