COVER STORY
2019 DISTINGUISHED ATTORNEY OF THE YEAR Andrew W. Stroud
by Judge Kenneth C. Mennemeier Judge Kenneth C. Mennemeier is a Sacramento County Superior Court Judge currently assigned to Judicial Dependency Court.
“Cool
and cutting edge.” That was Andy Stroud’s response on a bright, autumn afternoon in September 1997, shortly after Andy, Eric Glassman, and I had founded our litigation boutique. We were brainstorming ideas for marketing materials we had yet to create, and the principal question was: how did we want to define ourselves? How did we want the community to know us? Andy had a ready answer. “Cool and cutting edge.” Over three decades of practicing law in Sacramento, Andy has developed a practice and a reputation that lives up to that early aspiration. Consider this: Andy has represented not one, not two, but three California Governors (Davis, Schwarzenegger, and Brown). He has appeared in the U.S. Supreme Court.1 He has represented Fortune 500 companies (e.g., AT&T and Harley Davidson), several state agencies (the Departments of Finance, General Services, and Insurance), and world-famous artists, including Johnny Cash and the late Jim Marshall (known as “the Godfather” of rock-n-roll photography). He tried a federal court case with Ted Olson and David Boies (of Bush v. Gore fame) over the constitutionality of the 2008 ballot measure that addressed same-sex marriage, Proposition 8.2 He has handled appeals involving complex public finance issues of first impression that resulted in published decisions.3 He has lectured on copyright law at UC Berkeley and the University of the Pacific’s McGeorge School of Law. The Sacramento Business Jour-
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SACRAMENTO LAWYER | November/December 2019 | www.sacbar.org