Shulman Bastian Friedman Bui & O'Dea LLP

A firm that grew out of bankruptcy work

The founding year is 1992, and the starting point was Orange County, California. The firm began as a bankruptcy practice. Over time it added litigation, business transactions, real estate and estate planning. Bankruptcy still runs through much of what the firm does, and the newer practice areas grew up around it.

The firm keeps two offices in California, one in Irvine and one in Riverside. It works with businesses and individuals in Orange County, across California and throughout the United States. In my opinion, that reach fits a practice built on business disputes and insolvency, since both often cross county and state lines.

The range of legal work

The firm groups its work into four areas: litigation, bankruptcy, business transactions and estate planning. Each area holds several sub-fields, so a client with more than one legal problem can often keep the work under one roof. In each area the firm names concrete services, which gives a prospective client a clear picture of the work it takes on. The mix leans toward businesses, though the estate planning and bankruptcy work also reaches individuals.

Litigation

The litigation group handles business and commercial disputes, professional and executive liability, insurance coverage and bad faith, health care matters, employment and labor, and intellectual property. Insurance coverage and bad faith work turns on whether an insurer paid what a policy required, and these cases often reach a court when the insurer and the policyholder read the same clause in different ways. Professional and executive liability work covers claims against directors, officers and licensed people accused of falling short of a legal duty. Employment and labor matters can involve wage claims or disputes over a contract, and they often bring in both state and federal rules. Intellectual property work protects the names, inventions and creative material a business owns.

Bankruptcy

The bankruptcy group takes Chapter 7 and Chapter 11 cases, represents creditors' committees and Chapter 7 trustees, handles bankruptcy estate sales and bankruptcy litigation, and works on out-of-court workouts and debt restructuring. The firm states that it is a debt relief agency that helps people file under the Bankruptcy Code.

Transactions and estate planning

Transactional work covers business formation and yearly governance, buy-sell and shareholder agreements, real estate transactions, and executive employment contracts. Business formation sets up the legal structure of a company, and yearly governance keeps that structure current through the paperwork a company files each year. Buy-sell and shareholder agreements set the rules for how owners can transfer or sell their stakes. The firm also handles estate planning. As a reviewer, I read that pairing as a sign the firm can help a business owner set up an entity and later plan what happens to that owner's assets.

How the bankruptcy matters tend to run

The two chapters the firm names work in different ways. A Chapter 7 case sells a debtor's non-exempt assets and pays creditors from the proceeds. A trustee runs that estate, and the firm represents Chapter 7 trustees in this role. Trustee representation means the firm acts for the person a court appoints to gather and distribute the estate, who answers to the court and works on behalf of creditors as a group. A Chapter 11 case keeps a business operating while it proposes a plan to repay or restructure its debts. Creditors' committees speak for groups of creditors during a Chapter 11, and the firm represents such committees.

Out-of-court workouts come before any court filing. In a workout, a debtor and its lenders agree to new terms in private. The firm lists this option next to formal filings, so a client can weigh a court process against a private one. Bankruptcy estate sales, another item on the firm's list, move a debtor's property to buyers under court supervision.

How the team is built

Leonard M. Shulman is the Managing Partner, and James C. Bastian, Jr. is the Co-Managing Partner. The firm publishes a roster of partners, associates and of counsel across its two offices.

Named partners include Alan J. Friedman, Lynda T. Bui, Shane M. Biornstad, Bryan Cabrera, Franklin J. Contreras, Jr., J. Ronald Ignatuk, Rika M. Kido, Mimi Lin and Melissa Davis Lowe. Max Casal holds an associate title. Several of the surnames in the firm's name appear again on the partner roster, among them Shulman, Bastian, Friedman and Bui. A roster of this size, spread across Irvine and Riverside, gives the firm the staff to run litigation and bankruptcy files at once.

What the two offices cover

The Irvine office and the Riverside office place the firm in two parts of Southern California, one in Orange County and one in the Inland Empire. From those two bases the firm works with clients across California and, for some matters, throughout the United States. Business and bankruptcy work often crosses those lines, which matches the geography the firm describes.

In my opinion, the clearest read on this firm is a business practice with a strong base in insolvency and a group of related services around it. It has run since 1992, it keeps offices in Irvine and Riverside, and it lists partners, associates and of counsel led by two managing partners.