Lloyd Pilchen

Professional Experience

Lloyd Pilchen is a Partner with Olivarez Madruga Law Organization LLP. His practice includes municipal, land use, water, and environmental law. Mr. Pilchen advises city councils, planning commissions, water districts, and school districts on environmental regulation, government ethics, open meetings, and planning and zoning laws, and he litigates real property, code enforcement, personal injury, employment, public works construction, and eminent domain cases.

Mr. Pilchen is a licensed land surveyor with expertise in subdivisions, boundaries, easements, title issues, and construction.

Selected Representative Matters

• Ventura29 LLC v. City of San Buenaventura (2023) 304 Cal.Rptr.3d 122. Successfully defended the City of Ventura in land developer’s claims of inverse condemnation, nuisance, trespass and negligence arising out of the City’s public safety requirement to remove subsurface construction debris. The developer alleged the City was responsible for wrongfully burying the debris on the vacant private land decades ago. The City denied such conduct, but argued the case should be dismissed on demurrer because it was long past the statutory time in which to file a lawsuit, and, with respect to the debris removal requirement, the developer had failed to pursue an administrative appeal to the public works director. The trial court agreed and the Court of Appeal affirmed.
• In writ of mandate litigation, Mr. Pilchen successfully defended a city against a national news organization’s lawsuit under the Public Records Act, and prevailed on behalf of a school district petitioner against the County of Los Angeles in an election law dispute.

Admissions & Associations

• State Bar of California (2002)
• Admitted to practice before all state courts in California and the United States District Court (Southern District of California)
• American Bar Association

Speaking & Publications

• “Waterways and Earth Days,” The American Surveyor, November/December 2020
• “Parcels, Takings and Environmental Protection in Murr v. Wisconsin,” The Public Lawyer, 2018
• “Small Congregations Deserve Unique Parking Rules,” Guest Commentary, Los Angeles Daily News, Long Beach Press-Telegram, Pasadena Star-News, San Gabriel Valley Tribune, February 2014
• “When Two Become One: A Look at Merger of Adjoining Parcels,” Municipal Lawyer Magazine, 2010
• “Roads That Come Up Short Under the Law,” The American Surveyor, 2007
• “When A Subdivision Map Isn’t A Subdivision Map,” The American Surveyor, 2004