Ryan P. Mcginley-Stempel 

Ryan P. McGinley-Stempel is a partner in the government and litigation practice groups at Renne Public Law Group, the 25-attorney public agency firm launched in 2002 by former San Francisco City Attorney Louise P. Renne.

He was inspired to join the legal profession by working with at-risk youth in Harlem, New York City, in an enrichment program called StreetSquash. “I was drawn to helping out in the community, and it dawned on me that I could make a broader-based impact as a lawyer,” he said.

At Stanford Law School, McGinley-Stempel was a student attorney in the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic and later clerked for a district court judge in Texas, a circuit judge at the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and for Associate Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar of the state Supreme Court.

Cuéllar had been one of McGinley-Stempel’s Stanford professors, and he had the young student fill out an index card describing his interests. “I put appellate litigator by instinct, and it came true. And Professor Cuéllar later became a recommender for the clerkships. He’s been a thoughtful intellectual force in my life.”

McGinley-Stempel worked at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP for several years before joining the Renne firm. “I had good mentors there, and there was a very active appellate practice.”

But at Renne, McGinley-Stempel achieved an uncommon feat: in May and July this year, he won grants of review by the state Supreme Court in two of his cases for municipal clients.

One case is a complex tax matter for Los Angeles County involving the assessment value of hotel properties at the LA Live complex in downtown. Olympic & Georgia Partners v. County of Los Angeles, S280000 (Ca. S. Ct., rev. granted July 12, 2023).

The parties’ view of the value for tax purposes differs by about $150 million. “This is about getting a fair shake for the general taxpayer in the broader sense,” McGinley-Stempel said. “No, I didn’t think I’d be getting into the intricacies of tax law, but it’s been really interesting.”

The other case involves McGinley-Stempel’s representation of a public hospital for the medically indigent and its obligations under the state Labor Code and the Private Attorneys General Act. Stone et al. v. Alameda Health System, S279137 (Ca. S. Ct., rev. granted May 17, 2023).

The cases are in the briefing stage. McGinley-Stempel may argue them both. “At my level of practice, it’s pretty rare to have two such cases at once,” he said.

—John Roemer