Whether you’re swapping windows or putting up new homes, SF’s red tape is notorious. Those in charge say relief is finally coming.

In SF’s new Permit Center, people with plans, literally, wait for their numbers to be called. (Photo by the author)

“It’s a simple project,” says John McDowell, a permit expediter who helps would-be builders untangle San Francisco’s legendary red tape. His current clients, who own an early 20th-century, mixed-use building on Market Street, want to replace wood windows with more durable materials that he swears will look “exactly the same.”

McDowell says SF’s planning commissioners, who must approve the swap, won’t be able to tell the difference, let alone someone walking by on the street. The windows “are on the second floor, even,” he adds. He wouldn’t disclose the specific address.

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Neither can McDowell say when the project will get on the Planning Commission’s agenda. So far, it’s been an eight-month wait. “They only have meetings once [a week], and you have to get into a queue, and then sometimes they won’t review certain things and sometimes they review other things,” McDowell says.

It’s not an uncommon predicament, even for seasoned expediters. Getting building permits in San Francisco, even for straightforward changes, can be a trial of months or even years, during which time, developers and property owners may end up feeling like the refugees in Casablanca, forced to “wait and wait and wait” with no end in sight.

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Plenty of people with experience developing in San Francisco — be they architects, engineers, developers, permitting experts, and property owners large and small — have a horror story to share, perhaps more than one.

In a March opinion piece in the SF Chronicle, SF YIMBY board member Bilal Mahmood estimated that the median time to get approval to build is 627 days. In 2021 and 2022 the city issued only 2,000 permits a year for new home projects. With a new state mandate to produce more than 10,000 new homes a year this decade, that kind of delay has the potential for disaster.

No secret: The SF Department of Building Inspection’s own presentation on permit reform highlights what’s wrong. You have to admit the melting clock is a nice touch.

Mayor London Breed, some supervisors, and the Planning Commission are pushing for reform — and surprise, so are the very city bodies whose practices are under the microscope. In interviews and recent public meetings, staffers at both the Planning Department and Department of Building Inspection say they’re eager to speed up the way things work.

So what’s taking so long?

Appeal anything

“We love permit processes in San Francisco,” Michael Christensen, one of the city’s principal planners, said at a joint Planning-DBI hearing earlier this month.

He was being sarcastic. Most San Franciscans who’ve had a taste of the permit bureaucracy hate it like bedbugs. Nevertheless it is true that SF is a very permit-happy city, which demands papers for virtually any change to a property, and sometimes dozens of permits for new construction.

Even worse, Christensen pointed out that every single permit in SF can potentially be appealed. Not every appeal prevails, but each one eats up precious time, and the city’s rules grant anyone with a few hundred bucks and a beef the right to file an appeal.

Let’s put new development in SF, broadly speaking, into two buckets. Start with entitlements, during which a developer must convince city planners that their idea is sound.

This is where most of the nastiness happens, including high-stakes meetings, contentious neighborhood outreach, long and indefinite waits like McDowell’s, challenges based on state environmental regulations, and sometimes dirty San Francisco politicking.

San Francisco engineer Daniel Barringer is fed up with what he calls the Planning Department’s “idiotic system”: “They make everything up, they have rules about maximum height and sidewalk setbacks and how wide your garage door can be, but they can change all that based on ‘Does this conform to the style of living unit in the city?’ or whatever. You submit drawings to the city and they sit there for months, could be a year, and then they get back to you with comments they just made up.”

Planning chief of staff Dan Sider admits the process can be bewildering. But his staff is beholden to the process, he says, and can end up as scapegoats when things go sideways.

Over 50 years, additions to the planning code have created “a package of controls so large that we no longer publish a paper version,” Sider writes The Frisc in an email. He notes that in recent years, the permit center has overhauled many processes. “We see roughly 60 people in person at the permit center every day, and fewer than one in five wait more than 25 minutes to speak with a planner,” he adds.

So that’s the front end of the process. But what about those hundreds of days to get various construction permits after city planners approve a project? That’s where the Department of Building Inspection bucket comes in.

Notorious DBI

“Shovel ready” in this city doesn’t mean anyone will pick up a shovel anytime soon. Yet Patrick Hannan, spokesperson for DBI, denies that it really takes the 600 days or more for the department to get builders their permits. In fact, he accuses Mahmood of misreading the data and not correcting his op-ed. What’s more, Hannan says that sometimes city agencies spend days or weeks waiting for applicants to get back to them, during which a project’s timer is running. (The Frisc repeatedly tried to reach Mahmood for clarification but was unsuccessful.)

