Ex-L.A. chief deputy city attorney faces State Bar charges over DWP scandal

A former Los Angeles chief deputy city attorney is facing State Bar of California disciplinary charges Friday for alleged misconduct related to the 2017 Department of Water and Power billing scandal.

James Patrick Clark, of Los Angeles, faces two charges of alleged misconduct related to his role in secretly directing - then lying under oath about - a scheme of collusion, deceit and concealed conflicts of interest intended to enable the city of Los Angeles to settle ratepayer class actions on terms favorable to the city and DWP, according to the State Bar.

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Clark faces two additional charges for allegedly accepting rock concert tickets from one of the attorneys involved in the collusion and then failing to report the gift, as required by law, on his financial disclosure Form 700.

"As Chief Deputy City Attorney for the city of Los Angeles, Mr. Clark occupied a position of public trust and had an obligation to act honestly and in compliance with all ethical requirements," George Cardona, State Bar chief trial counsel, said in a statement.

"Instead, the (Notice of Disciplinary Charges) alleges that he directed and authorized a scheme of collusion and deceit that was a blatant betrayal of his duties as an attorney and public official."

According to the notice, in or about February to March 2015 when he was serving as a high-level official in the City Attorney's Office, Clark met with attorneys Paul Paradis and Paul Kiesel, whom he knew represented the city of Los Angeles and DWP in a case against PriceWaterhouseCoopers related to the disastrous implementation of a new billing system for the DWP.

Clark authorized and directed the two attorneys to find outside counsel friendly to the city to represent Antwon Jones, a client of Paradis', in a ratepayer class action lawsuit against the city and DWP. The goal of the scheme was to use Jones' class action lawsuit as a vehicle to quickly settle all ratepayer claims against the city on the city's desired terms, according to the State Bar.

The NDC also alleges that Clark lied when he submitted a declaration under penalty of perjury to the Los Angeles Superior Court in June 2019 for the City of Los Angeles v. PwC case. In his declaration, Clark denied ever attending a February 2015 meeting at which he discussed with Paradis, Kiesel, and others the plan to collude on the filing of the Jones v. City lawsuit.

All of the charges arise from litigation filed in the wake of DWP's 2013 launch of a new billing system. The new system was a disaster, drastically overcharging some ratepayers, failing to bill others, sending delayed bills, and failing to provide appropriate refunds or credits, among other issues. As a result of issues resulting from the new billing system and the city's failure to resolve ratepayer complaints, four class action lawsuits were filed against the city and DWP in 2014 and 2015.

Paradis is currently serving a three-year sentence in federal prison for his part in this matter after cooperating with federal officials.

Thomas Peters, a former senior lawyer for the City Attorney's Office, was summarily disbarred in February following his felony conviction related to the DWP billing scandal. Peters was sentenced to nine months of home detention last year after pleading guilty to a federal extortion charge and agreeing to cooperate in the probe into the city's handling of the botched launch of the DWP billing system.