By Robert Haugh
The Good —The Leg Drop Award:
The law firm Hanson Bridgett represented the City when the 49ers tried to reduce their own stadium rent. They won. Instead of lowering the rent by $170 million over 40 years, the arbitrator increased it by $10 million. Wow. And the 49ers will be stuck with the tab for the City’s legal fees. Double wow.
So Hanson Bridgett gets something more prestigious than an official City commendation. They get this week’s Leg Drop Award.
The Bad — The Jabroni Award:
Another law firm did not do as well as Hanson Bridgett this week.
SMG lost the competitive process to manage the Santa Clara Convention Center to Spectra. So SMG protested.
They used attorney/lobbyist Ash Pirayou of Rutan & Tucker. But Linh Lam, the new City Auditor, poked some holes in his case including pointing out some big factual errors about the scoring. Whoops. That’s not good. So she found the protest invalid.
[…] Hanson Bridgett was hired to represent the city. The law firm represented the City when the 49ers tried to reduce their own stadium rent. And they won big. The decision was so big in the City’s favor that they got a Leg Drop Award. […]