LAGERLOF - Key Persons
Daniel J. Sullivan is a Senior Associate Attorney at Lagerlof, LLP in the corporate and tax department.
Daniel focuses his practice on corporate transactions, as well as basic and advanced estate, gift, and income tax planning arising in the areas of wealth succession and business succession. As a tax agent he has successfully represented clients in various complex property tax assessment appeals before the Los Angeles County Assessment Appeals Board.
Daniel graduated from Pepperdine University, cum laude. He received his law degree from Pepperdine University School of Law. After law school, he received his LL.M. in Estate Planning from the University of Miami School of Law where he graduated top of his class.
Prior to joining Lagerlof, Daniel worked at well-known firms in Pasadena and Irvine where he focused his practice on advanced estate planning for high-net-worth individuals.
Dena L. Klotz is Senior Counsel and the Managing Attorney at the Encino office of Lagerlof, LLP. Dena's practice is focused on estate planning and trust administration. Prior to joining Lagerlof, LLP, Dena worked at Corleto, Ackerman & Nussbaum LLP.
Dena received a Bachelor of the Arts degree from the University of California, Los Angeles. She has a Master's Degree in Marriage and Family Therapy from Phillips Graduate University, and practiced as a therapist specializing in resolving conflicts with couples and families. Dena received her J.D. from Pepperdine University School of Law. Dena is also licensed as a California real estate broker.
As both an attorney and a Marriage and Family Therapist, Dena brings a useful combination of skills when advising clients.
Dr. Corey Castillo is Lagerlof, LLP's Chief Operating Officer. He is a Business Strategist and Executive Coach with proven results in organizational optimization, strategic development, and revenue enhancement across multiple industries. From Health & Fitness to Corporate Philanthropy, Professional Services, Healthcare, Legal Services, and various other fields, Corey has successfully taken an interdisciplinary approach to aligning "people and processes" to deliver value-based, scalable, and sustainable business growth. His track record is a reflection of his ability to strategically segment opportunity, design value, reduce waste, scale operations, optimize talent, and cultivate a high-performance culture.
Elisabeth (Liz) Seitz is senior counsel at Lagerlof practicing in the trust and estate department.
Jeremy is a Partner at Lagerlof, LLP practicing in the litigation department.
Job Titles:
- MANAGER, TECH & E - LEARNING
Joel is Lagerlof's IT E-Learning Manager. He has IT experience in a wide-variety of industries including eCommerce, private academia, government, media and entertainment, and health care.
He began his IT career working as a web programmer in eCommerce then moved to private academia IT systems. He then expand his experience by moving to government IT administering databases at the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority and video streaming at California's Community Colleges Intelecom Learning.
Joel has also worked in the media and entertainment industry supporting high performance computing systems with multi-petabytes of storage for movie studios across Los Angeles and for the health care industry developing systems to manage data for client intake, treatment, health monitoring and billing.
Job Titles:
- MANAGING PARTNER
- Board Member for the Pasadena Museum of History
In addition to his activities as an attorney, Mr. Driskell is a board member for the Pasadena Museum of History, Leadership Pasadena, and Pasadena Fire Foundation.
Kaila is a Senior Associate Attorney for Lagerlof, LLP's litigation department. Kaila's litigation practice is focused on business, real estate/real property, trust and estate, and all matters that involve civil litigation. Prior to joining Lagerlof LLP, she worked in San Diego, where her practice focused on real property/real estate litigation and title insurance litigation.
Leigh O. Curran is Senior Counsel at Lagerlof, LLP's litigation department and concentrates her practice in business and financial services litigation.
She has represented publicly- and privately-held businesses and organizations, governmental and quasi-governmental entities, and individuals through all phases of the trial process in federal and state courts. She has represented mortgage loan originators, servicers, and property managers in mortgage, title, and negotiable instrument litigation, interpleader cases, and in receiverships.
Leigh was corporate counsel for a full-service mortgage banker that did business in 47 states. She counseled the company regarding litigation, forward and reverse mortgage loan origination and servicing, title matters, correspondent lending, leases, broker and mortgage loan originator compensation, branch openings, vendor contracts, and personnel matters. Before that, she was litigation counsel at the law firm of Bingham McCutchen, LLP, now Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, where her practice included business, environmental, and intellectual property litigation, and where she represented entities including the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, McKesson Chemical Company, Inc., Conagra Foods, and Viewsonic Corporation.
Leigh received her Juris Doctor degree from Loyola Law School in 1994 and her bachelor's degree from the University of Southern California, graduating cum laude in 1990. She is admitted to practice before all federal and state courts in California, before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth and Federal Circuits, and before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Leigh's pro bono work includes working with Election Protection to obtain an election day temporary restraining order, and, ultimately, a permanent injunction prohibiting the Secretary of State of a crucial swing state from denying provisional ballots to eligible voters in violation of the Help America Vote Act. White v. Blackwell, 409 F. Supp. 2d 919, 920 (N.D. Ohio 2006).
Outside of work, Leigh enjoys traveling and is a passionate supporter of USC football.
