Laurie Edelstein

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Laurie Edelstein is the head of Brune & Richard’s San Francisco office. She is an experienced trial and appellate attorney whose practice focuses on commercial litigation, white-collar defense, energy, and financial issues.

Ms. Edelstein works closely with her clients to develop the most effective strategies to achieve their legal and business objectives. By combining strategic lawyering, skilled advocacy, and a detailed knowledge of the law and facts, Ms. Edelstein is able to obtain successful outcomes for her clients. Because she appreciates that litigation is not always the best answer, she also advises clients on business, strategic, and compliance issues and provides innovative strategies to resolve disputes.

As part of her commercial litigation practice, Ms. Edelstein has successfully represented a variety of institutional and individual clients in federal and state courts across the country in breach of contract, securities fraud, common law fraud, successor liability, and breach of fiduciary duty cases.

Among Ms. Edelstein’s clients is Pacific Gas and Electric Company, one of the nation’s largest electric and gas utilities. Ms. Edelstein is representing PG&E in a suit to recover hundreds of millions of dollars in wholesale electricity overcharges during the 2000-2001 California energy crisis. She also recently represented PG&E in a breach of contract suit with a co-generation facility, a consumer class action alleging violations of PG&E’s inspection and maintenance obligations, and a regulatory proceeding before the California Public Utilities Commission investigating PG&E’s billing and collection practices.

Ms. Edelstein’s current white-collar matters include representing brokers in government investigations and nationwide civil litigation concerning tax-related transactions. In addition, she has experience with internal investigations, including a current investigation related to a bankruptcy and a recent investigation involving a national winery and its liquor marketing practices. Ms. Edelstein has also worked on several monitor and receivership cases.

Ms. Edelstein served for two years as a court-appointed special master in a complex race-based employment discrimination lawsuit in the Middle District of Alabama.

Prior to opening Brune & Richard’s San Francisco office, Ms. Edelstein was an attorney in PG&E’s law department where she represented PG&E in litigation and regulatory matters and advised business groups on legal issues. Before working for PG&E, she was an associate and then a partner at Brune & Richard. From 1993-1998, Ms. Edelstein was an associate at Rabinowitz, Boudin, Standard, Krinsky & Lieberman, P.C., where she worked on a variety of constitutional, international, and civil liberties cases.

From 1992 to 1993, Ms. Edelstein served as a law clerk to the Honorable Myron H. Thompson, Chief Judge for the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama. She graduated from Yale Law School in 1992, where she received the Joseph L. Parker Prize in Legal History. In 1989, Ms. Edelstein received an M.Phil. degree in Comparative Literature from Yale University, where she was a Mellon Fellow in the Humanities. She graduated from Stanford University in 1986 with an A.B. in Comparative Literature and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

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80 Broad Street, New York, New York 10004, (212) 668–1900 phone, (212) 668–0315 fax
235 Montgomery Street, Suite 1130, San Francisco, California 94104, (415) 563–0600 phone, (415) 563–0613 fax