Lanza & Smith PLC

Focus and practice areas

Based in Irvine, within Orange County, California, the firm works in business litigation and transactional law. It handles disputes and deals for companies and the people who run them. Its litigation work covers breach of contract, unfair competition, shareholder disputes, fraud, and business torts. It also takes on civil RICO litigation, a federal claim that centers on patterns of racketeering activity.

Real estate is a second strand of the practice. The firm handles commercial and residential disputes along with the transactions tied to them. Contract disputes and broader civil litigation fill out the courtroom side, and the firm appears in both state and federal courts. It also represents parties in arbitration and mediation, so some matters resolve in those forums before trial.

The transactional side

The firm also does business transactions and corporate counsel. This is the work companies handle outside of a dispute: forming and structuring entities, drafting and reviewing contracts, and advising directors and officers on decisions. It sits alongside the litigation practice, so the same firm can paper a deal and, if it comes to that, defend it.

The automotive industry is a distinct niche here. Lanza & Smith advises dealers, repair shops, and car collectors. In my opinion that focus is worth noting, because vehicle and dealership disputes carry their own regulations and industry customs that a general practice may not track closely.

How the team is built

The firm calls itself a boutique, and the roster matches that description. The site names four attorneys: Anthony Lanza, Brodie Smith, Jennifer Tanios, and Myle Nguyen. The Lanza and Smith names carry through to the firm's title and its filing as a Professional Law Corporation.

Together the attorneys report over 65 years of combined legal experience, given as a group total. For a client, a figure like that points to a bench of seasoned lawyers behind the two named partners. The firm also lists an AV Preeminent peer review rating through Martindale-Hubbell, a mark based on how other lawyers and judges score a firm on legal ability and ethics.

A small team shapes how work gets staffed. With four attorneys, the people a client meets early tend to be the same people who handle the file. As a reviewer, I read the boutique label here as a signal about scale and direct contact.

Who the firm works with

Lanza & Smith represents companies, their directors and officers, and investors. It also works with company owners, executives, and high net worth individuals. The client roster includes Fortune 500 companies and start-up businesses alike.

That range says something about the stakes involved. A dispute for a Fortune 500 company can turn on the same legal questions as one for a start-up, though the paperwork and the exposure differ. Representing directors and officers often means defending decisions made in the boardroom, where the duty owed to a company and its shareholders becomes the central question. For a high net worth individual, the concern is often personal exposure that runs alongside a business they own.

The firm adds employment litigation and counsel for employers to that mix, and it acts on the management side of workplace disputes. It also advises financial institutions. These areas sit close to the firm's core business work, since employment and banking questions often surface inside the same corporate relationships.

How these matters usually proceed

A contract or shareholder dispute usually opens with demand letters and document review before anyone files a complaint. Cases that reach court pass through pleadings, discovery, and motions. Many resolve through negotiation or mediation before trial. This general path sits behind the litigation the firm names on its site.

Civil RICO claims add their own demands. A plaintiff has to show a pattern of related unlawful acts and a link to an enterprise, which raises the bar for pleading and proof. Firms that handle these claims spend real time early on the structure of the allegations.

Appeals form another part of the litigation work, and they run on a different track from a trial. An appeal reviews the record and the legal rulings from the court below, so the writing and argument carry more weight than new evidence. Listing appeals alongside trial work means the same firm can handle a matter after the first decision, so a client need not hire new counsel for the appeal.

Real estate and automotive matters bring documents of their own: purchase agreements, leases, repair records, and title paperwork. Handling them well means reading the paper trail closely and knowing the rules specific to each field. The firm's stated mix suggests it works across these document-heavy areas on a regular basis.

History and reach

Lanza & Smith has operated for more than fifteen years, according to its attorney profiles page. The firm works from a single office in Irvine and serves clients across Orange County and the wider Southern California area. Much of that work runs through Orange County business courts and the surrounding federal district. That single-location setup fits the boutique structure, and one team handles matters across the region.

In my opinion the clearest read on Lanza & Smith is a small Orange County firm concentrated on business disputes and the transactions around them. Its public facts line up on that point: four named attorneys, an AV Preeminent peer review rating, and more than 65 years of combined legal experience.