However, Hannan and everyone else we spoke with at DBI acknowledge the process can indeed take hundreds of days. This is because in some regards, putting up a new structure in San Francisco is a lot like preparing for major surgery.

“You’ve got to talk to your doctor, yes, but there’s also nurses, administrators, specialists,” says permit expediter Dennis Lowery. To an outsider, SF’s permit bureaucracy has parallels to the American health-care system. “If you went to someone in the Amazon and said when you get sick, you’ve got to see 50 people, they’d ask why. And it’s because they all do different things.”

At his presentation earlier this month, SF planner Christensen outlined a cavalcade of departments that can get involved in a major permit — Planning and the DBI, as well as the Fire Department, Department of Public Works, the Public Utilities Commission, the Historical Preservation Commission, and the Bureau of Urban Forestry, to name a few.

‘I’ve never worked in a city quite like San Francisco before. Every project is political. Some people are convinced that things are working just fine the way they are.’ — DBI deputy director for permit services Neville Pereira

According to Hannan, a median housing-related project in SF last year spent 289 days in Planning review; 259 days with DBI; 137 with DPW; 43 with PUC; and for those that needed Fire Department review, another 127. The median length of time was over 620 days, and most projects that were approved in 2022 started in 2020.

Making matters worse, these departments have been bad beyond belief at coordination. As told by those who’ve run through the development gauntlet, permit seekers can feel like riders stuck on a carousel, unable to step off despite feeling queasy.

You get sent to one desk to review paperwork, only to be directed to another. Sometimes these desks will issue confusing or contradictory advice about next steps or timelines. Or someone might catch a discrepancy that should have been caught two desks back, sending you back to where you started.

Roll with it: Dozens of project plans are racked up at SF’s new Permit Center. (Photo by the author)

The new Permit Center, touted by the mayor in March, is supposed to change all that. During a recent visit, staff eagerly highlighted new solutions, such as a single intake desk that checks a permit seeker’s paperwork up front to make sure nothing is missing, rather than discovering an error or omission halfway through.

At this stage, permit seekers now receive an estimate of the duration of the review process. Although it’s a ballpark figure, it still gives both planners and permit seekers a better sense of a project’s timeline.

Also new: Incoming projects are assigned to the next available staff member. Previously it was a strict rotation, which meant a project application assigned to someone on vacation, on leave, or just too busy would collect dust.

These are all great changes, but they’ve been in place for less than a year.

A shocking amount of this work is still done in old-fashioned, analog form. At the Permit Center, you’ll see rolled-up plans piled every which way, like lost scrolls in the Vatican archives. During the pandemic, this analog “system” got so backed up that one permit expediter reportedly threatened to kill himself in protest, in front of the mayor. (The unidentified man ultimately did not harm himself.)

A new digital system has been in the works for years; planners tell us they’re finally getting ready to make the big switch.

A DBI employee displays the key piece of paperwork for most applications — Form 3/8, aka “the pink form.” (Photo by the author)

At DBI, it’s Neville Pereira’s job to cut permit times. The deputy director for permit services has been on the job for two years, part of a wave of hires and appointments meant to clean up the place after an FBI sting exposed corruption at the department’s highest levels. These dirty dealings also further fouled up the permitting process, where those who were favored got to the front of the line faster, while everyone else fell behind.

Even with the old guard gone, the department is still wading through a backlog of potentially crooked work. (The investigation ensnared popular permit expediter Walter Wong, exposing how, though many expediters are honest consultants, the need for them creates the opportunity for exploitation. Notably, of the dozen or so expediters we spoke to for this story, not one was worried that the proposed reforms would put them out of work.)

Pereira says now that we’re fully beyond the pandemic’s restrictions, he’s pushing to cut permitting time for new housing projects in half. Asked how that’s going over politically, Pereira chooses his words carefully: “I’ve never worked in a city quite like San Francisco before.” he says — meaning “a city where every project is political. Some people are convinced that things are working just fine the way they are,” but he declines to name names.

A major goal of reform is getting both of the big process buckets — entitlement and permitting — to happen simultaneously in a “bifurcated system” to chop months off the lead time for up to 97 percent of projects.

Of the dozen or so expediters we spoke to for this story, not one was worried that the proposed reforms would put them out of work.

