Information About Our Firm

Smiland & Khachigian was reorganized and renamed on May 1, 1994, upon the merger of law practices of Donnelly, Clark, Chase & Smiland and Kenneth L. Khachigian.  The firm represents businesses, property owners and entrepreneurs in private and public legal matters.

Smiland & Khachigian continues a century-old tradition of providing private business legal services in Southern California.  In 1884, Joseph W. Swanwick (1858-1952) founded the first of a succession of partnerships.  Charles E. Donnelly (1890-1975) led the firm in the middle 1900s.  Ernest M. Clark, Jr., who remains emeritus to Smiland & Khachigian, and Charles H. Chase, currently of counsel, piloted the partnership through the 1960s and 1970s.

As it has for 110 years, the firm represents businesses in cases and transactions which reflect — and often shape — the dynamic economic history of the region.  Smiland & Khachigian's practice includes providing representation and counsel to a wide variety of private businesses in corporate and commercial cases and transactions.

As government imposes increasingly stringent mandates and prohibitions on business, the firm has expanded its focus to include the government as well as the market sector.  Half the nation's income is now consumed by government spending caused by government regulation.  To survive and grow, businesses must now excel in both private and public arenas.

Smiland & Khachigian represents leading corporations in administrative proceedings before federal, state and local agencies.  The firm also represents numerous clients involved in litigation with environmental regulatory agencies, particularly relating to air, water and land use.

Smiland & Khachigian specializes in helping clients formulate successful legal strategies to achieve their goals and counter damaging governmental policies.  The firm is a leader in precedent-setting public law actions including: enforcing business' constitutional property and contract rights; opposing counterproductive environmental regulations which subvert the intent of the law; blocking attempts to use government regulation for anticompetitive purposes; and challenging bureaucratic actions founded on faulty science or economics.