was admitted to the California Bar in 1999. Bar Number 199207.

Littler Mendelson
2049 Century Park E 5th Fl
Century City, CA 90067-3101

Law School: University of San Diego

Mendoza v. Transfield Services, Ltd - The Los Angeles Court case summary says Joshua Feldman is defendant's attorney. Littler is also listed and we believe Mr. Feldman is a Littler attorney representing the defendant.

It is unclear from the tentative ruling which Littler attorneys were involved in the misconduct causing their client to be sanctioned, but since Joshua Feldman is a Littler shareholder we assume, since he is listed in the public court summary as the attorney of record, that if he was not directly personally responsible for what happened, he would have oversight responsibility.

The judge said Feldman's client had failed to produce 8 people for depositions.

The major issue, and concern we saw, from the judge's comments, that in trying to explain why the eight individuals had not been produced, the reasons put forth by Littler were originally "untimely", then failed to provide "documentary evidence", and "quite striking" there was a lack of discussion about a conversation with a witness and her availability. It was "unexplained" why no attempt to serve her with a deposition notice was made.

Ultimately, the judge said Joshua Feldman, Esq.'s client "failed to comply with the Court's order" relating to the depositions, and "failed" to show that it was acting with "substantial justification".

Court orders are typically polite, which this one is, but still the harsh language comes through.

Basically, we read this to mean Feldman's firm and client disobeyed a court order, were not acting professionally, and were trying to misrepresent facts to the court. The judge saying it was "quite stricking" how important facts were intentionally being omitted cannot be overstated. This goes to the heart of attorney competence and credibility.

The court said sanctions were appropriate. Plaintiff sought $35,000 in sanctions but could not justify the amount. Although the court said it thus could not award monetary sanctions, it said sanctions were appropriate and sanctioned Joshua Feldman's client by preventing them from introducing certain evidence at trial.

Then it got even worse ....

The judge also said the sanctions being ordered would allow declarations to be introduced at trial which were "quite damning of the defense position".

The judge also said one declaration was damning of an attorney we believe was Mr. Feldman's associate at Littler in the firm's Los Angeles office.

(We believe the Mr. "Fenton" reference is a typo for Mr. "Felton", apparently Joshua Feldman's associate. Although if not a typo it would change our analysis.)

It appears from what the judge said that a Littler attorney submitted a witness declaration that was incomplete and she had to provide another declaration explaining the "circumstances" and "incomplete" nature of what Feldman's client was submitting to the court.

Wow. Just wow.

Basically, the sanctions were going to severely damage attorney Joshua Feldman's client and be harmful to the Littler law firm.

Follow-up: the tentative ruling became the final ruling. From the court's case summary it appears that within ten days of this order the case settled.

In other words, the sanctions and "damning" evidence against Littler and its client helped bring about a settlement. No word on how much more money Joshuan Feldman's client had to pay to settle because of this, or if the Littler law firm made a payment towards settlement, or for reimbursement to its client due to potential legal malpractice.