It is theoretically possible to do this now, but few developers of major projects go for it because of a pair of the complaints we’ve heard. First, the capriciousness of Planning demands — a shorter building, a different unit count, an entirely different layout — could scuttle the construction review already done on the other side of the permit fence. Second, DBI might find a technical flaw that sends a project back to the drawing board, and back to Planning for reapproval. (These cases, which DBI says are rare, nonetheless can add a lot to those hundreds of days of waiting.)

But if Planning, DBI, and other agencies could communicate and work more closely together, that’s the promised land: Politicking and neighborhood appeals could still stymie building (reforming that process is a separate war), but parallel review would slash through acres of red tape, if they can pull it off.

This reporter asked Pereira how long he expects this to take. Five years? More? “Eighteen months,” he replied. The timeline laid out in this month’s joint hearing and presented to The Frisc again at the Permit Center calls for legislation to amend processes sometime this summer, although the specific language is still labeled “in development.”

In this city, it always pays to be skeptical of promises that this time things will be better. But if this is the real deal, then we don’t have long to wait to find out.

Adam Brinklow covers housing, development, and more for The Frisc.

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MORE HOUSING AND DEVELOPMENT COVERAGE IN THE FRISC

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WeWork Founder Adam Neumann Discounts His NYC Triplex to $32M

Let’s try that again.

Adam Neumann, former CEO and co-founder of shared-workspace company WeWork, is still hoping for a sale. The price tag this time for his posh New York City penthouse: $32 million, the Real Deal reports.

The Gramercy Park-area property spans three floors, six bedrooms, 5.5 baths, and a bit more than 4,000 square feet. The place first hit the market in 2020 with a larger number attached—$37.5 million.

Even with the recent price cut, the current ask was enough to land the swank dwelling on the Realtor.com® list of most expensive homes of the week.

Will this discounted second offering yield a deep-pocketed buyer? Take a look at all the upscale extras and decide for yourself.

Built in 1920

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Dining room

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Living room

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Kitchen

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Main bedroom

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Primary bathroom

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Pink bathroom

(Realtor.com)

Built more than a century ago, the stately home was redesigned by architect Pietro Cicognani, and the interiors were refreshed by Windsor Smith.

The public rooms feature a quiet palette of white and gray, lending an elegant air. But artful accents of color (pink in one bathroom, bright yellow in another) show up, too. For maximum privacy, all three floors are accessed via a keyed elevator.

Prewar flourishes include wood paneling, crown moldings, herringbone floors, and gorgeous chandeliers. There are also custom windows. A curvaceous staircase with a skylight winds upward, ending at a nearly 1,000-square-foot roof deck—perfect for outdoor entertaining.

This white-glove service, limestone-and-granite building has just six units, making this condo an intimate and exclusive living experience. It’s also just a few steps from two parks—Gramercy and Union Square, which is the longtime location of the beloved greenmarket.

Neumann served as WeWork CEO from 2010 until 2019, when he left after the troubled company had to delay a planned IPO.

The Israeli-born businessman is reportedly still billionaire and unloading his other prestigious real estate in Westchester County, NY; the Hamptons; and the San Francisco Bay Area.

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A “CULT” with ties to Adam Driver’s in-laws obtained sensitive and private information about their followers to use against them if they fell out of line or ever threatened to leave the “abusive” sect, a lawsuit claims.

The Odyssey Study Group (OSG) is a self-described esoteric school – and alleged cult – based in New York City and Boston that’s estimated to have upwards of 200 members among its ranks.

Alex Horn and Sharon Gans founded he group in the late 1970sCredit: Getty
It was originally set up in San Francisco under the name the ‘Theatre of All Possibilities’Credit: survivorshandbook

The group was initially founded under the name the “Theater of All Possibilities” by the late one-time actress Sharon Gans and her husband Alex Horn in San Francisco, in the 1970s.

However, the couple was forced to fold the group and leave town after disturbing allegations of “brainwashing” and “violence” from numerous former members were made in a local newspaper report.

Gans and Horn fled to New York and reopened the group as the “A Fourth Way School” in the 1980s, which is otherwise referred to as OSG or simply School, today.

The ultra-secrative group is comprised of the city’s rich and highly educated and has an extensive history of alleged sex scandals, child abuse, and accusations of racism and rampant homophobia.

Former members, including litigation attorney Spencer Schneider, have openly accused OSG of operating as a cult that uses a series of abusive techniques to brainwash its followers and seize total control of their lives.

