Back in 1992, Ira Rosenblatt was three years out of law school, recently married and a new homeowner when he decided his job as an associate at a law practice just wasn’t earning enough. “That left me with only a few options,” said Rosenblatt, who grew up in Tarzana and received his law degree in 1989 from the McGeorge School of Law at the University of the Pacific in Sacramento. “I just had to get creative.” Years later, Rosenblatt admits the idea of forming his own firm was “one half out of necessity and the other half was bliss ignorance.” Today, Warner Center-based Stone, Rosenblatt and Cha is one of the top 10 largest firms in the San Fernando Valley, with 40 employees, 20 lawyers and a client list brimming with household names the likes of jewelry company Robbins Bros., Flair Cleaners and Leeds Mattress Stores. He picked the Valley because “I knew it. It was my backyard. And I had a lot of deep ties.” Most of his work is in counseling clients in transactions, forming strategic plans and employment issues, representing both buyers and sellers, from private equity funds and financial buyers, on deals ranging from $5 million to $400 million. Another substantial settlement came when he represented a commercial insurance broker whose insurance retailer attempted to restrict them from selling insurance to certain ethnic groups. But Rosenblatt is also well versed as a trial attorney, arguing before the appellate courts in L.A. and Ventura counties. He has also represented employers in front of the California Labor Commission. Neil Adelman, advertising director for lifestyle magazine “Calabasas,” said Rosenblatt was picked as the publication’s legal counsel because of his confident and levelheaded attitude. “The thing I like about is he is never gets ruffled,” he said. “And he really has a good sense of humor.” Calabasas also is a glimpse into what drives Rosenblatt’s growth. The local magazine has seen considerable success and recently went national as “Statement.” Rosenblatt said that as his clients mature, their needs change and his business grows. “We need to keep up,” he said. And that may be the secret to his success. “We’ve really concentrated on needs that our clients share,” he said. “We grow out of necessity.” Chris Coates

Earlier this month, crews were preparing the Valencia Country Club for one of the Santa Clarita Valley’s most visible events of the year the AT & T; Champions Classic, a six-day, 54-hole tournament broadcast on national TV. The tournament, which kicked off March 12, was expected to bring 40,000 spectators to the area. For the Santa Clarita Valley, that type of attention is a major money generator, adding at least $7 million to the local economy. But the Classic is only a small part of a growing cottage industry for the area: sports tourism. “The city over the last year has really started to hone in on these sporting events as a tourism opportunity,” said Jessica Freude, a tourism analyst for the city. In 2006 alone, Santa Clarita hosted the Junior Olympic Swim Meet, United States Tennis Association’s Men’s Pro Challenger Tennis Tournament, Special Olympics Spirit Games, Verizon USA Luge Tour and Santa Clarita Marathon, along with numerous smaller softball, soccer and other tournaments, swim meets and invitations throughout the year. So far this year, Santa Clarita has been a stop on the Amgen Tour of California bicycle race and played host to the PGA event, which has called Valencia home for the past seven years. Peter deYoung, tournament director of the AT & T; Champions Classic, said Santa Clarita is ideal for a large-scale sporting event: close to a major city, with plenty of room and home to a committed, enthusiastic city government and business population that take pride in their area. “This is just the right size community,” said deYoung. “The community is the major reason. They got behind the golf tournament. They support it.” He pointed particularly to College of the Canyons and Six Flags Magic Mountain, which have provided support and parking for past tournaments. “They’re all good neighbors,” he said. “It just works. That’s why we stayed.” While the city has not completed a study on the total economic impact of sport tourism, Freude said events like the PGA tournament generate hundreds of jobs, bring in thousands of participants and spectators and infuse significant dollars in the local economy through retail, restaurant and other purchases. The events are especially beneficial for the relatively modest stock of Santa Clarita-area hotels, which already have some of the lowest vacancy rates in the region. Wendy Heineke is senior vice president of operations for Valencia-based Ocean Park Hotels Inc., which owns four properties in Santa Clarita. She said her hotels the Best Western Valencia Inn, Comfort Suites Stevenson Ranch, Holiday Inn Express Hotel & Suites Valencia and Hilton Garden Inn Six