ONE Connection | 50 Years in Los Angeles

Echoing Frederick Jackson Turner's thesis, for its first half-century, the LA Office has been a great gateway office—the fledgling that helped launch the Firm's national expansion; the first California office; the departure point for the Asia-Pacific practice; a stimulus for increased racial, ethnic, and gender diversity; and an incubator for several practice areas. It will be fun to watch its continued contributions.

When I joined Jones Day in 1987, the Firm consisted of about 400 lawyers. Los Angeles was the largest city in a state that became the largest in the country. The Firm viewed the Los Angeles Office as the gateway to the Pacific, with the potential for tremendous expansion on the West Coast. By the time I had spent two decades at the Firm, we had added Irvine, Silicon Valley, San Francisco, and San Diego to the growing list of Firm offices to assist with Jones Day's expansion in Asia and elsewhere.

From my perspective, Jones Day presented a personal opportunity different from those offered by the indigenous Los Angeles firms. Of significance to me was the Firm's attitude about diversity and inclusion, which was unlike what I had experienced in Los Angeles. Still, it was not an easy decision to leave the bench and take a chance with a firm and people with whom I had no prior relationship. But it worked and I never looked back. Having been raised in Los Angeles, I was able to use my relationships in business and government to develop a practice with the help of many skilled partners and associates. I felt it was important for the growth of lawyers to be involved in the community, to seek out public-service opportunities, and to be active in bar activities. These opportunities led to contacts that have enhanced our lawyers' personal and professional lives. It's very satisfying to see so many associates that I worked with become partners and leaders of the Firm.

When Jones Day first came to California in 1973, opening Los Angeles as only its third office, I was just three years out of law school and still at the DOJ Antitrust Division. Thirty-three years later, I became Partner-in-Charge of the California Region, by then consisting of the five offices that exist today. Now it is 17 years later, and I am retired after 38 years at the Firm, but the LA Office is still going strong a half-century after its founding.

The office is in some ways a metaphor for the Firm as a whole—it started small, had its periods of challenge and difficulty, but just kept working at it, and today it is a strong and important part of our California Region presence, which is itself a very significant part of Jones Day. The explanation for the success of both the Firm and the office lies partly with the many lawyers who have made great contributions, people like Ellis McKay, Rick McKnight, and Elwood Lui, and today, too many strong lawyers to be named here. But perhaps the most important reason for this success has been the commitment by everyone to the common good, what I have called the "d'Artagnan principle," or "all for one, one for all." This is Jones Day's core belief: that we, the lawyers and staff, rise and fall together, not as individuals seeking to maximize our own short-term benefits. Fifty years of the Los Angeles Office is a great illustration of the strength of that concept—and worthy of congratulations.

The Los Angeles Office was the earliest manifestation of Jones Day's plan to become the country's first truly national firm and, ultimately, One Firm Worldwide. The office represents our belief that our clients are best served when we are in the important commercial and financial centers where they do business. For this reason, our investment in Los Angeles, just like subsequent investments in dozens of cities around the world, reflects our intention to put our clients first and to grow by satisfying them with the creativity, efficiency, and quality of our advocacy.

Los Angeles was Jones Day's beachhead into California, an economy marked by great size and opportunity but also by complex, and at times maddening, regulatory challenges. For a half-century now, we have been helping our clients navigate those challenges so that they can seize the opportunities the Golden State offers.

For decades, California has been the center of innovation in the United States and home to some of the most important companies in the world. California is also the largest and most diverse state in the nation. The connection between innovation and diversity is no coincidence. As Californians, we dream big and we welcome newcomers with good ideas. When Jones Day put down roots in California 50 years ago, we had that same spirit of optimism and the desire to build something great that is a necessary ingredient for success in the Golden State. Now, five decades later, our team is strong and those California roots are deep. The Los Angeles Office is the largest and most diverse of Jones Day's five California offices, leading the way with a bright promise for our future.

As a summer associate in the Los Angeles Office in 1986 and a new lawyer beginning in 1987, I had sought out Jones Day because, in addition to being a top-quality law firm, it had a truly national—and, at that time, a recently expanded international—platform that I hoped could provide at least the opportunity for the development of a cross-border disputes practice when such a thing didn't really exist in LA. Looking back over the last 37 years, I realize how blessed I am to have spent most of my career litigating cases and conducting investigations with colleagues all over the world, mostly for clients based or having operations in California, as a member of what is now aptly called the "Global Disputes Practice." In the process, I quickly came to appreciate the meaning of "One Firm Worldwide" and the Firm values underlying that motto.

The Firm's commitment to our Los Angeles Office over the last 50 years has enabled us to serve more effectively and efficiently the needs of clients in this vibrant city and up and down the state. Today, as one of five offices in California, we remain committed to collaboration and unity of purpose for the benefit of the Firm. The lawyers of the generation that preceded us, including legal giants like Rick McKnight and Elwood Lui, were equally committed to these values, and we are better because of them. The LA Office proudly reflects the rich diversity of our city. It is an honor to lead this office and the dedicated, talented people who help make this the greatest law firm in the world.