In a lawsuit filed by Schneider in December, he lists a myriad of instances of abuse that he claims to have witnessed or suffered first hand during his almost 25 years inside OSG.

The pattern abuse, he alleges, was a designed by Gans and other OSG leaders to slowly errode members’ psychological well-being and maintain control of them.

Some of the tactics employed by Gans and her acolytes included depriving students of sleep, emotionally abusing and humiliating them in front of their peers, and “gaslighting” them, claims the suit.

Additionally, Gans and other leaders would apparently conspire to obtain sensitive, private, and potentially embarrassing information about OSG members to keep them in line and dissuade them from leaving for fear the information may later be used against them or publicly disclosed.

“At times, when a Student broke a rule, including by failing to adhere to one of Sharon Gans Horn’s directives, Gans Horn disclosed personal and sensitive information obtained by her through members of the Inner Circle,” reads the lawsuit.

“Sharon Gans Horn frequently, and without warning, openly discussed during Class Students’ marital problems and intimate details about their sex lives, and encouraged adultery among Students.

“Schneider lived in fear that Gans Horn would publicly discuss
intimate details about his and [his wife’s] sex life, encourage his spouse to sleep with other Students of Gans Horn’s choosing, or demand that Schneider and [his wife] divorce.”

THREATS & COLLATERAL

In one such alleged incident, Schneider says when two students decided to leave the organization, Gans used collateral she had obtained on the pair and told their respective spouses that they had an affair with one of the leaders of OSG.

Gans also told other students of the affair, including Schneider, he claims.

Schneider said he experienced something similar when he finally quit OSG in 2013 having suffered a “complete mental breakdown.”

Annoucing his departure after 24 years, Gans allegedly told a room full of students that Schneider was “gay” and had never once had sexual relations with his wife – despite having a child together.

Schneider claims Gans routinely questioned his sexuality in front of other students in an attempt to belittle and embarrass him.

At times, when a Student broke a rule, including by failing to adhere to one of Sharon Gans Horn’s directives, Gans Horn disclosed personal and sensitive information obtained by her through members of the Inner Circle.

Years earlier, Gans had directed Schneider to share any childhood traumas he suffered during a class with a room full of peers.

For the first time in his life, per the suit, Schneider shared that he had been sexually abused by a male camp counselor when he was just 14 years old.

But rather than reacting with empathy, Gans allegedly told the room that Schneider was not the victim of abuse but rather that he had been “experimenting” with his attacker.

She also advised him to simply “cease” thinking about the incident, he claims.

“On multiple occasions thereafter, Gans Horn openly questioned whether Schneider was heterosexual and intentionally left Schneider with the impression that his childhood sexual abuse was his fault,” the suit reads.

“In this way, Gans Horn obtained sensitive information about Schneider – another method used by the Organization to ensure Schneider’s continued participation in it – and used shame and humiliation to maintain control over [him].”

FAMILY TIES

Schneider was introduced to his spouse by Gans in 1997. They also allegedly split under his instructions in 2009.

His ex-wife was not named in the suit but The U.S. Sun identified her as Cynthia May in an exclusive report last month.

May, 67, is the mother of actress Joanne Tucker. Tucker has been married to Star Wars star Adam Driver for a decade.

Her involvement in OSG was confirmed by Schneider who wrote a tell-all book about the alleged cult last year.

While May was referred to under the pseudonym “Beth” in Schneider’s book, The U.S. Sun was first able to verify her identity through divorce records, which Schneider later confirmed.

While he’s unsure if May is still a member of the group, she was once a “teacher” at OSG, Schneider said.

Cynthia May was once a ‘teacher’ at the Odyssey Study Group (OSG). She and Schneider were married for more than a decadeCredit: Instagram
May is the mother of Joanne Tucker (right) who is married to Star Wars star Adam Driver (left)Credit: Getty Images – Getty
Spencer Schneider filed a lawsuit against the estate of Gans and her alleged successors in DecemberCredit: Kenn Lichtenwalter

Being anointed with the title of “teacher” was considered the highest honor inside the group and akin to being Gans’ lieutenant, he added.

In Gans’ absence, teachers would lead lessons on her behalf, keeping tabs on the students and conducting the classes just as she would.

There is no suggestion that Adam Driver or Joanne Tucker are in any way involved with the group.

However, Schneider said he thinks Joanne was “aware” of who Gans was, adding that she and her siblings “hated” the eccentric sect leader.

