The Horowitz Law Firm, APC

Focus and practice areas

The firm works at the meeting point of property, building projects and the money that moves between them. It handles construction law, construction litigation, real estate law, surety bonds, eminent domain and administrative law from an office in Sherman Oaks, California. Its clients reach across the greater Los Angeles area and Southern California.

Construction and real estate are the two visible pillars. Within construction the firm handles construction contracts, mechanics liens, stop payment notices and the litigation that grows out of them. Within real estate it covers commercial and residential property, contract disputes, boundary and easement questions, title and quiet title claims, and disputes between brokers and agents.

In my opinion these subjects fit together well. A lawyer who reads a construction contract for a payment clause is reading the same kind of document a real estate dispute turns on. The firm has chosen a group of related fields that share the same paperwork and the same kinds of fights.

How the team is built

Two attorneys carry the practice, and the site names both. Jeffrey D. Horowitz is the founding attorney. Christian Lee Klima is an associate. Together they report over 40 combined years of legal experience.

Horowitz reports more than 20 years in real estate, construction and surety law. He earned his J.D. from Loyola Law School in 1990 and was admitted to the California bar that same year. His earlier degrees include a B.S. from California State University, Northridge in 1987 and a one-year program at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1986.

Klima's profile lists Louisiana State University in its education section, and he works as an associate at the firm. The site does not state a founding year for the firm itself. As a reviewer, I read this as a senior attorney working alongside a junior one, which is the usual build of a small practice with a defined focus.

What Horowitz brings from earlier work

His path to the firm runs through the insurance side of these disputes. He was Managing Attorney of the claims and legal departments at an insurance company. He also spent 10 years heading a corporate legal department.

That background has a direct bearing on surety and construction work. Surety bonds and construction claims are, in practice, questions of risk and payment, and a carrier's claims department is where those questions get decided day to day. A lawyer who has sat on that side has seen how bonds pay out and how claims are contested.

Horowitz also authored the chapter on contractor's license bonds in Model Jury Instructions for Surety Cases, published by the American Bar Association in 2000. Contractor's license bonds are a narrow part of surety law. A published chapter is a checkable fact, with a title, a publisher and a year attached to it, and the firm lists surety bonds among its own practice areas.

The construction and payment tools

Much of the construction work centers on getting people paid. A mechanics lien attaches a payment claim to the property that the work improved, so a contractor, subcontractor or supplier who has gone unpaid can press the claim against the real estate itself. The claim has to be recorded within set windows after the work or the delivery, and a foreclosure suit to enforce it runs on its own clock. That is why owners and contractors bring a lawyer to it.

Stop payment notices run on a second track. They reach the construction funds tied to a project. Where a lien attaches to real estate, a stop payment notice attaches to the money held for the job, and it gives an unpaid party another way to recover. The firm handles both the filing of these claims and the disputes that follow when they are challenged.

Construction litigation covers the fights that these tools set off, along with contract disputes between owners and builders. The firm's home, about and practice pages all point to the same set of tools: contracts, liens, notices, and the court or settlement work that resolves them.

Real estate and eminent domain

On the property side the work splits between transactions and disputes. Quiet title actions ask a court to declare who owns a parcel when the record is unclear or contested. A title or quiet title claim can clear a cloud left by an old deed, a missing heir or a boundary drawn loosely long ago. Boundary and easement matters turn on deeds, surveys and the history of how neighbors have used a piece of land, and broker and agent disputes bring in the duties owed during a sale.

Eminent domain, also called condemnation, is a separate strand with its own rules. Here a public agency takes private property for a public use, and the owner has a constitutional right to be paid fair value for what is taken. The firm handles condemnation proceedings that involve California municipal and state agencies. These cases tend to turn on appraisal evidence and on the exact definition of what the agency has taken.

Administrative law also appears on the firm's practice list, and it fits this side of the work. Disputes with a public agency often move through hearings and agency procedures before they reach a court. A lawyer who works in condemnation is already familiar with how those bodies operate, which places the two subjects near each other.

How matters are handled and who they serve

The firm resolves disputes by more than one route. It handles matters through litigation, mediation, arbitration and negotiation. The choice carries weight for a client, since a lien fight or a boundary dispute can close at a mediation table or run to a full trial, and the cost follows the path.

The client roster is wide inside a narrow field. The firm represents property owners, businesses, contractors, subcontractors, material suppliers, brokers and sureties. Each of these sits at a different point in a building or property deal, and their interests often pull against one another.

In my opinion that spread is the useful part. A firm that has acted for an owner and for a subcontractor has seen a payment dispute from both sides of the table. Its two attorneys work these matters from a single Sherman Oaks office, serving clients across the greater Los Angeles area and Southern California.