BKSLAWFIRM - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- General Counsel to Several California
Andrew is a firm shareholder and his practice focuses on advising and representing public agencies and water suppliers. Andrew has particular expertise in public agency law, including the Brown Act, Public Records Act, conflicts of interest, and public works construction law. His practice also includes water rights, including adjudications and permitting and related proceedings before the State Water Resources Control Board.
Doug Coty joined Bartkiewicz, Kronick and Shanahan as Of Counsel in July 2022. Mr. Coty has significant experience in all phases of the legal and technical work necessary to establish, govern, operate, and maintain a variety of public and quasi-public agencies and special districts. He currently serves as General Counsel to the Contra Costa Water District in Concord, the Dublin San Ramon Services District in Dublin, the Oakwood Lake Water District in Manteca, and the Contra Costa Mosquito and Vector Control District in Concord, as well as providing legal advice and counsel to other firm clients.
Mr. Coty serves on the Legal Affairs Committee of the Association of California Water Agencies. He also serves on the Attorneys Committee and State Legislative Committee for the California Association of Sanitation Agencies. He has lectured on water- and wastewater-related matters, as well as the Brown Act, Public Records Act and Political Reform Act, and Propositions 218 and 26. Before joining the firm in 2022, he practiced water and public agency law for 15 years in Walnut Creek, California and spent seven years prior to that employed with the Pajaro Valley Water Management Agency in Watsonville, California.
Mr. Coty has extensive experience in public agency governance issues, including the Brown Act, Public Records Act, conflict of interest laws, environmental documentation, and elections or appointments to local agency legislative bodies. His areas of concentration have included water rights, water supply and quality, wastewater and recycled water, governmental organization and operation, environmental law, rates and charges (with particular emphasis on Proposition 218 and Proposition 26 procedural and substantive compliance issues), and customer services regulations. Mr. Coty has also worked on a variety of water supply issues related to surface water, groundwater, and recycled water used for irrigation, for both public and private clients. He also has assisted a number of private clients who sought to obtain or develop a water supply for use for agricultural or municipal and industrial purposes.
Holly Jacobson is a firm shareholder and her practice includes serving as trial counsel in cases involving complex surface water right disputes, groundwater adjudications, writs of mandate, and the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). She counsels public and private clients regarding various regulations, proceedings before the State Water Resources Control Board, and provides general advice to agencies and businesses.
Josh Horowitz is a partner in the firm. His practice focuses on providing general legal counsel to many of the firm's special district clients on a variety of matters, including: utility service obligations; operations and rate setting; conflict of interest, ethics and Brown Act/Public Records Act compliance; Proposition 218 and related public finance; real property transactions; employee benefits and employment matters; public works project development and construction; elections; government claims and insurance coverage; contracting and grant funding; water rights and water quality; power production; and local government organization and reorganization. Mr. Horowitz co-authored the revised Guidelines for Conduct and AB 1234 Compliance - A Primer for Public Agency Officials (Association of California Water Agencies publication); co-designed ACWA's AB 1234 ethics training program; and helped edit Open and Public IV: A User's Guide to the Ralph M. Brown Act. Before joining the firm in 2000, Mr. Horowitz practiced in a Bay Area firm specializing in real property and business litigation and counseling. Before practicing law, Mr. Horowitz worked for eleven years in agribusiness management. He received his undergraduate degree with honors from Middlebury College, Middlebury Vermont in 1981, and his law degree from the University of California, Davis School of Law in 1996.
Kristin has 15 years of legal and policy experience in the environmental field with particular expertise in water law and policy. Most recently, prior to joining BKS, Kristin worked for the California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA). Kristin was appointed by Governor Newsom to the role of Deputy Secretary and Special Counsel for Water Policy, where she provided legal and policy advice to the Governor's Office, CalEPA's Secretary, and CalEPA Boards, Departments and Office, on California's most pressing water challenges. In that role, Kristin regularly advised on issues related to water rights, water quality, drought response and planning, Sustainable Groundwater Management Act implementation, wildfire resilience and recovery and managed high-stakes litigation on behalf of the Agency.
Dick Shanahan is a founding partner of the firm. He serves as general counsel and city attorney to numerous local government agencies. His law practice focuses on municipal and special district law, environmental law, public works project development, public finance, and land use and planning work. Mr. Shanahan co-authored Proposition 218: Local Agency Guidelines for Compliance and Proposition 26: Local Agency Guidelines for Compliance (Association of California Water Agencies publications), helped draft mosquito control related legislation, and helped edit Open & Public (a Brown Act guide) and the California Municipal Law Handbook (a League of California Cities publication). He has participated as a speaker on local government finance, Brown Act, mosquito control and other topics. Prior to forming Bartkiewicz, Kronick & Shanahan, he was a partner with Kronick, Moskovitz, Tiedemann & Girard. Mr. Shanahan received a B.S. in Biology from Santa Clara University in 1980, and his law degree from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in 1983.
Ryan Bezerra joined the firm in 1999 and became a principal in 2002. His practice focuses on water-right and water-supply matters, including surface-water and groundwater rights, related environmental and endangered-species issues, water supply assessments and water-related legislation and regulations. He is the special water counsel for the Cities of Folsom, Roseville and Santa Cruz. He is the general counsel for the Regional Water Authority, which represents the Sacramento metropolitan area's municipal and industrial water suppliers; Yolo County Flood Control & Water Conservation District, which is the primary agricultural water supplier in Yolo County; and Lockeford Community Services District. Mr. Bezerra participated in the drafting of the statewide general permit for aquifer storage and recovery projects (available here) and in the Association of California Water Agencies' (ACWA) preparation of the first draft of legislation that became the 2014 Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. He has represented clients in three groundwater basin adjudications and multiple State Water Resources Control Board proceedings, including the California WaterFix water-right hearing. His publications include Submerged in the Yuba River: The State Water Resources Control Board's Prioritization of the Governor's Commission's Proposals, 36 McGeorge L. Rev. 331 (2005). He frequently presents at conferences and annually teaches a session on the reasonable use of water under Article X, section two, of the California Constitution at the University of California, Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law. Mr. Bezerra is a member of ACWA's State Legislative and Legal Affairs Committees. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of California, Davis in 1992 and his law degree from Boalt Hall in 1995. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the Order of the Coif.