Alan Insul, a Los Angeles lawyer limiting his practice to business, corporate, and real estate cases, offers some candid commentary about his law firms dealing with new economic realities.

It’s tough out there, even for lawyers. From major law firms to small firms, excess is being trimmed in order to better facilitate a nouveau climate urging more cautious business expenditures for legal advice. “The nation’s businesses are pulling in their collective horns beneath the juggernaut of our longest and deepest recession since the Great Depression,” asserts Alan Insul, a Los Angeles lawyer limiting his practice to business, corporate, and real estate cases, “I find that many clients are shedding large law firm representation and looking toward smaller firms for efficient and more cost-effective legal representation.”

A survey of the nation’s top 250 law firms bears out what Insul is saying. During the past year, these apex firms have shed 5,259 lawyers from their payrolls, a drop of 4%. This is the largest lawyer retention downturn since the National Law Journal began collecting such information in 1928 – just prior to the dismal Great Depression. Two other distinct declines, both in the neighborhood of 1 percent, were recorded during the early 1990s. One firm, Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson lost 168 lawyers, a decline of 26.4%.

Other firms are cutting billing rates and pay for associates by up to 20%, primarily in response to clients’ concerns about cutting the costs of legal services.

“It’s a challenging marketplace we’re in now, and a changing one. Clients, in looking toward smaller firms, while not willing to sacrifice on quality, nevertheless are coming to appreciate that the smaller more nimble firm is by definition more flexible, and can very often handle most, if not all, of the same matters previously handled by larger firms,” Insul explains.

During the early 1930s and especially in mid-1937 during the so-called “second wind” of the Great Depression, lawyers too were embroiled in a bleak scenario featuring bread lines and soup kitchens, and a chronic lack of steady employment even for the most qualified and best trained among them. Nowadays, the outlook is more positive for lawyers, especially those willing to make some adjustments. “Making some of these adjustments can even lead many firms and their clients to a stronger business position overall,” Insul concludes.

To learn more, contact Los Angeles business attorney and California corporate lawyer, Alan M. Insul by visiting Insullaw.com.

Alan Insul, a Los Angeles attorney limiting his practice to business, corporate, and real estate, provides pertinent commentary on California Governor’s recent decision to veto a state bar membership dues bill that would have extended the State Bar’s authority to collect annual membership dues through 2010.

On October 13, 2009, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed SB 641, which would have extended the California State Bar’s authority to collect annual membership dues through 2010. Schwarzenegger explained in his letter to Senate that he was returning the measure by Sen. Ellen Corbett, D-San Leandro, without his signature “because the State Bar cannot continue business as usual.”

While the State Bar has enough funds to continue functioning through 2009, Los Angeles attorney Alan Insul, who is limiting his practice to business, corporate, and real estate cases, says that the veto “seems a bit like overkill” and that a “compromise between the Legislature and Governor,” should be worked out soon.

The governor opined that “inefficiencies remain unaddressed” and that the State Bar maintained a “political agenda.” Governor Schwarzenegger also alluded to Sharon Elyce Pearl, the State Bar’s former director of real property, who was charged in April 2009 with one count of embezzlement and six counts of filing false tax returns in the Alameda County Court. She faces up to nine years in prison if convicted on all counts. The governor went on to reference the media leak of the Fifth District Court of Appeal Justice Charles Poochigian’s “not qualified” rating by the State Bar’s Judicial Nominees Evaluation Commission. Poochigian, a former Republican state senator representing the Fresno area, was nominated August 20, three days after the MetNews reported his rating in a column by Editor Roger M. Grace. Schwarzenegger said the commission “by failing to follow the law, damaged its reputation for impartiality and, in turn, the State Bar’s.”

“Some of the points made by Governor Schwarzenegger are difficult to argue with, and certainly possess merit, but the fact is, the State Bar should not be prevented from functioning as normally as possible next year,” Insul asserts, “while scrutiny of the State Bar is essential, so is the State Bar’s role in the state’s justice system, as the governor himself has acknowledged.”

“I’m sure that our State Bar will be reexamining the problems that the governor has noted, but we’re all hopeful that his veto has not placed our very system in any jeopardy,” Insul concludes.

To learn more, contact Los Angeles business attorney and California corporate lawyer, Alan M. Insul by visiting Insullaw.com.

Looming on the horizon is an updated newly revised version of Ground Lease Practice; a practical handbook for lawyers dealing with the complexities of commercial ground lease situations.

Alan Insul, an expert Los Angeles business attorney, consulted on this latest version of Continuing Education of the Bar’s Ground Lease Practice in the complicated area of the rights between the parties in the event of a total or partial destruction of the improvements in situations such as a fire or earthquake. Continuing Education of the Bar is a joint enterprise of the University of California and the State Bar of California.

Commercial ground leases are when the owner of the land leases unimproved land to another party who will build and then own that commercial development. Leases for projects like this may run from 25 to 99 years. Unless the parties agree right up front in a ground lease agreement, the land owner winds up owning the improvements – a rather awkward state of affairs. “The transactions are very complex often involving the land owner, developer, lender and sometimes a large commercial user such as a major department store,” outlined Insul.

Drafting and negotiating solid, long-term ground leases may sound like a fairly straightforward issue. It is anything but straightforward and requires an expert attorney with a fine imagination and vision for the future. The future meaning the ability to balance the short-term goals of a client against a plethora of “what if” issues and conditions that may crop up in a real estate project 30 to 50 or more years down the pike.

It isn’t easy going in the beginning either when the attorney needs to be able to co-ordinate and keep track of the parties, title and interests involved; make sure there is a complete premises description; provide for term, termination and options to extend or buy and deal with issues pertaining to rent, security and other types of payments. “The issues are even more far reaching than that and will also include the not insubstantial matters of construction, maintenance, ownership of improvements, financing, subordination, encumbrances and problems relating to condemnation,” added Insul.

It’s interesting to note that there is the distinct possibility that a major project in Beverly Hills may possibly have more residual value at the end of a ground lease situation as compared to a project developed to provide commercial support for the re-development of a blighted community which may or may not succeed in the long-term.

“A project in Beverly Hills may be more likely to have residual value at the end of the ground lease rather than a project developed to provide commercial support for a redevelopment of a blighted community which may or may not succeed over the long-term,” said Insul.

The content contained within this feature is not intended as legal advice and does not constitute an attorney-client relationship. To learn more, contact Los Angeles business attorney and California corporate lawyer, Alan M. Insul by visiting Insullaw.com.