Indiana native Bruce Larson has spent his professional career in Orange County—thanks to his parents.
The vice president assistant general counsel at Irvine-based marketing firm Advantage Solutions said that shortly after high school in Salt Lake City his parents packed up and headed to San Diego.
“When I was in college, I would come out here for summers and holidays and decided it was a good place to try and settle, so during law school I focused my job hunt in this area,” Larson said.
He landed a job at the Irvine office of law firm Fisher Phillips in 2006 after finishing law school at George Washington University. It was there that he honed his skills in employment law, and five years later he took his first in-house counsel role with financial products company QBE North America.
Larson said he was searching for an opportunity to grow even more and that he found it less than a mile from QBE’s office at the headquarters of Advantage Solutions.
He joined Advantage in 2014 as in-house employment counsel—the same year it was bought for a reported $4.2 billion by private equity firms Leonard Green & Partners LP in Los Angeles and CVC Capital Partners in Luxembourg.
Larson quickly moved up the ranks to his current post, from which he leads a four-person team responsible for employment law issues, legal compliance and litigation.
He was honored for his work at the Business Journal’s ninth annual General Counsel Awards in the rising stars category. The awards dinner was on Nov. 13 at Hotel Irvine (see stories on the other winners, pages 1, 4, 6, and 10).
“I don’t think anybody hates lawyers more than other lawyers, so if you’re honored by lawyers it means a lot,” Larson quipped during the ceremony.
Juggling Act
Larson said Advantage has grown tremendously in the four years he’s been with the company. That’s what attracted him to the firm.
The company provides a variety of outsourced business services that target the sales, marketing, and technology needs of more than 3,000 consumer goods manufacturers and retailers. Its marketing division, Advantage Marketing Partners, ranked first on the Business Journal’s list of largest advertising agencies with an estimated $592 million in revenue.
The division develops marketing programs for manufacturers and retailers designed to influence shoppers “on their paths to, and at the point of, purchase,” according to company regulatory filings.
Advantage filed tentative plans to go public last year but has yet to move forward on the proposed offering.
IPO or not, the company isn’t shy about acquiring businesses to beef up its product lines; it has spent more than $500 million on reported acquisitions since 2014.
When Larson joined, the company had about 30,000 employees and was paying legal settlements in employment cases “in the seven figures.”
Larson was able to help reduce costs by nearly 90%, even as the company more than tripled its headcount to 95,000 employees across 120 offices across the U.S.
“We don’t just pay lip service to legal compliance,” he said. “We really try to stay on top of all the new employment law and legal developments around the country [and] implement changes as we need to.”
He added that it takes lots of collaboration between his team and the company’s human resources department.
It’s also proactive in assessing cases early on to decide what to fight and what it can solve.
He’s led efforts to bring more work in-house, and over the last three years reduced the use of outside counsel by 40% compared to previous years.
Larson has also helped make litigation a revenue generator, such as garnering more than $6 million in affirmative recovery from insurance companies, collecting earned revenue from delinquent accounts and favorable resolutions with vendors and other third parties.
“It’s really possible as an attorney to be a zealous advocate for your client and also be kind and empathetic,” he said.
“I’ve had numerous conversations that have started with me being yelled at and called every name in the book and more than once ended with a friend request on social media.”
Air Time
Larson is the sixth oldest of nine brothers, each sibling about two years apart. He said having a large family seemed perfectly normal growing up.
“I’m sure when my family moved in someplace, you saw an immediate drop in property value,” he joked.
He said family gatherings require serious planning, as each sibling has children—one brother has eight kids—but they will rent a house every other year. Last summer’s trip was to central Utah, giving Larson a chance to see his 36 nieces and nephews.
Outside of work and family gatherings, he said travelling with his wife, Ashlee, is the best way for him to wind down, though he admits their pace of travel has slowed recently.
“We have a toddler who turns 2 in February, but we try to still travel with her,” he said, adding that her first trip abroad was to Australia when she was 6 months old.
He admits it may have been a bit crazy to bring her along but said she enjoyed it, citing her excitement during their trip this year to Ireland.
The couple’s next destination will be to Israel, but Larson said “we may leave the baby behind with grandparents—she’s just so energetic.”
