The WTJ Barrels and Bites Open House was a success! We were so grateful to open our new building to clients, family, and friends while enjoying live music, conversations, and treats on Thursday, April 21. Cheers to everyone who attended and helped us make the night a special one. To those who couldn’t make it, we hope to see you at our next event.
The Business Journal has recognized WTJ Law this year in the top 20 of its women-owned businesses list for the San Joaquin Valley. Our firm has been very focused since its inception in striving for excellence not only for our clients but also for our own team.
Two female attorneys were elevated in 2021, bringing the total ownership by women in the firm to four out of seven. Internal promotion and support are not the only things that make WTJ a great firm. It has only been four years since we opened our doors, and our personal commitment to clients, community members, and our staff continues to grow.
WTJ started with only five attorneys and two staff members and has expanded to what we are today. We are so proud that The Business Journal has noticed and recognized our firm for these accomplishments!
WTJ celebrated its four-year anniversary on Thursday, February 10, with a staff lunch on the patio. They say, “time flies when you’re having fun,” and none of us could believe it had already been four years! WTJ has accomplished so much in the last several years that it is hard to list every single milestone, but on our anniversary, we did reflect on:
We can’t wait to see what the next four years will hold for this dynamic team we are so proud to have built.
WTJ said goodbye to Jamie Webb, the Transactional team’s long-time secretary of nearly two decades. Jamie retired on February 2, 2022, and celebrated the big milestone with a champagne toast with her team earlier this week. Jamie looks forward to spending her time exploring her hobbies. Cheers, and enjoy retirement, Jamie!
WTJ is proud to recognize its attorneys who have been named either a Northern California Super Lawyer or Rising Star by SuperLawyers.com for 2022.
Only a small percentage of attorneys in California receive this distinction each year—no more than 5% of attorneys are “Super Lawyers” and less than 2.5% of attorneys are “Rising Stars.”
WTJ is honored to have over 70% of the firm’s attorneys on the list. Congratulations to these attorneys for achieving this honor and keeping up with the WTJ standard of excellence in the profession:
In addition to this prestigious award, Mandy Jeffcoach was also given an elite honor, being named in the Top 50: 2021 Women Northern California Super Lawyers. We are thrilled for Mandy and the rest of the WTJ team as they celebrate these accomplishments!
Recently, the State Bar of California Standing Committee on Professional Responsibility and Conduct (COPRAC)* published concerning the ethical duties owed by an interviewing lawyer and his or her law firm to a prospective client. These duties are addressed in Rule 1.18 of the California Rules of Professional Conduct.
When a person is a prospective client within the meaning of rule 1.18(a), the interviewing lawyer owes the prospective client the same duty of confidentiality pursuant to rules 1.6 and 1.9 even though no lawyer-client relationship thereafter ensues. (Rule 1.18(a)). The lawyer may not use or disclose such information without the prospective client’s informed written consent. (Rule 1.18(b), Rule(a)). This is so even if the information would be material to the representation of an existing client of the lawyer or the lawyer’s law firm.
An interviewing lawyer who receives material confidential information from a prospective client is prohibited from accepting representation materially adverse to the prospective client in the same or a substantially related matter. This prohibition extends to members of the lawyer’s law firm as well. These prohibitions may not apply if the client has provided informed, written consent either before the interview or after. Additionally, such prohibition can be avoided as to the lawyer’s law firm if the lawyer and his or her firm complied with Rule 1.18(d) which provides:
When the lawyer has received information that prohibits representation… representation of the affected client is permissible if: (1) both the affected client and the prospective client have given informed written consent, or (2) the lawyer who received the information took reasonable measures to avoid exposure to more information than was reasonably necessary to determine whether to represent the prospective client” and a timely ethical screen is put in place by the law firm and “written notice is timely given to the prospective client.
A significant aspect of the Opinion is its discussion of the “reasonable measures” that are contemplated under Rule 1.18(d). The Opinion explains those measures are only those that are necessary to determine whether to represent a prospective client as well as whether the proposed representation was ethically proper and economically acceptable. This may include:
This opinion discusses different scenarios that may arise when a lawyer has conducted an interview with a prospective client and the law firm is not engaged by the prospective client. Each scenario illustrates the conditions that may or may not permit an ethical screen in the absence of an informed consent, governed by rule 1.18. Although this opinion is not binding, it should provide useful guidance to assure compliance with the ethical duties owed to a prospective client.
*Marshall Whitney is a former member of CORPAC. To read the full opinion click here.
Since the Summer of 2019 when Anna Barcus Allen came to WTJ from Baker, Manock and Jensen, Anna has been an essential part of the WTJ transactions team. She is extremely knowledgeable in many areas, with extensive experience counseling clients and negotiating through various matters pertaining to business, real estate, employment, agriculture, corporate governance, finance, and healthcare. Anna’s achievements were affirmed in 2018, when she was first selected for inclusion in the Northern California Rising Stars list. She has been selected every year since. There is no question that Anna is a leader in her areas of practice, someone clients trust, and an attorney WTJ is proud to call a Partner.
When Anna isn’t hard at work helping her clients, she serves as Director and Vice President of Katey’s Kids—a foundation dedicated to helping children in the community through literacy, education, and community development. She is also the Director of Exceptional Parents Unlimited—an organization created to provide services for the parents of children with special needs. She has also served as President of Fresno County Young Lawyers’ Association. In her free time, Anna enjoys traveling, wine tasting, relaxing on the Kings River with her husband and spending time with their dogs.