Flags Valencia see a spike in demand whenever a large event is planned in the Santa Clarita Valley. “It’s just a fantastic market for it,” she said. “It’ll keep growing.” Heineke credits the city for recruiting the business. “We used to be able to just sit here and wait for it to come in,” she said. “But now they go out and get it.” Six Flags side effects The effort to bulk up on sporting events diversifies a tourism market that for decades mostly relied on a single banner money generator: Six Flags Magic Mountain. But such dependence on one business was somewhat risky, which became evident last summer when New York-based Six Flags announced it was mulling over plans to close Magic Mountain. It came as a surprise. “We felt the demand will always be there. The demand will be there because of Six Flags,” Heineke said. While Six Flags decided to keep Magic Mountain open, it highlighted that many took the park for granted. At the same time, the city launched its own effort to diversify the tourism business, although Freude said it was not triggered by the threat of Magic Mountain’s closure. “Six Flags is a huge component to our tourism, so we looked to other things that help complement that,” she said. The plan called for aggressively marketing Santa Clarita for sporting events. One of the first events to take the bait was the Amgen Tour, a staged bicycle race from San Francisco to Long Beach. The city served as the race’s Feb. 24 stop and attracted an estimated 100,000 fans. Freude said events like the race are helping attract attention from other organizers, such as the California Police Athletic Federation, which approached the city last year to play host to the Western States Police and Fire Games in 2009. “They come in, enjoy and spend and it’s a great benefit to our residents,” Freude said. “It helps us.” She said Santa Clarita is also well positioned to benefit from perhaps the biggest sporting event of all: the Olympics. Los Angeles is one of two cities the U.S. Olympic Committee is considering to nominate for the 2016 summer games. If L.A. is picked, Santa Clarita would surely benefit, Freude said. “We’re close enough,” she said, adding later that no specific plans have been made. “That’s certainly a consideration. But the success of sports tourism is also starting to show early signs of outstripping resources. DeYoung said even in the past seven years, Santa Clarita’s swift pace of development has snapped up acreage around the Valencia Country Club, which makes it tough to expand. “It shrinks a little bit each year as they build more and more housing units,” deYoung said. “It keeps getting bigger and bigger each year.” Despite the boom, PGA officials like what Santa Clarita has to offer and are likely to return next year, he said. They just can’t beat the eagerness of the city, where residents and businesses appreciate the events, deYoung said. “It isn’t always the case. In larger communities, bringing a major golf tournament to their community doesn’t really make the impact that it made here,” he said. “We’re very fortunate here.”

Scott Barlow is a general counsel who doesn’t chain himself to a desk in an office. The 37-year-old is as comfortable advising the executives at online advertising and marketing firm ValueClick, Inc. as he is in a courtroom defending the company against lawsuits. A benefit of his position with the Westlake Village-based company is that he can get as involved in a case as time permits, Barlow said. “It’s very rare in a company of our size for the general counsel to be involved in litigation,” Barlow added. A native of Florida who graduated law school in Ohio, Barlow came west when he got a job as a litigator with a San Francisco law firm. The partners of that firm started a company called Mediaplex, Inc., a firm specializing in digital advertising, customer relationship management, and agency management, and Barlow was named general counsel and secretary. ValueClick acquired Mediaplex in 2001, bringing Barlow to the company’s headquarters in the Valley. At the time of the acquisition, ValueClick had employed 250 people and brought in revenues of $60 million. Today, the company has 1,100 employees and revenues of $650 million. As general counsel, Barlow manages the litigation filed against the company, handles filings to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and keeps abreast of legislation that may affect how the company does business. He oversees a staff of three attorneys, five paralegals and coordinates with outside attorneys working for the company. In an industry that didn’t encourage integrity and loyalty Barlow stood out, said Gregory Raifman, a former executive with Mediaplex who recommended that Barlow stay on as ValueClick’s general counsel. He figured Barlow as a keeper because he would be there day in, day out for ValueClick, Raifman said. “You don’t think of general