Daniel S. Gershwin

The California Environmental Quality Act or CEQA is known as one of the most complex and technical state laws on the books. But that hasn't stopped Daniel S. Gershwin, a former economics major, from becoming a top CEQA attorney. In fact, he said, his liberal arts training helped him become a good communicator, something he said comes up surprisingly often in his work.

"I have to make sure whatever the technical experts are saying is digestible by members of the community, by elected officials who at some point will be asked to take a vote on the project," said the partner with Coblentz Patch Duffy & Bass LLP in San Francisco.

He's also taken those communications skills to the web as one of the main contributors to Coblentz Patch Duffy & Bass' Unfamiliar Terrain blog on land use. While this is mostly good for "name recognition," he said, it's also helped bring in business after he posted on a "very specific" San Francisco law that someone was looking for advice on.

Gershwin said he's been too busy to blog much over the last year due to a highly-publicized project. The new Los Angeles Clippers NBA arena on land mainly owned by the City of Inglewood is one the recent matters he has worked on. Gershwin said the firm is known for its work on new stadiums for the San Francisco Giants and 49ers. The latest project is especially exciting, he said, given the team; the Clippers unveiled renderings of the proposed 18,500 arena last month just days signing two of the league's biggest free agents.

"Anytime as a sports fan you have an opportunity to work on a new arena for what's really an exciting up and coming team," Gershwin said.

At age 38, Gershwin brings a varied resume to his work. He spent years between his undergraduate degree and law school as an education policy researcher. This gave him a strong public policy background which he uses in his work, much of which involves advising clients on how to avoid litigation and other impediments.

This came up in another recent development currently under construction: a 600-bed residence hall at the University of San Francisco. The project will help students stay out of one of the most expensive rental markets in the country, he said. Unlike many projects in a city notorious for NIMBY activity, this one faced little pushback.

"The university did a really good job of outreach on the front end to cut away at a lot of the opposition you would normally expect," Gershwin said.

-- Malcolm Maclachlan