1980 – 1983: After law school, Bob was recruited to work at Hershner, Hunter, Miller, Moulton & Andrews, a full-service business law firm in Eugene, Oregon. At that time, the Hershner Law Firm was the largest business law firm in the State of Oregon that was located outside of Portland.
Bob chose to start his law career with the Hershner Law Firm because the firm had a special training program for incoming attorneys that included six months of training in each of the firm’s specialization departments, which included litigation, bankruptcy and debtor-creditor law, real estate law, estate planning, business organizations and transactions, and public law.
While at the Hershner Law Firm, Bob worked for Wilson C. Muhlheim, who was one of the top four bankruptcy and commercial litigation attorneys in the State of Oregon. Bob’s work included banking law, bankruptcy, commercial litigation, business and real estate law.
1983-1985: Bob had his own, solo law practice in Eugene, Oregon, doing primarily commercial litigation and bankruptcy law. His clients included the Bank of the Northwest, Pacific Continental Bank, and GMAC.1985-1987: When both of Bob’s parents became ill, he moved his law practice back to Sacramento, California to be nearer to his parents.
He accepted employment with the small, boutique law firm of Felderstein, Rosenberg & McManus, a firm that did primarily bankruptcy, business counseling, and civil litigation.
A week after Bob walked in the door, the firm was retained to do the Chapter 11 Business Reorganization for Nickel Enterprises…a $250,000,000 business that included five different corporate and limited partnership entities, a resort, a major real estate development, and more than 20,000 acres of agricultural property. Bob wrote the first draft of the reorganization plan for Nickel Enterprises. The reorganization of Nickel Enterprises brought so much attention to the small Felderstein firm that it was eventually merged into the oldest and one of the largest law firms in Sacramento: Diepenbrock, Wulff, Plant & Hannegan.
Of the five attorneys that Bob worked with at the Felderstein Law Firm, four of those attorneys have since become judges. David Rosenberg became a California Superior Court Judge. Michael McManus, Jane McKeag, and Whitney Rimel all became United States Bankruptcy Judges.
At the Diepenbrock firm, Bob spent a year working as the second chair litigation attorney for William B. Shubb, a premier trial attorney who was a former U.S. Attorney at that time, and who is now a U.S. District Court Judge in the Eastern District of California. Cases Bob worked on included the defense of a libel lawsuit against Dun & Bradstreet, defense of major banking cases, defense of a wrongful termination lawsuit brought against a major corporation by its former President, RICO (Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) cases, a major products liability lawsuit filed against a major forklift manufacturer, a major medical malpractice case, and an accounting malpractice case.
1987 to the present: Bob has been a solo practitioner, practicing primarily, bankruptcy, estate planning, personal injury cases, business, real estate, and the defense of civil and business lawsuits.
During these happy years, Bob has been a Candidate for Superior Court Judge twice, and was endorsed in his judicial election campaign by the Dean of McGeorge School of Law, Dean Gordon V. Schaber.
Bob has served as a Judge Pro Temp for the Placer County Peer Court.
Bob taught Business Law, part time, at Sierra College, where he and three other lawyers co-authored a textbook on business law that is currently in use at Sierra College.
