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LACBA President-Elect Candidate Accuses Rival of Conflict
Private Practitioner Park Says Corporate Attorney Grace Is Foreclosed From Serving in Leadership Role in Lawyers’ Group Based on Ownership of Premises Leased to Association for Its Headquarters
By a MetNews Staff Writer
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Participating in a debate via Zoom are, from left, Court of Appeal Presiding Justice Lee Edmon, moderator, and candidates for president-elect of the Los Angeles County Bar Association Jo-Ann W. Grace and Ann I. Park.
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Ann I. Park, seeking the office of Los Angeles County Bar Association president-elect in electronic balloting that began Monday, has accused her opponent, Jo-Ann W. Grace, of having a “very serious conflict of interest” in vying for that post because she is LACBA’s “landlord,” with Grace responding, in a “town hall” debate Monday via Zoom, that the contention of a conflict is “nonsense.”
LACBA staged the event, viewed by 130 members of the organization. Court of Appeal Presiding Justice Lee Edmon of this district’s Div. Three, one of LACBA’s former presidents, was moderator.
Park is a partner in the Los Angeles firm of Foley & Mansfield. Grace is president and general counsel of the Metropolitan News Company, which publishes the METNEWS, of which she is co-publisher, and other California newspapers.
Grace was LACBA vice president for 2019-20; Park challenged her last year for the post of 2020-21 senior vice president and received the nod from the Nominating Committee; Grace opted not to mount an independent campaign then, but did so this year after Park received more votes in the 14-member committee for president-elect. Grace qualified for the ballot by securing the required 100 signatures of members of the association.
‘Serious Conflict’
In Monday’s debate, Park, in the course of responding to a question as to what she sees as LACBA’s needs in terms of governance, declared:
“We also need to talk about governance in terms of avoiding conflicts of interest—and there’s a very serious conflict of interest right now in that Jo-Ann is now our landlord.”
She and her husband own the building at Second and Spring streets in downtown Los Angeles where LACBA has its offices. Park said that Grace is not only seeking the office of president-elect, “but she’s also the landlord of the association, and she’s collecting $500,000 in rent from us in the next two years,” adding:
“And in my view, that, you know, is a troublesome relationship and we should try to avoid conflicts of intertest.”
Park quoted former LACBA President Roland Coleman, who has endorsed her, as saying in a statement she read (with apparent reference to accusations against beleaguered attorney Tom Girardi):
“With so many harmful allegations about a local very prominent attorney, I believe that it is more important than ever to avoid even the appearance of something that could be considered untoward. Being an officer of an association and simultaneously that organization’s landlord is fraught with potentially unwanted negative implications. With organizations representing attorneys, including the State Bar, receiving negative publicity recently, I believe it the better course to avoid potentially harmful publicity.”
‘No Conflict’
Grace countered:
“That’s a bunch of nonsense. There is no conflict.”
She explained that LACBA was “trapped in a lease” for two floors in a building on Seventh Street, did not have need for that much space, tried to sublease one floor but that “did not work,” and found itself unable to afford the rent, of about $100,000 a month. Grace recited that LACBA reached the point “where it could not handle its obligations when they became due—the definition of bankruptcy.”
LACBA hired a bankruptcy attorney and was set to move out of the Seventh Street Building to stop the accrual of rent—which it had ceased paying—and, she recounted, she offered it free storage space in the Spring Street building for use during its relocation. LACBA President Tamie Jensen, President-Elect Brad Pauley, and Executive Officer Stanley Bissey viewed the premises, and she said, she received a letter of intent to lease space.
“This lease was reviewed by their counsel, the lease went to the full board of trustees, and was executed at their request,” she said.
Grace remarked that “because it was LACBA, and because I love LACBA…we did a lot of extra stuff for them.”
She noted that LACBA asked merely that the carpeting be cleaned and, instead of doing that, new carpeting, chosen by Bissey, was installed.
(LACBA said, in announcing its move to 200 South Spring Street: “The new location will be closer to the Los Angeles Superior Court and reduce LACBA’s office footprint. For years, LACBA has been working diligently to control costs, and this move saves LACBA roughly 80% on the monthly lease.”)