counsel as being one of your key or significant guys in a young growing company but what brings a company down fast is a lawsuit,” Raifman said. “It was helpful Scott had litigation experience.” ValueClick’s growth has come primarily from acquisitions of seven private companies and two public firms. Once the acquisition was set, that’s when Barlow stepped in to hammer out the details. He also keeps a close eye to make sure that the lawyers on both sides aren’t driving the deal; arguing with each other, escalating costs and being unproductive. “My job is to make sure the deal is driven by the business people,” Barlow said. With his litigation background, Barlow set a policy to play hardball with lawsuits and establishing a reputation of not rolling over when faced with allegations of wrongdoing. A 2001 case in which a plaintiff claimed a denial of stock options resulted in the plaintiff receiving no money and ValueClick awarded $200,000 on a cross-complaint that the plaintiff had stolen trade secrets. Mark R. Madler

Matthew Evans and Keith Richman spent nearly an hour on a Digital Media Summit panel discussing the future of the Internet video market but it was what the two men talked about afterward that was most important. Two hours after the discussion ended during the March 13 event, Evans, vice president of digital media for NBC Universal, and Richman, chief executive officer of Break.com, knocked out a deal at the historic Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood to sell an original NBC-produced show for Richman’s Web site. “That’s the kind of stuff we are focused on creating business,” said George Kliavkoff, chief digital officer for NBC Universal, and also Evans’ boss, during a discussion with Michael Stroud, CEO of iHollywood Forum, host of the summit. That’s also an indication of how quickly relationships form and deals are made as media conglomerates maneuver for a greater online presence. From the millions that News Corp. and Sony have shelled out for the social networking sites Myspace and Grouper, respectively, there is no question media companies see lots of value in these sites. Less certain is how to make those sites profitable. Should they be advertising driven and, if so, should the ads come before the content? After? In the middle? Or should the sites be subscriber-driven? Or maybe a combination of both? Tolerance for online ads only goes so far. Viewers tend to stick around for, say, a repeat of an ABC or NBC show streamed at the networks’ respective Web sites but are more likely to move on if ads interrupt viewing of amateur homemade videos on other Internet sites. A balance needs to be found between entertaining content and getting the message out about a particular brand, Evans said. “We’re going to take it one step further and create content with the advertisers from the ground up,” said Evans, who is charged with creation of original, video-based programming. According to statistics from market research firm Screen Digest, user-generated content made up 47 percent of all online videos and generated $200 million in U.S. ad revenues in 2006. By 2010, it is expected that user-generated content will make up 55 percent of online videos and generate $900 million in ad revenues. In an age of participation, passive entertainment directed at an audience doesn’t cut it anymore. Certainly not with tweens and young adults for whom instant access from a PC, laptop, cell phone or other portable media device is a given. “The platform doesn’t matter,” said Disney’s Paul Yanover, online executive vice president and managing director, during his keynote address at the summit. “What matters is the experience.” While social networking sites initially attracted younger users, their reach has expanded. Facebook, for instance, initially limited itself to college students. They later added high school students but it was just last year when a user of any age could join the site. The mainstream audience of parents and families is the target audience of Disney Online, Yanover said. In redesigning its Disney.com Web site, the content reflected the “iPod world we live in” said Yanover. Changes to the site make it more interactive yet maintain it as an extension of the Disney brand. The Extreme Digital component was described by Yanover as a combination of an operating system, game console and social networking site all based on Disney content. “It’s not a Web site anymore,” Yanover said. “It’s a complete environment; a world of moveable widgets.” Disney-owned ABC Television pioneered streaming of its hit shows at the network’s Web site. When NBC started putting full episodes of its primetime lineup online, the network feared it would cannibalize the ratings, Kliavkoff said. What it found was just the opposite, he continued. Surveys of online viewers revealed that some were watching to catch up on episodes they had missed.

