The state’s electricity crisis is sparking demand for lawyers.
At San Francisco-based Morr-ison & Foerster LLP’s Irvine office, energy development and litigation issues now account for about a quarter of the office’s caseload by revenue, according to Carl Steen, a partner in Morrison’s corporate and project finance groups.
Morrison handles clients working to develop new power plants and is advising the state in its bid to buy transmission lines from California’s three electric utilities, Steen said. The firm also works with in-state energy producers and fuel suppliers to Southern California Edison, he said.
“Things picked up for us in several areas,” Steen said. “We just happened to find ourselves in a situation where we had the expertise in this office already.”
The bulk of Southern California’s electricity-related casework has gone to Los Angeles firms, OC lawyers say. But the spillover is coming south, they say.
Rick Needham, a partner at Newport Beach-based Stradling, Yocca, Carlson & Rauth, said his firm has handled businesses in Edison’s contentious interruptible program, though most of that work has peaked since the state overhauled the program earlier this year.
At the height of the interruptible issue, Needham said, he represented clients in front of the governor, Legislature, the Public Utilities Commission and in their dealings with Edison.
Interruptible program customers are big electricity users that agreed to operate at or below reduced power levels upon receiving an interrupt signal from Edison. In exchange, they got lower rates. Needham said most of his interruptible clients have been manufacturers. The customers tried to exercise their option to exit the program at year-end after electricity alerts began plaguing the state in October and forcing them to shut down operations on a regular basis, he said.
Bruce May, an em-ployment lawyer with Stradling, said he’s advising companies on questions regarding what wages and salaries are payable during rolling blackouts.
So what’s he telling them? Salaried employees sent home because of a blackout can’t be docked pay unless the blackout lasts longer than a week, May said.
“If such a blackout lasted longer than a week then salaried employees would be docked pay for any days beyond the week that this ‘super-blackout’ continued,” he said.
Wage earners sent home because of a blackout aren’t entitled to pay unless they are asked to remain on standby, ready to come back at a moment’s notice, he said.
May said his client list includes software developers, chipmakers, aerospace manufacturers, building products makers, restaurants, stores and startup drug companies.
“Chipmakers seem to be the most nervous,” he said. “They have the critical electricity-guzzling equipment. So they really are dead in the water without electricity, since there is nothing for people to do if the lights go out.”
Stradling’s Needham said he doesn’t see any major players packing up and leaving because of the energy crisis. But he said he has seen companies shift more production out of state since the electricity crisis began.
“In doing so they are more likely to avoid blackouts and they get lower energy rates,” he said. “Companies that are caught unprepared at this point could be in a world of hurt.”
At risk are profits at electricity-intensive companies in California, Needham contends.
“There has been a lot of time, energy and money flushed down the toilet because the state’s energy industry wasn’t managed properly,” he said. n
