Fall 2005 • Issue 19, page 15

Profile: Edythe L. Bronston

By Rense, Kirk*

(Edythe L. Bronston, Chair of the California Receivers Forum, arrived at her present lofty status by a circuitous, serendipitous route, as readers will learn from this Professional Profile, largely in Edy’s own words.)

I was born and raised in eastern Pennsylvania, and attended one year of college at Penn State University before I married at the age of 18. I accompanied my serviceman husband to Las Cruces, New Mexico and then to El Paso, Texas, where my daughter, Pamela, was born. After divorcing I opted for a fresh start in California, and arrived in Los Angeles in 1959 with my three year old daughter and $800.00 — the proceeds from sale of all my worldly goods.

California provided not only a fresh start but also truly a golden opportunity for me. I quickly found work in a collection agency by answering a “Males Wanted” ad (I immediately realized that the male section of the classifieds had all of the preferable jobs…and certainly those that paid the most). After getting my bearings I enrolled in night classes at Los Angeles City College, slowly building my college units. After being “head hunted” I joined the Diners Club Legal Department, where I stayed for almost three years. This whetted my appetite for the law and reminded me that my childhood nickname was “the Philadelphia lawyer.” I met my second husband during this period, and eventually returned to collection agency work, heading up the legal department of a large Beverly Hills collection agency.

Unfortunately, this second marriage also proved unsuccessful. I returned to single motherhood, continued working and continued my college studies, taking one or two night classes each semester.

I then met and ultimately married Bill Bronston, a union that lasted 27 years until his death in 1995. About this same time I joined the League of Women Voters, quickly rising through the ranks to become Finance Chair of the Los Angeles League and became a member of the State Board of Directors of the California League. While involved in these civic activities, I received my Bachelor’s degree from the California State University at Northridge and continued my education at Loyola Law School. I was awarded my Juris Doctor degree summa cum laude from Loyola Law School in 1980.

Edy’s Career As An Attorney Begins
My pattern of doing things out of an ordinary progression continued. I accepted a position at a small law firm, Lipofsky, Lande & Leipziger, where I then enjoyed practicing bankruptcy law under the new Code. Shortly thereafter I was recruited by Robinson, Wolas & Diamant, where I found myself enmeshed in a huge receivership case and learned the “receivership ropes.”

Two and a half years later I was again recruited, this time by the large Century City firm Cox, Castle & Nicholson, where I stayed for almost ten years as a partner in the litigation department, specializing in receivership and chapter 11 reorganization work.

Then, in 1995, I took the leap and opened my own firm, concentrating on all aspects of debtor / creditor relationships, with an emphasis on receiverships, reorganizations, real estate fraud, and business litigation. I moved my office from West Los Angeles to Sherman Oaks in 2000, locating barely 10 minutes from my hilltop Sherman Oaks home (which I share with two dogs and two cats). This ended 22 years of tortuous commuting from the San Fernando Valley to Century City and Westwood.

While I pursued my legal career, my daughter Pam presented me with two beautiful grandchildren, Kelly (now 22 and in her first year of law school at Loyola) and Jeffrey (19 and in his second year at University of Michigan). Pam has run my office, been my receivership administrator and paralegal and has generally run interference for me for the past six years. I am fond of saying (quite accurately) that “Pam follows behind me and makes nice to everybody whose feathers I’ve ruffled!”

I was the only member of my immediate family to leave the East Coast when I first moved to Los Angeles with then three-year-old Pam. My sisters, Tina, Marcy and Reva, and their families have since emulated my westward journey, as have several cousins. Now our family occasions, though often boisterous, are among my very happiest times.

A Wide-Ranging, Challenging Practice
I accept frequent court assignments as receiver, as partition referee and as provisional director. In addition to my work as an attorney, I have had several recent assignments involving the film industry, including oversight of filming, completion, post-production and delivery of the Disney television movies “Eloise at the Plaza,” and its sequel, “Eloise at Christmastime” as a receiver. I am presently serving as post-judgment Receiver over movie producers Tahzco, LLC, Shadow Entertainment, Inc. and Tanna Productions, Inc., and as the post-judgment receiver directed to value and liquidate distribution rights to the movie “Love Stinks” (as well as for two operating service stations).