Leigh's representations include:
Title Litigation: Prosecuting actions to clear wild deeds and encumbrances from title to REO properties and defending the owner from related counterclaims. In a case where a stranger to a loan agreement claimed priority over lender's deed of trust pursuant to an unrecorded co-tenancy agreement, Leigh co-authored a brief that defeated the stranger's petition for writ of supersedeas filed in the California Court of Appeal;
Illegal Super-Priority Liens: Relying on a municipal ordinance, a California city and county mischaracterized civil penalties for nuisance abatements (up to $100,000 per violation per property) as abatement cost assessments and then placed the assessments on the secured tax rolls, thereby creating a super-priority lien. Leigh obtained a judicial declaration that the ordinance was void in violation of California law and a judgment of restitution of taxes that were illegally collected from a lender that acquired title through foreclosure. She also obtained a determination that the beneficiary had acted as a "private attorney general" that was entitled to recover of its attorneys' fees;
Negotiable instruments: Secured an emergency writ of attachment and injunction and ultimately recovered entire $500,000 misappropriated by bank customer as part of a scheme to defraud the IRS;
Negotiable instruments: Obtained judgment and fee award for loan servicer against borrower who forged servicer's endorsement on insurance checks totaling $430,000; settled with depository bank;
Negotiable instruments: Obtained a favorable result for depository bank on claims and counterclaims arising out of a "Nigerian Check Scam," where customer was induced by third party to deposit a check and wire funds overseas before learning that the check was fraudulent;
Lender liability: Successfully moved for summary judgment of borrower's claims against lender alleging forged loan documents, violations of Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and Financial Elder Abuse;
Lender liability: Obtained order sustaining lender's demurrer without leave to amend to borrowers' complaint that alleged that lender induced them to enter into loan by furnishing a fraudulent property tax estimate;
Lender liability (class action): Successfully moved to dismiss putative class action complaint alleging lender's mishandling of impound escrow accounts;
Lender liability (class action): Successfully moved for summary judgment of putative class action claims challenging the lender's use of particular indices to calculate interest on adjustable rate loans;
Civil procedure: Successfully enforced subpoena for documents against a third party and created still-cited precedent under New York law regarding service of process on entities (Ultradent Prods., Inc. v. Hayman, 2002 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 18000 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 24, 2002));
Member of trial team that obtained defense verdict for a group of water contractors in multi-billion dollar dispute over the method of crediting revenues derived from the Hyatt-Thermalito power facility. (Alameda County Flood Control & Water Conservation Dist. v. Department of Water Resources, 213 Cal. App. 4th 1163 (Cal. App. 3d Dist. 2013));
Member of trial and appellate team that defended Conagra subsidiary against claims alleging that enforcement of a food process patent violated the Sherman Antitrust Act. (Unitherm Food Sys. v. Swift-Eckrich, Inc., 546 U.S. 394 (2006)).
Marc is Of Counsel at Lagerlof, LLP focusing his practice on estate planning. He takes pride in guiding his clients through the often confusing maze of financial and legal decisions to ensure the wellbeing of their families and the accomplishment of cherished family goals and legacy. His considerable legal expertise includes family protection, wealth preservation and values-based planning as well as strategies for small businesses and real estate owners.
Marc is a frequent lecturer throughout Southern California on a variety of topics, including family wealth planning, wealth preservation and asset protection of inheritances. Marc also writes frequently, and received Los Angeles Daily News Readers Choice award for "Best Attorney" and "Best Living Trust" for many years.
Job Titles:
- MANAGER, MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS
Job Titles:
- MANAGER, FIDUCIARY ACCOUNTS
Pablo is Senior Counsel at Lagerlof, LLP practicing in real estate, corporate, and finance law. His practice focuses on real estate finance transactions, as well as business matters in general.
Pablo is a native to the San Gabriel Valley. When not assisting clients, Pablo and his thee daughters enjoy attending the Friday street fair in Oldtown Monrovia, catching a double-feature at the Vineland Drive-In and going to the Norton Simon Museum, among other community activities.
Job Titles:
- ASSOCIATE
- ATTORNEY
- SENIOR ASSOCIATE
Reid is a Senior Associate Attorney at Lagerlof, LLP specializing in public agencies, real estate matters, and corporate and commercial transactions.
Richard is a Partner at Lagerlof, LLP focusing his practice on corporate, real estate and general business matters. Before joining Lagerlof, LLP, Richard was the managing partner of Anglin Flewelling & Rasmussen LLP.
Rich is a frequent author and speaker on transactional matters. Recently he was a co-author and presenter at the National Business Institute's "Ultimate Guide to Commercial Real Estate Law." He also assists a variety of non-profit public benefit and religious corporations with their legal needs and is a member of the National Association of College, University Attorneys (NACUA), the National Association of Dealer Counsel (NADC), and the California, Los Angeles County and Pasadena Bar Associations.
Job Titles:
- SENIOR COUNSEL, LITIGATION & EMPLOYMENT LAW CHAIR
Liz is a Pasadena native and believes in giving back to the Pasadena community. She has worked with many Pasadena nonprofits including the Pasadena Community Foundation, Circle of Friends (Kidspace Children's Museum), Young & Healthy, Foothill Family Services, and Villa Esperanza Services.