Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Page 3

Former Trutanich Aide Jane Usher Joins Musick Peeler

By a MetNews Staff Writer

Former Los Angeles Senior Assistant City Attorney Jane Ellison Usher is joining Musick, Peeler & Garrett, the firm said in a release.

Usher—who joined the management of the City Attorney’s Office when Carmen Trutanich became city attorney in 2009—will join Musick Peeler’s Real Estate, Public and Environmental Law, and Litigation practices. She will represent private, public agency, and nonprofit entities whose contract, compliance, entitlement or litigation issues arise from government regulation, the firm said.

Usher served as president of the Los Angeles City Planning Commission from October 2005 through December 2008 as an appointee of then-Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. She also participated on the founding board and steering committee of the Mayor’s Million Trees Foundation.

A 1977 graduate of Cornell University, Usher earned her law degree from the University of Chicago in 1980. After being admitted to practice in California that same year, she joined the firm then known as Manatt, Phelps, Rothenberg & Tunney as a land use litigator and administrative lawyer.

Usher subsequently took a leave of absence from the firm to hold the posts of associate vice president and associate general counsel to the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games. She later became general counsel for the United States Football League, the America’s Cup, and the Association of Volleyball Professionals.

In 1989, Usher moved to the office of then-Mayor Tom Bradley, where she became the first person to hold the title of counsel to the mayor. Prior to Bradley leaving office in 1993, Usher served as legal advisor, policy advocate, speech writer, and liaison to the city attorney and the newly created Ethics Commission.

She sat for Bradley on the board of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority and helped to guide his merger of the former Los Angeles County Transportation Commission and the Southern California Rapid Transit District.

After leaving city government, Usher became assistant dean of the USC Annenberg School for Communication in 1998. She retired from that post in 2002.

At Musick Peeler, she will be reunited with William Carter, who served as Trutanich’s chief of staff and later chief deputy. Carter was a Musick Peeler partner before joining Trutanich, and returned to the firm after the then-city attorney was defeated for re-election last year.