Attorney Profiles
Steven A. Blum
Partner
Yale Law School
blum@blumho.com
(310) 694 - 9584
Steve Blum was born in the Bay Area. He graduated from UCLA with a history degree (summa cum laude) in 1984 and Yale Law School in 1987. He started his career as a real estate and business transactions lawyer working for Werner Wolfen at one of California’s top law firms, Irell & Manella. Then he became a real estate and business litigator at the San Francisco and Los Angeles offices of Heller Ehrman under the tutelage of Ray Fisher, now a judge on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Steve then spent several years at Berger & Norton, which was California’s pre-eminent law firm in the area of real estate litigation, especially eminent domain and inverse condemnation. That’s where he learned from Richard Norton and Michael Berger how to take large earth movement cases to trial and appeal against government agencies. Steve was appointed adjunct law professor teaching the Eminent Domain course at Loyola Law School. Around the time Berger & Norton dissolved in the early 2000s, Steve co-founded Blum Collins LLP and has conducted many successful trials and appeals of major real estate and business cases. He was the Co-Chair of LSI's 2016 national program on the Science and Law of Proving Landslide Claims.
Gary Ho
Partner
UC Berkeley School of Law
ho@blumho.com
(310) 694 - 9558
Mr. Ho has been a litigator for over 20 years and is a graduate of the UC Berkeley School of Law. He practiced at the law firm of O’Melveny & Myers, where he defended some of the largest business, real estate, and mass tort cases in the country.
As a partner of Blum, Collins & Ho LLP, Mr. Ho has represented many clients whose properties have been damaged as the result of landslides and floods. He has taken numerous landslide cases to trial against government agencies and other defendants. Mr. Ho has also successfully represented victims of the Woolsey Fire in cases against Southern California Edison.
Michael R. Hambly
Of Counsel
Harvard Law School
Michael Hambly has handled cases (including trials and appeals) in state and federal courts for over 35 years. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. He has experience in many types of litigation including in these areas: real estate, class action, trademarks, copyright, entertainment, and trade secrets. He has practiced in the firms of Irell & Manella, LLP, and Christensen, White, Miller, Fink & Jacobs (now Glaser Weil).
Ilana Lohr-Schmidt
Associate
New York University School of Law
lohr-schmidt@blumho.com
(310) 694 - 9609
Ilana is an environmental litigator. She is a J.D. graduate of New York University School of Law and holds a B.S. in geological and environmental sciences from Stanford University. At NYU, Ilana was a Dean’s Scholarship recipient, a New York State Pro Bono Scholar, and a participant in the law school’s public policy advocacy, environmental law, and litigation and systemic change clinics. While at Stanford, she also earned a B.A. in Russian literature and worked as a physical sciences technician at the United States Geological Survey.
Ilana has litigated under state and federal cleanup statutes and coordinated remediation of legacy environmental contamination under local, state, and federal oversight. Earlier she worked at Mental Health Advocacy Services, where her practice focused on fair housing and health consumer issues, and at Levy Konigsberg LLP, where she represented plaintiffs in the Flint Water Crisis litigation. Ilana has a strong commitment to public interest practice and to advancing client goals through investigation, analysis, and strategic litigation. She is licensed to practice law in California, New York, and New Jersey.
Vashon Simien
Associate
USC School of Law
simien@blumho.com
(310) 694 - 9404
Vashon Simien is a graduate of the USC Gould School of Law. He earned his undergraduate degree in Linguistics from UCLA. He has experience in all facets of litigation, from pretrial through appeal. Combining more than a decade of experience as a litigator with deep knowledge of e-discovery issues in a litigation setting, Mr. Simien has provided domestic and international clients with practical discovery solutions and effective trial strategies.
He has assisted global companies in resolving cross-border discovery and litigation issues in U.S. disputes, with a particular focus on Japanese and east Asian clients. His clients include some of the largest automotive, technology and manufacturing companies in the world such as Toyota, Honda, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Nokia, Sony, and Xerox. In addition to advising clients on how to properly store and manage electronic records before litigation begins, Mr. Simien has counseled clients on the best practices to develop practical, cost-effective strategies for managing the complex challenges related to the collection, storage and use of electronic data in the litigation process.