Burke, Williams & Sorensen, LLP Expands Public Law Practice with Addition of Longtime City Attorney Michael Barrett

Burke, Williams & Sorensen, LLP is pleased to announce that Michael W. Barrett, formerly the City Attorney for the City of Napa, has joined the firm’s Public Law practice as a partner. Barrett started his career in local government at the City of Oceanside as a law clerk and then began his practice of law with a private firm in San Diego, representing public and private clients. He then held in-house deputy and assistant city attorney positions at the City of Tracy and the City of Fremont.

From December 2005 through April of this year, Barrett served as City Attorney for the City of Napa. During his 18 years with the City, Barrett’s diligent legal advice guided the Napa City Council and city officials in achieving a wide range of important goals for the community including a ballot measure for a transient occupancy tax to fund affordable and workforce housing, the negotiation of multi-agency public construction projects for flood control, parks, and street improvements, a City Charter amendment to facilitate the annexation and development of a 154-acre mixed use project, and policy changes that included the conversion to district-based elections of councilmembers, updates to the City’s General Plan and Housing Element, and a plethora of City ordinances, resolutions, and administrative regulations. Barrett also counseled the City through its responses to several severe local emergencies including a major flood in 2005, a sizable earthquake in 2014, destructive wildfires in 2017, and impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Barrett commented, "I look forward to collaborating with like-minded professionals to find and implement creative solutions to the challenges facing public agencies.”

Burke Public Law practice group leader Eric S. Vail views Barrett’s arrival to the firm as an “exceptional and elite addition” to the highly accomplished bench of 84 municipal law attorneys at Burke who day-to-day advise over 300 State agencies, cities, counties, special districts, school districts, and joint powers authorities throughout California.

Burke, Williams & Sorensen, LLP is a California limited liability law partnership with 167 member attorneys. Our mission is to provide clients with creative, results oriented, and cost effective legal services within the complex environment in which they function. We view ourselves as problem solvers and legal strategists, not simply compliance monitors and reciters of the law. Burke has 11 practice groups: Public Law; Labor and Employment Law; Construction Law; Litigation; Environmental, Land Use and Natural Resources; Real Estate and Business Law; Eminent Domain; Inverse Condemnation; Insurance Coverage and Litigation; Intellectual Property; and Education Law. Each practice focuses on professional development of member attorneys and advisory services tailored to the needs of both public and private clients. With regional offices in the Inland Empire, Palm Desert, Los Angeles, Marin County, Oakland, Orange County, San Diego, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and Ventura County, as well with the added support of advanced communications technology, Burke can easily be where our California situated clients need us to be. For more information, please visit www.bwslaw.com and https://www.linkedin.com/company/burke-williams-&-sorensen/about/?viewAsMember=true

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"I look forward to collaborating with like-minded professionals to find and implement creative solutions to the challenges facing public agencies.”