Santa Clarita Organizers of the annual San Fernando Valley Fair have pulled up stakes and plan to take the June festivities to a new venue one outside the fair’s namesake locale. The fair board voted earlier this month to move the 61st annual fair from Hansen Dam Sports Center in Lakeview Terrace to Saugus Speedway in the Santa Clarita Valley, said David Honda, president of the state 51st District Agricultural Association, which since the 1950s has run the four-day fair. Honda said the board originally wanted to hold the event at Woodley Park in Encino instead of Hansen Dam, where it has been for the past three years but failed to attract large crowds. That proposal eventually fell through this month after the L.A. Department of Recreation and Parks officials said Encino residents raised concerns about noise and traffic. Honda questions the allegations, but with 90 days left before the fair, the board decided to look for another venue, including places outside the Valley. That’s when Honda says he got a call from the Saugus Speedway. While not ideal, Honda points out that the fair is actually intended to serve the entire 51st Agricultural District and only since the 1970s has been known as the San Fernando Valley Fair, Honda said. “Santa Clarita is still in the district. We don’t just service the San Fernando Valley,” he said, adding that the fair in 2003 called Lake Castaic home. And one valley’s loss is another valley’s gain. “This valley has been looking for family entertainment and fairs and we’re a special events venue, so it really wasn’t out of the ordinary in the least,” said Saugus Speedway General Manager Terri Burbank. “It made sense. Our property is perfect for a fair.” Honda said the main concern now is getting the facilities ready for the June 7 kickoff. The board will decide later about the 2008 location, although they haven’t ruled out moving the fair to Santa Clarita indefinitely, which then might mean dropping “San Fernando” from the name altogether “It’s an option,” Honda said. “That’s an option.” The issue of the roving fair will be a topic of discussion during a March 19 meeting of Valley Vote. Honda is scheduled to speak at 6:45 p.m. at Galpin Ford, 1555 Roscoe Blvd. in North Hills. CONEJO VALLEY Camarillo Graduate: California State University Channel Islands is looking for volunteers to help during the school’s 2007 commencement ceremony on Saturday, May 19 The 9 a.m. ceremony, in the south quad of the Camarillo campus, graduates the first class that has been part of the college since its 2003 opening for all four years. A volunteer orientation is planned for Friday, May 18, at 5:30 p.m. To help, call (805) 437-8510 or email [email protected] Thousand Oaks Honors: The Thousand Oaks-Westlake Village Regional Chamber of Commerce has named Julia Ladd and Rick Lemmo as 2006-2007 Woman and Man of the Year. Ladd is senior property manager of The Oaks shopping center in Thousand Oaks and is involved with the Thousand Oaks Rotary Club. Lemmo is vice president of community relations for developer Caruso Affiliated. He is past chairman of the Thousand Oaks-Westlake Village chamber and is involved with various community boards. Additionally, the chamber named Countrywide Financial Corp. as Business of the Year, Mid-State Bank & Trust as Corporate Sponsor of the Year, Susan Murata of Silver Star Automotive Group as Volunteer of the Year and Paul Dryman of Informed Decision as Ambassador of the Year. Panel: The City of Thousand Oaks is looking for business owners to serve on a business roundtable. The panel serves as an advisory board to the city on business issues. Members must own or work for a business in Thousand Oaks or live in the city and have business experience. For more information, call (805) 449-2131. SAN FERNANDO VALLEY Encino Conference: Phillips Graduate Institute hosted its annual continuing education conference from March 13 to 17. The conference was designed for students and licensed professionals in psychology and psychotherapy. The featured keynote speaker was Dr. William Glasser, an internationally recognized psychiatrist best known as the author of reality therapy. Studio City Clean: Studio City Hand Car Wash honored civic-minded citizens during the March 6 election. The 11514 Ventura Blvd. car wash gave away free washes to anyone who showed a ballot stub proving they voted in the election. About 800 people participated in the “You Vote-We Wash” offer. The event also brought out Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. It isn’t the first time the wash has given away its services: In September, it provided free washes to pets as part of a marketing campaign. Award: Nominations for Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year will be taken through March 30. The award recognizes business luminaries for creating and guiding innovative companies. Winners are selected by a panel of independent judges, including local business owners many of whom have won the award in the past as well as area leaders from civic organizations and academic institutions. The awards ceremony takes place June 26 at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills. For more information or a nomination form contact Sandra Feldner Vandergriff at (213) 977-3523 or sandra.feldnervandergriff @ey.com. Calabasas Tickets: Barry’s Ticket Service opens its new Calabasas location on March 22. The Agoura/Oak Park/Conejo Valley Chambers of Commerce hosts a two-hour grand opening event catered by the local Italian eatery, Spumoni Caf & #233;. The event begins at 5:30 p.m. Since 1984, Barry’s Ticket Service has specialized in providing quality seats to concerts, sporting events and live theater nationwide. Pacoima Open: The nonprofit Meet Each Need with Dignity is opening a new 40,000 facility on March 31. The two-story space at 10641 