Other recent assignments include the $5.6 million sale of commercial realty as Grantor Trustee; dissolution of a postal insurance company as Receiver; many sales of commercial and residential property under the auspices of the Los Angeles and Orange County Superior Courts as a Partition Referee; and serving as Provisional Director for a skilled nursing facility in Beverly Hills and for a lighting manufacturer. I also served as post-judgment receiver to maintain and control a 224-unit apartment building pending sale; as receiver for Los Angeles Homeowners Aid, Inc., an operating entity owning 126 rental units and 115 deeds of trust; and as receiver for two all-cash, 24/7 motels in South Central Los Angeles.

A Commitment to Public Service
It seems like I have also been actively involved with many professional organizations and local, county and state bar and judicial organizations for most of the years I’ve been in practice.

In the mid-1990’s, I was appointed to the Los Angeles Superior Court’s Ad-Hoc Committee on Receiverships, headed by the Honorable Robert H. O’Brien, a committee formed to develop rules to guide the Court and litigants to a more efficient and uniform implementation of receiverships. I also served on the Court’s Committee on Earthquake Issues, created after the January, 1994 Northridge earthquake.

I served as a lawyer representative to the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference from 1992 to 1998, and as a Trustee on the Board of Trustees of the Los Angeles County Bar Association in 1997 and 1998. I am a certified mediator and a member of the United States Bankruptcy Court’s Central District Mediation Panel and have been approved by the U.S. Department of Labor as an independent ERISA fiduciary. I am also past President of both the Los Angeles Bankruptcy Forum and the California Bankruptcy Forum, of which I am a Founding Director. I am a member of (and am past Chair of) the Executive Committee of the Provisional and Post-Judgment Remedies Section of the Los Angeles County Bar Association since 1984.

(Edy has also been an active writer and lecturer. She authored both the original and the updated two-volume Action Guide “Obtaining Appointment of a Receiver (and Monitoring the Receivership)” published by Continuing Education of the Bar (1991, and 1993). She authored the chapter on Receiverships in the Bancroft-Whitney book entitled “California Foreclosure Law and Practice,” first published in April, 1993. She was a contributing editor for the Matthew-Bender publication “Provisional Remedies,” first published in 1993, and co-authored the materials for the Thirteenth Annual California State Bar Real Property Retreat on “Assignment of Rents in Transactions, Litigation and Bankruptcy: Current Issues and Proposed Solutions.” She has written annual materials for the Continuing Education of the Bar dealing with provisional remedies, real property foreclosures, receiverships and secured transactions (1993-1998.)

She also lectures extensively on receiverships, debtor/creditor relationships and provisional directorships for the Continuing Education of the Bar, the State Bar of California, the Los Angeles County Bar Association, the Los Angeles Bankruptcy Forum, the California Receivers Forum, and various other bar associations and business groups — Ed.)

Founding of the Receivers Forum
Sometime in 1994 I was contacted by Bob Mosier, Bob Warren and Andy Zimbaldi, all receivers based in Orange County, and was asked to attend a
breakfast meeting to discuss possible formation of a professional receivers organization. I thought this was a great idea, so long as the already-functioning Los Angeles Receivership Committee was part of the picture. And so, the Los Angeles / Orange County Receivers Forum was born, with the triple mandate of (a) educating and increasing professionalism within the receivership community, (b) providing a mechanism for communication between the bench and the bar, and (c) addressing topical receivership issues as they arose. We were fortunate to know and enlist the aid of Jeanne Sleeper, whose organizational and administrative skills are unparalleled.

The concept quickly grew to become a statewide presence. The Los Angeles / Orange County chapter was joined by chapters in San Diego (1997), the San Francisco Bay Area (1997), Sacramento (1998) and Fresno (2003). As a Founding Director of both the local and the statewide organizations, I think of myself as a midwife for both. I have been the Conference Chair and coordinator of both of the Receivership Forum’s hugely successful 3-day professional seminars “Receiverships In the New Millennium” conducted at Loyola Law School in April, 2000 and October, 2004, the latter attracting more than 130 attendees from throughout the State of California.

My work with the California Receivers Forum has been one of the most rewarding aspects of my professional life, due in no small part to the lasting relationships I have made with my colleagues and with Jeanne Sleeper and her staff (without whom none of this could have happened). Words cannot describe my thrill at being recognized as the first recipient of the Robert C. Warren Memorial Award “for excellence in service and vision” following the conclusion of the Loyola II educational seminar in October 2004.