“[Driver and Tucker] have no involvement in it whatsoever. None,” adamantly stated Schneider.

“I know Adam and Joanne very well, they’re my stepdaughter and son-in-law.

“They have no involvement in it, [but] I think Joanne knows about Sharon, you know, she knows about that.

“But they all have no involvement at all and they didn’t like Sharon, the kids.

“They all hated her,” he added. “They all hated her.”

PASSING THE TORCH

Requests for comment sent to May, Driver, and Tucker previously went unanswered. This story will be updated if The U.S. Sun receives a response.

When Gans passed away from Covid-19 in 2021, she left her $3.275 million estate to a handful of members who now allegedly oversee the group, as well as her stepson who is not associated with OSG.

Those alleged members were named in Schneider’s lawsuit as Minerva Taylor, Lorraine Imlay, Greg Koch, and Ken Salaz.

Taylor, 71, founded a Manhattan recruiting firm, Taylor Hodson Inc., in December 1994 – and Gans was long-rumored to be a silent partner in the business.

Cynthia May also worked for a number of years at Taylor Hodson, earning the title of vice president and senior account executive. It’s unclear if she’s still employed with the firm.

According to Schneider, May was at one time named as a recipient in Gans’ will but was removed for reasons unknown prior. The U.S. Sun could not verify the claim.

DISTURBING INSTRUCTIONS

During the 12 years they were married, Schneider says Gans had a profound influence over his and May’s relationship.

He revealed in a previous interview how Gans told him to have sex with his 19-year-old step-daughter after he and May encountered difficulties when trying to conceive a child in 1998.

As Schneider remembers it, Gans called him to inform him she was worried about May, then 42, having a child.

“I don’t like the idea of Cynthia getting pregnant, at her age it’s potentially dangerous,” she apparently told him, per his book.

“The child could have down syndrome and you would have to put it up for adoption.”

As Schneider tried to assure Gans all would be fine, she told him he should have sex with his 19-year-old step-daughter “Hannah” instead.

“No Spencer, what you can do is impregnate Hannah, she can carry the baby, and you and Beth can raise the baby as your own,” Gans allegedly instructed.

When asked if she was serious, he says she told him: “Of course. I’m sure Hannah would be happy to do this. She’s still young. She would do it for you.”

Spencer Schneider was 29 when he joined the mysterious group in 1989Credit: Spencer Schneider
The founder of OSG, Sharon Gans, passed away from Covid-19 in 2021Credit: Wikipedia

The true identity of “Hannah” is not clear.

But Schneider refused Gans’ direction and thankfully, he said, she didn’t push the matter further.

In his book, Schneider also recounts the moment he informed his wife of the sickening suggestion. While May shook her head in disbelief, it wasn’t enough to make either of them consider leaving OSG at that time, he said.

“Sharon was suggesting that I engage in incest to conceive a child,” writes Schneider in his book.

“This child would be the grandchild of my wife, the child of my stepdaughter, and the niece or nephew of my other stepchildren. It was repugnant and I never considered it for a second. But I did overlook it.

“Not because I thought Sharon was demented but because I thought, in my compromised condition, that Sharon was a free spirit — uninhibited and unconstrained from all conventions — and that someone of her “hippie mindset” would of course recommend this. I gave her a pass. A big one.”

HARD LABOR

Schneider is suing Gans’ estate and her alleged successors for violations of human trafficking laws and he’s seeking damages for years of unpaid work.

In addition to various instances of alleged emotional abuse, Schneider claims members of OSG were also forced to carry out hours of unpaid labor at Gans’ properties in New York, Massachusetts, and Montana.

Students apparently were required to strip logs, demolish walls, chainsaw down trees, install electricity and plumbing, and conduct various other skilled tasks – none of which they were trained to do.

On more than one occasion students suffered injuries, according to the suit.

Adding insult to sometimes literal injury, the labor-intensive trips were referred to by Gans and other OSG superiors as “retreats” – despite requiring students to work from anywhere between 12-20 hours per day with limited breaks, Schneider claims.

“On one occasion while Schneider was stripping the logs at the Montana ranch, he began to resent that he was doing this labor and verbally told others that he believed that Sharon Gans Horn should have hired someone to perform the labor,” reads the suit.

“When he did so, Gans Horn broke into hearty laughter and the Inner Circle and other Students joined.

