Aleshire & Wynder, LLP

Aleshire & Wynder, LLP provides unparalleled legal representation to local communities throughout California. Our attorneys have been loyally serving public agencies for over 35 years. As a full service law firm, we handle all aspects of our clients' needs and provide innovative, ethical and cost-effective solutions.

Our Values

Aleshire & Wynder is a "full service" public law firm. We provide our public agency clients with a wide spectrum of legal specialties, including in land use and zoning, personnel and labor, environment, affordable housing, conflicts of interest, elections, condemnation, police, civil rights, code enforcement and public finance.

Our senior members have represented cities in California continuously for over 35 years. We have enjoyed long-term relationships with our city clients, some dating back to the 1970's. The best testimony to our qualifications is that our attorneys have represented the cities as City Attorney for a cumulative period of more than 100 years. This type of longevity is rare in our field of law.

Our client base goes beyond representation of cities. We represent public agencies of every possible nature. Our public agency client base consists of over 50 local governmental entities, including serving in various communities as special and general counsel to successor agencies, housing authorities, water districts, community service districts, financing authorities, special districts, joint powers authorities and many other entities. Of course, the skills learned through that representation can also benefit private clients.

As a full service public law firm we handle all aspects of most legal issues confronting municipalities. Thus, we handle police and civil rights cases for cities with police departments, federal interface issues for airports, personnel issues and labor negotiations, general plan revision programs, subdivision legal issues, conflict of interest questions including interfacing with the FPPC ethics training, counseling and compliance (including AB 1234), public record requests, adoption of city charters, franchising programs and utility undergrounding, condemnation cases for site assembly for economic development and housing projects, negotiation of purchase, development agreements, impact fee ordinances, assessment districts and other public financing as well as municipal finance and Proposition 218 issues, cable television franchise ordinances, endangered species questions, CEQA litigation, environmental cleanup and mining reclamation plans, trash contract renewals and AB 939 issues, construction contract disputes and litigation, and community choice energy aggregation.

Our Purpose


We are a law firm that has focused its practice on an area some may consider a legal specialty: public agency representation. A number of our attorneys have over 35 years of public service, and collectively our attorneys have worked for a majority of the major municipal law firms in Southern California. Individually and collectively, we love public service. We enjoy the complexity and variety of issues, including unique areas of law such as land use, constitutional and environmental law. We also enjoy the dynamic of the political process and working with elected officials and professional staff who are similarly motivated to serve the public. Above all, we have a deep appreciation for democratic values and processes at the local level. Accordingly, we have developed the following Mission Statement.
Mission Statement

Aleshire & Wynder exists to do one thing: to provide the highest possible quality of legal services to public agencies within a fee structure that is below the average in our field. We do this by adhering to the following core values.
Expertise

We are public law specialists, and our expertise encompasses virtually all areas of law that may be presented to a public agency. For example, we have handled all the legal affairs for full-service cities with their own police and fire departments, their own risk management and code enforcement, and with an airport, convention center, wastewater treatment plant, cogeneration plant and 36-hole golf course facilities.
Accountability

Accountability means not only achieving a good result, but doing so at a reasonable cost to the client. A case or transaction must be evaluated early. The determination must be made if a litigation matter is winnable and at what cost. If a lawsuit must be settled, then it should be settled early. If the client determines to "litigate," then we accept responsibility to make sure our advice is clear and strategies are cost effective. Our clients have rarely been surprised by the outcome of a lawsuit or outcome of a negotiation, either by the results or the cost. In short, accountability requires management.
Cost Control

Cost control requires clear mechanisms for receiving and reporting on assignments, supervising the attorney work to prevent excessive time, using paralegals on appropriate assignments, and cost recovery from developers whenever possible. Another even more important measure is preventive counseling: identifying issues which need to be remedied before they turn into litigation and handling disputes so they are resolved early and by informal means.
Focus and Timeliness

We are not a large bureaucracy. Our attorneys enjoy a collaborative working relationship with each other and with the clients of the Firm. Each client is vital to us; we focus on their needs and no one gets "lost in the shuffle." We believe that, as a medium size law firm, we can offer focus in lieu of bureaucracy, timeliness rather than delay, and a consistent "team" of known attorneys rather than just a group of researchers.
Creativity

Focus makes us results-oriented. We view our legal services to be a part of a problem-solving team. As members of that team, it is our obligation to be creative and help find winning solutions, not simply give reasons why something can't be done.
Integrity and Impartiality

As participants in the democratic process and as "officers of the court," we play a critical role in protecting the integrity of governmental decision making. In many ways city/agency counsel acts as "umpire." The attorney must remain independent, while at the same time being sensitive to the political process but not controlled by it. The attorney must also make sure that the organization's procedures are fair for all.
Commitment

We are passionate about the practice of public law, and committed to working as a member of the management team that assists elected and appointed officials in meeting the needs of each community.

Aleshire & Wynder was created to do what, in our judgment, is not being done in other professional environments: form a collegial group of quality lawyers totally committed to providing high quality legal services to public agencies in cost-effective and long-term relationships. To demonstrate our commitment to our public clients, we have done what no other private firm practicing in this area is willing to do: we do not represent private clients in litigation against municipalities. We have no divided loyalty.

Representative Clients
Our lawyers have been representing California public agencies of all varieties for over four decades. We serve as General Counsel, Special Counsel, and Bond Counsel to over 50 public agencies of all types, including municipalities, counties, special districts, school districts, successor agencies, housing authorities, water agencies, financing districts, and joint powers authorities. We have represented municipalities as city attorney collectively for over 100 years.
City Attorney

Arvin
Bell
Carson
Cerritos
Chino
Cypress
Fillmore
Glendora



Grand Terrace
Hesperia
Irwindale
King City
La Ca?ada Flintridge
Lawndale
Lompoc
Morro Bay



Perris
Rancho Palos Verdes
San Dimas
Signal Hill
South El Monte
Suisun City
Yuba City

General Counsel

Del Rey Community Services District
Home Gardens County Water District
Hub Cities Consortium
Idyllwild Water District
Isla Vista Community Services District
Los Olivos Community Services District
Madera County Transportation Commission
Orange County Council of Governments
Palmdale Water District
Pleasant Valley Recreation and Park District
Puente Hills Habitat Preservation Authority
Salinas Valley Solid Waste Authority
San Luis Rey Municipal Water District
South Montebello Irrigation District

Special Counsel

Arcadia
Anaheim
Bakersfield
Brisbane
Buena Park
Coalinga-Huron Recreation & Park District
Corona
Culver City
Downey
Fresno
Housing Authority of the County of LA
Huntington Park
Los Angeles CRA
Madera Irrigation District
Municipal Water District of Orange County
Newport Beach
Oxnard
Pasadena
Phelan Pi?on Hills Community Services District
Reedley
Santa Maria
Ventura

Successor Agency and Housing Authority Counsel

Bakersfield
Bell
Carson
Cerritos
Cypress
Fillmore
Hesperia
Irwindale
Lawndale
Lompoc
Long Beach Housing Development Co.
Perris
San Dimas
Suisun City
Signal Hill

Non-Profit Organizations

Death Valley Conservancy
Huntington Beach Wetlands Conservancy

Locations	No. of Attorneys
Fresno, CA	3
Oakland, CA	5

Practice Areas	No. of Attorneys
Environmental and Land Use	4
Government and Government Relations	21
Labor & Employment	4
Litigation	10
Municipal Law	1
Real Estate	2