It's a lawsuit by the San Diego Unified School District against the State of California, so there are big players involved. It's also a suit that involves a fair piece of money; the litigation is about $1.5 billion in school funding that California provided to various school districts in 2017 and 2018. California says that cash basically wiped out all of its (massive) financial obligations to the school districts, but the districts say that violates the California Constitution. Hence the lawsuit.
San Diego Unified is a big-ticket client itself, but it's not just them suing; it's also San Jose Unified and a half-dozen other school districts as well. In short, this is no small litigation. California's represented by the Attorney General. Who's representing the school districts?
According to the opinion, anyway, a sole practitioner.
That just seemed somewhat implausible to me. How would a sole practitioner have the gravitas and/or pull to rake in such a big case involving such big clients?
The Court of Appeal lists the school district's attorney as "Christian M. Keiner for Plaintiffs and Appellants." But when you look up Mr. Keiner, he's listed as with DWK in Sacramento, a mid-sized (50+) attorney firm. Ditto when you look up the case information for the appeal; not only is Mr. Keiner listed as belonging to DWK, but so's his co-counsel, William Tunick (who's for some reason not on the caption).
A mid-size firm representing the districts makes much more sense than a sole practitioner.
Mr. Keiner and the school districts lose regardless. But, as P.T. Barnum famously said, any publicity is good publicity, at least if they list you with the right firm." (Quote edited for contemporary law firm practice.)