We are very proud of the dynamic and diverse partnership we have grown in Los Angeles. The Firm has steadily elevated Los Angeles associates to partnership in various practices, and two-thirds of our Los Angeles partners are women or from diverse backgrounds; nearly half have spent their entire careers at Jones Day. That says a great deal about how we embody the Firm's values, as well as the commitment of our partners to Jones Day and to each other.

The establishment of the Los Angeles Office 50 years ago was a critical step in creating a truly national law firm, as well as a prerequisite to the Firm's international success. As our leaders envisioned at that time, Los Angeles became a critical market for our existing clients, a source of new ones, and a steppingstone to markets abroad. I have been fortunate to see the office grow and mature, becoming a driving force for the region and the global Firm. Our relationship with Experian, which began about halfway through the office's tenure and has benefited virtually every office we now have worldwide, is illustrative of the contributions contemplated when this office opened half a century ago.

As the second-largest city in the United States, with a $1 trillion economy and a massive consumer market, Los Angeles is an essential ingredient for the success of our clients and the Firm. For the last 50 years, the Los Angeles Office has skillfully advocated for global clients facing the increasingly hostile regulatory and legal environment in this market. The LA Office has been able to flourish over the years because of its people—it has attracted and retained highly talented and diverse lawyers as a result of its investment in its personnel, clients, and community.

Our Los Angeles Office has been central to the fabric of the Firm, both foundationally and financially, for the past 50 years. The investment in Los Angeles as our third office demonstrated Jones Day's ethos and commitment to "we" over "me," ensuring the best interests of the Firm over the long term. That investment has been rewarded with the many Firm leaders, outstanding trial and regulatory lawyers, and exceptional client results the Los Angeles Office has produced. And the office continues to make an outsized contribution to Jones Day financially and remains a perennial workhorse for the Firm.

California—and Los Angeles in particular—has long been at the cutting, sometimes bleeding, edge of complex tort and business litigation. Los Angeles often represents the front line for Firm clients, where novel and emerging theories of liability are being tested in courts daily. With more than 40% of all U.S. exports and imports passing through the city's ports, Los Angeles also plays a central role in the continuing globalization of world markets. Jones Day's One Firm Worldwide philosophy allows Los Angeles-based lawyers to have truly national and international practices, while providing Firm clients around the world with access to experienced and effective representation in Los Angeles on emerging issues that are core to their business operations.

The Los Angeles Office was Jones Day's first office west of Cleveland, opened at a time when law firms simply were not expanding to California, and certainly not as part of a fully integrated law firm. Opening the Los Angeles Office was a huge risk, but it ultimately generated significant rewards.

For most of its existence, the LA Office has been focused on high-stakes litigation, from antitrust to product liability to construction to insurance, attracting litigators who could actually try these cases. Over its 50 years, our LA lawyers have tried a disproportionate number of cases, winning nearly all of them. All the while, the office maintained its distinctive identity within Jones Day, characterized by collegiality and commitment to the Firm and the practice of law. And, of course, the Los Angeles Office became the hub for the California Region, which now boasts five offices.

The opening of the Los Angeles Office 50 years ago established Jones Day as a truly national law firm and marked the beginning of the Firm's success in California. In the years that followed, the growth of the California Region and the opening of four additional offices in the Golden State would not have been possible without the leadership and support of the team in Los Angeles. From lawyers to staff, the Los Angeles Office continues to play a significant role in the achievements of the other offices up and down the state.

More than 25 years ago, when I joined Jones Day, the Los Angeles Office was still perceived by many—and criticized by the entrenched CA firms—as an "outsider." But true to our usual practice, the Firm never cared what other people said; instead, we continued to attract and develop talented lawyers dedicated to the Firm, our clients, and the community. Today, many of those other firms no longer exist; by contrast, not only is Jones Day Los Angeles still here, but we have helped generate four other incredibly important Firm offices.

The Los Angeles Office continues to model the best of who we are as a Firm—a commitment to the whole, diversity in our people and practices, and a dedication to our clients and community—and that is true not only of the lawyers, but also of the phenomenal staff, many of whom have been with the Firm for decades. We are all fortunate to have had such a great foundation on which to build our CA presence.

The Los Angeles Office of Jones Day has been at the heart of significant legal disputes throughout the state as well as nationally and globally, resolving some of the most challenging and complex problems for our clients. We are a leader in sectors that remain essential to the California economy—energy, labor and employment, antitrust, real estate, government regulation, and transportation, to name just a few. Yet we are flexible enough to creatively and effectively handle legal issues arising from new technologies and other innovations. I am proud to be a lawyer in the LA Office.

California is a land of opportunity. But the "California dream" can become a nightmare for clients facing lawsuits, regulations, and other pressures. The Los Angeles Office is perfectly poised to help our clients from around the world navigate the challenges of doing business in California. Drawing on a diverse and talented pool of lawyers and strategically located within the state, the Los Angeles Office provides seamless full-service representation from the boardroom to the courtroom.