Heather L. Rosing

SAN DIEGO - Heather L. Rosing is the CEO and president of Klinedinst PC, a 90-attorney litigation and transactions firm with four offices in California and one in Seattle. She is also Klinedinst's chief financial officer. Her practice focus as chair of the professional liability department is in the arenas of malpractice and fraud, director and officer matters and management liability.

She took over in 2021 from founder John D. Klinedinst. "We are re-envisioning what a law firm looks like, in terms of remote working, flexible schedules, health and wellness and diversity and inclusion," she said.

One innovation: attorneys who come to work three days a week get their own offices; others who qualify are free to operate from home.

Along with defending attorneys and firms, Rosing also represents judges and commissioners before the Commission on Judicial Performance and offers counsel on judicial ethics. Speaking of her clients in general, she was guarded. "I've had some great successes in private arbitrations over the past year," she said.

"My specialty, big-ticket malpractice claims and the ethics and risk management business, is flourishing," she said. "It seems every lawyer wants a lawyer."

Active in State Bar affairs and other pro bono activities, Rosing is currently finishing her term as the inaugural president of the California Lawyers Foundation. "We have granted approximately $400,000 to organizations that provide services in the areas of access to justice, DEIB [diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging] and civic education and outreach," she emailed. "We are very proud of that."

One recipient of $51,000 in grants was the Pasadena-based Legal Education Access Pipeline Inc. (LEAP), which prepares students for law school who are underrepresented in the legal field. At a September ceremony, the group received the first CLF Heather L. Rosing Pathway Partner Award for excellence in promoting diversity in the legal profession. "They have put the money to good use," Rosing said.

She was a leading proponent of splitting away from the State Bar lawyers it regulates and disciplines to avoid a built-in ethical conflict. Once that separation took place in 2018, Rosing became the first president of the California Lawyers Association. She moved the group towards becoming an education-focused professional society.

"Altogether, I love my job because it mixes litigation with an ethics component and a lot of philanthropy," Rosing said. "And I get to do the CEO thing on top of it all."