We are excited to announce Anna as a Partner at WTJ, and we look forward to many more years of her dedicated service to our clients. Congratulations, Anna!
After a long and prestigious career, Presiding Justice James A. Ardaiz is retiring from the active practice of law and from WTJ, the firm where he spent his final years as a highly successful litigator, mediator and arbitrator. Prior to returning to the courtroom as a litigator, he retired from a longstanding career in public service as Chief Deputy District Attorney in charge of Homicide prosecution in the District Attorney’s Office, a trial judge and ultimately as Presiding Justice of the Court of Appeal where he served as one of only six Administrative Presiding Justices governing the state appellate courts. During his tenure as an appellate jurist, he helped craft several monumental, impactful and highly regarded decisions. Mr. Ardaiz returned to private practice with a zeal and intellectual tenacity that thrust him into the upper ranks of trial attorneys who handle significant, complex cases, achieving several of the largest verdicts in the Central Valley of California. WTJ was extremely fortunate and honored to have had such an experienced, distinguished attorney as part of the team.
During his decorated, 30-year career as a judge, Justice Ardaiz served at every level of the state judiciary, including as Pro Tempore Justice of the Supreme Court on multiple occasions. Early on in his career, he was one of the youngest lawyers in the State of California to achieve the designation of Chief Deputy District Attorney in charge of homicide cases. Elected to the Municipal Court in 1980 at the age of 32, he served as a trial judge with two terms as Presiding Judge. In 1985, he was appointed by Governor Deukmejian as a Superior Court Judge, where he served as a general trial judge with one term as Criminal Presiding Judge. Then, in 1989, he was nominated by Gov. Deukmejian to the Fifth District Court of Appeal. In 1994, by the nomination of Gov. Pete Wilson, he became Administrative Presiding Justice of the Fifth District Court of Appeal. During his tenure, he authored more than 2,000 appellate opinions and participated in over 6,000 cases. Justice Ardaiz served on the California Judicial Council, including a term as Chair of the Executive Committee of the Judicial Council replacing Ronald George upon his appointment as Chief Justice. He was selected as California Jurist of the Year for his successful negotiation with over 120 unions of legislation to create a new personnel system for the trial court employees of California which Chief Justice George proclaimed as “a monumental achievement” necessary to securing a system of trial court funding for the 58 counties of the State judicial system.
Justice Ardaiz retired from the judiciary in 2010 and re-entered private practice as an arbitrator/mediator, ultimately acting in the role of general counsel to a major California-based developer and farmer, in addition to continuing to build his dispute resolution practice. In 2015, he advised on a matter for that client on an appeal from a $78 million verdict. The appeal on which he advised resulted in a complete reversal for the client. He acted as co-counsel of Sweetwater Unified School District v Gilbane before the California Supreme Court resulting in successful resolution on behalf of his client, Sweetwater and as consultant on Bolger v Amazon resulting in application of product liability against Amazon. In 2016, he reentered the courtroom as a trial lawyer and, with his co-counsel, obtained a $25 million bad faith title insurance judgment (Top 100 Verdicts in America, 2016). In 2017, he went on to litigate an eminent domain matter for a client wherein he obtained a settlement with the State of California resulting in an aggregate award worth $59 million, including a $40 million monetary settlement and $19 million valued property resolution. In short, his “retirement” from the bench led to an extremely successful civil practice wherein he participated successfully in litigating several high dollar matters for some prestigious California clients.
Justice Ardaiz went on to join WTJ in 2019, bringing decades of experience in a variety of areas including business, personal injury, governmental policy, dispute resolution and land/water use matters. In 2021, he book-ended his career by co-trying two major cases to verdict successfully alongside WTJ Partner Marshall Whitney and another of his former law partners. His final trial resulted in a jury verdict of $88,800,000.
Over the years, Justice Ardaiz also dedicated his time to education, serving as a frequent instructor at the California State Judicial College at Berkeley, CA, teaching judges on the subjects of trial practice, judicial decision making, evidence, and administration. He also served as a lecturer at the national level in judicial administration and evidence, as well as acted as a consultant to the Federal Bureau of Investigation with respect to DNA evidence. In addition to his judicial and legal accomplishments, Justice Ardaiz found time over the years to become a published author in the field of law, non-fiction, and fiction, authoring one work of non-fiction, and three works of fiction as well as co-authoring a text on California evidence. He has also drafted numerous articles on legal policy and legal humor, acted as a frequent speaker on judicial policy, and in his remaining free time paints for leisure and spends time with his adult children and grandchildren.
As Justice Ardaiz steps away from WTJ, he is excited to spend more time with his family, his wife of 51 years, Pamella , his three children and five grandchildren. On top of all of his accomplishments and recognitions, he is also a trained oil and watercolor artist who creates portraits and still-life artwork in his free time. He is looking forward to the opportunity to spend more time on his art and continue writing. WTJ is honored to recognize Justice Ardaiz for his incredible career and wish him the very best in his retirement.
The WTJ team stepped out of the office on Friday, December 3, 2021, to celebrate our own Jessica Thomason. She passed the California Bar Exam and was sworn in by retired Justice Stephen J. Kane in front of her friends, family, and colleagues. Jessica’s passion and dedication to our clients make her an integral part of our team of attorneys. We look forward to her continued success with our firm. Congratulations, Jessica!