San Fernando Road will house a dental clinic, food warehouse and clothing area. MEND is the largest poverty agency in the San Fernando Valley, serving 40,000 a month and $700,000 worth of medical, vision and dental care each year. The clinic is currently based in a 1,500-square-foot space in Mission Hills. Sylmar Films: Los Angeles Mission College will host the 4th annual Carless Drive-In Film and Video Festival on April 28. Films and videos from local college and university students and invited high schools will be screened and judged. Categories for the films and videos are animation, documentary, music, narrative, and abstract. The festival takes place outdoors on the college campus. Food and drinks will be available. Judging the films and videos will be producer and director Ted Mather; director/assistant director Geoffrey Sawyer; and animator Michael Scroggins. SANTA CLARITA VALLEY Canyon Country Learn: Construction is slated to finish by next fall on a temporary educational center built by College of the Canyons. The project on Sierra Highway calls for temporary modular buildings housing 25 classrooms and five lab areas that will house 3,000 students. The 70-acre site was purchased by the district in November 2001 using Measure C dollars. It will eventually house several permanent structures and vocational education and arts education programs and support services. The entire project is expected to finish by 2015. Santa Clarita Calm: A newly refurbished meditation room has opened at Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital. The space near the hospital’s cafeteria includes new stained glass windows and was funded largely through an anonymous donor gift. SIMI VALLEY Simi Valley Designs: The private design company Malibu Designs has inked an agreement with Cindy Crawford to develop a line of home d & #233;cor items. The agreement with Cindy Crawford Home Licensing allows Malibu to use the model’s name and image in kitchen, home and outdoor items. It is expected to hit stores this spring and summer. Magic: Construction is nearly complete on The Magical Kitchen, a cooking demonstration and gourmet retail space in the Sycamore Village shopping complex. The storefront at 2792 Cochran St. will offer cooking classes, demonstrations, meal assembly sessions, wine seminars and tastings, along with a slate of products, ingredients and equipment. Classes are scheduled to start in May.

A sports marketing and consulting firm appointed an industry veteran who helped popularize pro beach volleyball and snowboarding tours to head its new San Fernando Valley office. Craig Elledge was tapped by rEvolution for his contacts in the sports world and expertise in knowing the best ways for corporate sponsors to target the youth market. When it comes to action sports skiing, snowboarding, Jet Ski racing, motocross, etc. it’s less about winning or losing than it is about the social networking participants and spectators engage in, Elledge said. “You know something has caught on when it goes beyond just being a sport and it affects fashion and music and peoples lifestyles,” Elledge added. The 46-year-old Elledge works out of the Sherman Oaks office of Chicago-based rEvolution. Prior to his new position, Elledge was an executive with Pro Sports and Entertainment, Inc., an owner and operator of live sporting and entertainment events. He also operated his own company, CE Sports, for about 10 years. rEvolution is a marketing and consulting firm giving guidance to sponsors of sporting events, helping them with contract negotiations, and matching up a sponsor’s objectives with the best events. The company opened a West Coast office to have a presence in the region and to add a capacity in the action sports and youth marketing segments. Joining rEvolution allows Elledge to do what he does best and go after business he wouldn’t be able to get on his own. The northern California native became interested in sports marketing when the summer Olympic Games took place in Los Angeles in 1984. He moved on to promoting and managing for several years the pro beach volleyball tours and getting the games on ESPN. His company CE Sports would become a primary supplier of lifestyle events to ESPN. He picked the sports he promoted not because he was a participant but because he saw they were on an upward trend and needed to be packaged to sell to television, Elledge said. The action sports area has grown to where it has become a conduit to the youth culture due to its confluence of music, lifestyle and online social networking. The generation targeted by sponsors, however, is very savvy about marketing and a company can no longer just go to an event and slap their banner up and expect to get results. “Kids are too smart for that,” Elledge said. “It’s really a much more subtle integration with athletes and supporting what people do in their everyday lives without the hammer over the head with advertising.” Mark R. Madler

Ticket broker Tix Corp. has bought out AnyEvent.com, another ticket selling firm with two national offices. The purchase price by Studio City-based Tix Corp. was not disclosed. AnyEvent.com is a national ticket broker with offices in Cleveland and Las Vegas handling tickets for concerts, sports, and theater events across the country. Tix Corp. owns and operates Tix4Tonight, a brokerage selling tickets for Las Vegas shows, concerts, attractions, and sporting events at half-price on the same day as the performance. The acquisition of AnyEvent.com will complement the Tix4Tonight service, said Tix Corp. CEO Mitch Francis, in a statement. “It is possible that we will sell the best seats for an event at a premium price, and also the few remaining seats at a discount just prior to show time,” Francis said. AnyEvent.com founder John Pirample will continue to oversee the business.

