Heather L. Rosing

San Diego

Professional Liability, Judicial Ethics

Heather L. Rosing is the president and CEO of Klinedinst PC, where she serves as chairperson of the professional liability department. She’s been with the firm for 26 years and was long the chief financial officer.

“I’m so proud of what this represents for women,” Rosing said of her elevation last year to the firm’s top leadership posts, which she took over from founder John D. Klinedinst. “There’s a lot of dynamic activity at this firm right now.”

During her time at Klinedinst, she has not only represented lawyers in complex malpractice, fraud and D&O liability matters as a leading advisor in legal ethics and risk management. Rosen has gone beyond individual cases and clients in a career that has been a deep dive into the principles underpinning the legal profession. Indeed, she has altered the profession itself in California as a leading proponent of splitting the State Bar to divorce its regulatory and discipline function from control by the lawyers it oversees.

That eliminated a built-in conflict. Once the split was final, in 2018, Rosen, a former State Bar trustee, became the first president of the new California Lawyers Association and steered it towards becoming an education-focused professional society. The State Bar became the profession’s regulatory agency.

“My dad was a lawyer, and I’ve always been immersed in the practice,” she said. “I started handling legal malpractice cases early and I still do. That morphed into a lot of ethics work, and it clicked with something in my brain. I loved it from the start.”

Now, in a profession roiled by ethics concerns exposed by the disgrace of prominent practitioner Thomas V. Girardi, Rosing is a steadying influence who applauds the State Bar’s announced plan to retain an outside law firm to investigate its handling of complaints against the Girardi & Keese co-founder. The firm, bankrupt, shuttered in January 2021 amid an outcry over embezzlement claims by former clients. The State Bar ordered Girardi not eligible to practice in 2021. Disciplinary charges are pending.

“The uniform sentiment is that it’s just really bad and reflects poorly on the profession,” Rosing said of Girardi’s downfall. “It’s highlighted legal ethics in a very dramatic way. The good out of it is that the bar will begin random audits of trust accounts, which was at the core of Mr. Girardi’s problems. None of this is good for lawyers, but that’s the reality.”

Also true, Rosing emphasized, is that honesty is the norm in the profession. “Most attorneys are conscientious about handling clients’ money. And the ethics landscape is complex. Ethics is not morality, it’s following a set of complex rules—so complex that it’s necessary to have an ethicist at your disposal.”

-- John Roemer