Opening Remarks
In her opening remarks, Grace noted that as a trustee in 2015, she was concerned over a proposal to strip sections “of any smidgen of autonomy,” and rallied section leaders, who showed up at a Board of Trustees meeting to express opposition. Those attending included two past LACBA presidents and two future ones, she mentioned, recalling:
“On that November night in 2015, while the board was in executive session, the section leaders talked among themselves in the hallway. This was the genesis of the Council of Sections. I was the only trustee to join the council. That group in 2016 put together a slate of candidates for officer positions and trustee spots. It won the officer positions and each of the trustee seats for which it had a candidate. That was the first LACBA election contest in 35 years, the second in its history.”
The council was the driving force behind the reform movement which called for fiscal restraint and increased transparency. Grace said that Park was in the “periphery” of the movement, while she was in the “center” of it.
She said in opening remarks that the council endorsed her for office last year and this year.
Complains of Ostracism
Park said in her opening remarks that she, also, became a member of the council but, she complained, since opposing Grace last year, it has “ostracized her.”
In response to a question, Park said that something “we should really do is to formalize the Council of Sections, to make it part of LACBA,” commenting:
“I remember three years ago, there was a proposal to do exactly that, to make the Council of Sections a part of LACBA. And I remember that it was very strongly argued against by Roger Grace [Jo-Ann Grace’s husband] and some others, and now I understand why that is.”
She added that the Council of Sections “should have a formal voice in the governance of the County Bar.”
The proposal was for the council to adopt a more formal structure, with an election of officers. Brant Dveirin, representing the Real Property Section (of which he’s currently chair), was among those opposing the proposition, remarking, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” and that view prevailed.
Views on Diversity
Park commented:
“I believe that one of our focuses should be on trying to increase diversity. That’s something I’ve been involved [in] my entire life. It’s something that I think that Jo-Ann is maybe not as supportive of.”
She recounted that she had a conversation with Grace in 2018 in which she mentioned a book that downplays the need for boosting diversity.
“And so, that is one of the reasons that I decided to run against her for senior vice president—because I believe that diversity should be on of the essential concerns of the Los Angeles County Bar Association.”
Grace responded:
“My position on diversity has been distorted in a whisper campaign, I would say, and the book that Ann took exception to is a favorite of a former Langston Bar president, who agrees with it, completely.”
(The John M. Langston Bar Association was founded in the 1920s at which time when LACBA excluded African Americans as members.)
“I have, over the years, been a member of Langston [and] MABA (Mexican American Bar Association),” she related, adding that she has maintained relations with many members of those organization with whom she has worked in the past and received their endorsements.
Candidates’ Endorsements
Park—whose campaign website is at https://istandwithann.com—has the endorsements of former California Supreme Court Justice Carlos Moreno and LACBA past presidents John Brinsley, Patricia Phillips, Margaret Morrow, Andrea Ordin, Richard Chernick, Gerald Chaleff, Laurie Zelon, Patricia Schnegg, Rex Heinke, Coleman, Gretchen Nelson, Danette Meyers, Alan Steinbrecher, Eric Webber, and Patricia Daehnke. Morrow is a former judge of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Zelon was a justice of the Court of Appeal for this district, and Steinbrecher was chair of the State Bar Board of Trustees.
Grace—whose website is at http://lawzone.com/jo-ann—is endorsed by former California Supreme Court Justice Marvin Baxter and by former Court of Appeal Presiding Justices Roger Boren and Robert Mallano, former Court of Appeal Justice Elizabeth Baron, and former Los Angeles Superior Court Presiding Judges William Maclaughlin and Charles McCoy. Also endorsing her are Michael E. Meyer, the first reform movement president (2017) and his successors, Kabateck, Ronald Brot, and the current president, Jensen, and past presidents Harry Hathaway, Charles Michaels, John Taylor, and Patrick Kelly (also a former State Bar president).
Balloting ends on June 1.
Copyright 2021, Metropolitan News Company