Lee Kanon Alpert has been an important figure in the Valley legal community for close to three decades, but these days he may be most recognized for his role on cable TV. As an outside counsel for Time Warner since the late 1980s, he helped negotiate legal transactions and transfers of franchises to the company from regional operators Adelphia Communications Corp. and Comcast Corp. The deal was made up of 60 complex franchise transfers in which Alpert played a key role. “We were very proud that out of every municipality we handled here in Southern California, there was not a single no vote” to switch to Time Warner, Alpert said. “It’s very complex area of specialty. But I love it. You see the results you get to see if people are happy or people are upset.” Alpert grew up in Detroit and attended Wayne State University before receiving a scholarship to USC in 1968. From there, he headed to Loyola Law School, where he received his juris doctorate in 1972. By 1973, Alpert passed the California bar and was hired as an associate attorney at Ruderman, Levin, Ballin, Plotkin and Graf in North Hollywood. He dabbled in family law, handling celebrities and sports stars, but didn’t like it. “We got great results, but it was the worst side of people,” he said. In 1975, he founded the Law Offices of Lee Kanon Alpert in Encino, a general practice solo practitioner. It was a learning experience but eventually he wanted to branch out. A year later, Alpert partnered with Michael S. Mink (now a judge on the Superior Court) to form Mink & Alpert, and later Gary L. Barr joined them. From the beginning, the firm wanted to squash an image that Valley firms were somehow inferior to those in downtown or in Century City. “We decided we were not going to get lazy. We didn’t short-circuit or cut corners,” he said, adding that extra time was spent making sure research, motions and briefs were completely accurate and error-free. Today, Alpert & Barr still uses that standard specializing in administrative, real estate and corporate law in addition to mediation. “That’s the way we wanted to practice and that’s the way we wanted to be known by the lawyers and judges,” he said. “It’s a matter of pride.” That helped him accrue a laundry list of major clients, such as Time Warner and the city. Alpert said it was the city that provided him with his most rewarding case to date the sale of the shuttered Hughes Aviation park in West Hills to the city and nonprofit Valley Job Recovery Corp. Today, it houses dozens of small businesses and a police center. “That was the most important case for me,” said Alpert, who also serves as a frequent private and court-appointed referee. That interaction has turned Alpert into a political power broker, serving as president of the Commission on Neighborhood Councils and city Building and Safety Commission and chairing the California State Assembly Small Business Advisory Council. His activities were recognized in 1999 when Alpert received the Fernando Award. Greg Lippe, managing partner of the accounting firm Lippe, Hellie, Hoffer & Allison, has worked with Alpert on several projects and was surprised at how accessible he was. “It’s doesn’t matter what time of day or night, he’s always available,” said Lippe, who met Alpert through the Valley Industry and Commerce Association. “He really looks out for the good of the client.” Lippe said that attention to detail nets results. “He’s a deal maker not a deal breaker,” he said. Chris Coates

When it comes to certain types of litigation there are two choices an attorney can make either representing the injured client or defending an insurance company. Greg Owen knew from the start of his law career that he didn’t want to represent insurance companies. There was no compassion, no emotion involved. Decisions were based on business considerations. “On our side when we get a result for our clients it makes a different in their lives,” Owen said. Owen, a name partner in Owen, Patterson & Owen in Valencia, said he gives a voice to injured people who might not otherwise have one in going up against major corporations. The firm initiated the ongoing litigation against Merck & Co. and its medication Vioxx over increase risks of heart attacks and other health problems. In 2002, Owen represented Courtney Triana who was left brain damaged after a light pole struck her in the head while walking in a grocery store parking lot in Palmdale. The case settled for $35 million, a national record for the largest amount ever given to a single plaintiff, Owen said. During the case, Owen became part of the family, said Greg Triana, Courtney’s father. Owen put his heart and soul into the case, kept the family aware of what was going on and didn’t make any big promises, Triana said. “He didn’t put us out there to expect something that wasn’t going to be there for us,” Triana said. Owen has also taken on individual