“Gans Horn then stared at Schneider with laser focus – in a manner that Schneider found intimidating – and said, in substance, ‘Working hard is a privilege, it’s for you, to help you grow internally. I could easily hire someone to do this work, but what good would that do you? School is an artificial cosmos.’

“Continuing, she said, in substance, ‘It’s not our fault if negative thoughts come into our head, but it is our fault if we choose to think them. We have a choice to select other thoughts and not think those thoughts. These negative thoughts are just like little birds in your head—just let them come in one ear and out the other.'”

‘IT’S A CULT’

Schneider, in his suit, claimed that Gans and her acolytes instilled “a fear” in OSG members that if they didn’t perform the demanded labor and services they would “endure serious harm, including psychological, financial, and reputational harm and other non-physical harm,” such as ostracism from the group.

In addition to manual labor at Gans’ properties, Schneider said he was forced to conduct other tasks free of charge, including acting as her personal chauffeur, recruiting new members, party planning, and caring for Gans’ ailing husband, Alex Horn.

After years of alleged bullying, instances of public shaming, and other emotional and physical abuses, Schneider finally decided to leave OSG in 2013.

Having lost his marriage and with his legal practice suffering significant financial hardships, he suffered a “complete mental breakdown” in late 2012, before he really began questioning his association with Gans and what OSG really was.

“I honestly, like I didn’t think it was a cult until the day after I left and then it just all tumbled down,” Schneider told The U.S. Sun last year.

“Then it was like, ‘Oh wow, that was a cult.’

“I’ll never forget that feeling.”

Joanne Tucker and Adam Driver recently announced they were expecting their second child togetherCredit: AFP or licensors
Following the release of his book, Manhattan Cult Story, Schneider is the first former member of the school to come forward with his story

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“As is clear from our recent run of notable litigation hires, the expansion of our corporate investigations, international arbitration and cross-border disputes capabilities has been a priority for Pillsbury in recent years, knowing just how important those matters have become for our clients, ” said Deborah Baum, leader of the firm’s global litigation section. “Adam checks all those boxes, and more. He enhances our litigation team in San Francisco, our market-leading China practice, and also adds new depth on the West Coast when it comes to international trade compliance work. We are thrilled to have him on the team.”

Goldberg regularly represents technology, gaming, financial services, health care, life sciences and consumer products companies on government and internal investigations, on issues relating to the Foreign Corrupt Practice Act (FCPA) violations, commercial bribery, violations of US and Hong Kong securities laws , embezzlement, the fraudulent transfer of corporate funds, and US sanctions violations. In addition, he frequently provides counsel on matters pertaining to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), sanctions and export controls compliance. In addition to a robust investigations-focused practice, Goldberg is frequently engaged on cross-border litigation and international arbitration matters, including securities class actions and complex commercial litigation. While much of his work pertains to China, he also has experience advising on issues in connection with Korea, Japan, Southeast Asia, India and other Asian countries.

A fluent Mandarin speaker who spent a decade practicing law in Hong Kong, Goldberg is recognized as an “Up and Coming” partner in the Corporate Investigations/Anti-Corruption section of Chambers Global and was named a 2021 “national leader” for Mainland China and Hong Kong by Who’s Who Legal: Investigations.

“I look forward to returning to the Bay Area and to joining a renowned international firm with a substantial California presence, a deep bench of regulatory and cross-border experience, and a commitment to Asia,” Goldberg said. “With its long and illustrious history in Asia, Pillsbury was particularly attractive to me. That lengthy track record, combined with the firm’s obvious emphasis on building out its white collar and government investigations capabilities, present an ideal platform for me and my clients.”

Pillsbury’s China practice has been growing significantly in recent years, including the 2021 recruitment of former federal prosecutor Ronald Cheng as a litigation partner in Los Angeles and the earlier arrival of five practitioners in China-focused litigators in New York led by partner Geoffrey Sant. Notably, Pillsbury’s China practice was shortlisted as “Firm of the Year” in 2022 for International Dispute Resolution. The inclusion marks a second consecutive year receiving this prestigious recognition from China Law & Practice Awards.

Pillsbury’s award-winning team of more than 200 litigators works with clients around the world to help them successfully resolve disputes, in trial and out of court, at home and in jurisdictions around the globe. The firm has garnered dozens of top-tier recognitions as a result of its exceptional litigation prowess, and was most recently recognized as one of the 12 most feared law firms to come up against in litigation by BTI Consulting Group.

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