claims and class action cases in the Dow-Corning breast implant litigation, the Lockheed water contamination class action, several pharmaceutical defective drug actions, and against waste haulers overcharging Santa Clarita residents for trash pickup. If he had his way, Owen said, he would be on trial every day and not be in the office. Going before a jury takes the ability to think on your feet and constantly make decisions on which direction to take a case. In the end, one relies on a gut feeling over which theory to present to the jury, Owen said. In cases involving multiple expert witnesses, Owen meets that challenge by having those witnesses go from being scientists to being teachers. The best way to present complicated information to a jury is the use of visual aids charts, graphs, blown-up photographs, and illustrations, Owen said. But on the flipside, Owen thinks his firm has a duty to settle every case. The best way to get a case to settle is to aggressively prepare for a trial, he added. “A decent settlement is always better than a great jury verdict,” Owen said. A native of East Los Angeles, Owen took an early interest in the legal field participating in a court watch program to monitor courtroom procedures. He graduated Southwestern Law School in 1981 and has always worked for himself. He founded two other law firms prior to Owen, Patterson & Owen, which has a total of six attorneys and three paralegals. Working on his own allows him control over which cases to take and the ability to take time out for his family, Owen said, adding, “There’s nothing like being your own boss.” Mark R. Madler

Growing up playing football in Punxsutawney, Penn., James E. Blatt never imagined that one day he’d help rewrite the U.S. Constitution. But that’s exactly what he did in 1997, when Blatt successfully argued U.S. v. Bajakajian in front of the United States Supreme Court. The case involved a man departing Los Angeles International Airport for Cyprus who didn’t report to customs officials that he was carrying more $350,000 in cash, violating a federal law requiring more than $10,000 be reported. Bajakajian pleaded guilty to failure to report, which carried a $5,000 fine. The government, however, confiscated all of the money, which a lower court found violated the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution banning excessive fines. The case was elevated to the Supreme Court, which ruled 5-4 in favor. The ruling established a new standard for applying the Eighth Amendment excessive fines clause to forfeitures. Blatt downplays his role in the case. “I had a good team and some good training,” he said. These days, Blatt is preparing another high court case, this one in front of the state Supreme Court. He represents Jesse James Hollywood, the West Hills native and alleged drug dealer being tried for kidnapping and murdering an acquaintance seven years ago in Santa Barbara. Hollywood’s role in the case was the subject of the recent film “Alpha Dog.” Before the film was released, it was discovered that Santa Barbara County Deputy District Attorney Ronald J. Zonen acted as a consultant and provided criminal files for producers. Blatt argued Zonen’s action was improper and tainted the juror pool. He successfully persuaded the Appellate Court to have Zonen thrown off the case; now Blatt is taking the case to the Supreme Court to have the entire D.A.’s office taken off as well. “What we’re saying is, when you do something like that, that’s a conflict of interest,” Blatt said. “You shouldn’t be on the case.” Blatt, who moved to Los Angeles at 18 and graduated from Loyola Law School, also has a history of tackling complex cases with clever tactics. He once won seven straight jury trials, a “hot steak” as he called it. In People v. Grant, he defended a man who shot a neighborhood drug dealer in the back. Blatt argued the man had the right to protect his neighborhood when police did not, which resulted in a not-guilty jury vote. He also redefined the traditional defense framework in People v. Hanoukai, when he defended an Iranian husband who beat his wife to death. Blatt presented testimony from a sociologist that shed light on the patriarchal Iranian-Jewish society and convinced the judge to alter the standard “heat of passion” jury instruction. The change has become a recognized legal defense in several jurisdictions. Michael G. Raab, a parter in Blatt’s Encino office, said Blatt is the model defense attorney and takes his job seriously every day. “He has the determination of a bulldog,” Raab said. “Being a criminal defense lawyer is something that he cherishes. It’s something that he is honored to be.” It’s a trait that Blatt said he learned from the football field: prepare well and work hard. “You want to make the winning effort,” he said. “You want to have a standard of excellence in every aspect of the trial.” Chris Coates