About Law Offices of Kathleen O’Prey Truman, PC

A Land Use and Environmental Law Firm Serving Corporate and Individual Clients

The Law Offices of Kathleen O’Prey Truman, PC, is a land use and environmental law firm founded by Kathleen O’Prey Truman, who worked with a major international law firm and now chooses to practice in a boutique law firm environment. She offers large firm expertise with greater personalized service at highly competitive rates to a wide variety of corporate and individual clients.

Ms. Truman represents clients in some of the most complex land use and development projects in California and also shepherds smaller projects through the challenging maze of an entitlement process. She assesses the needs of each client to tailor a strategy particularized to the client’s expectations and circumstances.

From the acquisition of real estate and the initial planning of a project, to public agency review and approval, to defense of a project in litigation, Ms. Truman guides clients through the entire spectrum of land use issues. She values long-term client relationships, servicing clients through multiple phases of a development process and through multiple development projects.

The Practice

Land Use and the Environment

Ms. Truman offers clients “one-stop shopping” or a full spectrum approach to land use and environmental matters, which allows clients to achieve efficient and successful solutions to the gamut of legal, environmental and political obstacles that impede development.  The clients’ matters often require numerous agency approvals and permitting at multiple levels of government.

Agencies with Whom We Have Experience:

  • U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

  • U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

  • U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

  • California Coastal Commission

  • California State Office of Historic Preservation

  • California Department of Fish and Game

  • California Department of Toxic Substance Control

  • California Office of Planning and Research

  • California State Water Resources Control Board and Regional Water Quality Control Boards

  • Local Agency Formation Commissions

  • Counties of Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, San Bernardino, Riverside, and Ventura and Cities within these Counties

  • Local Planning, Building, Transportation, and Cultural Resources Boards and Commissions  

Types of Projects Handled for Clients:

  • Administrative Appeals

  • CEQA/NEPA reviews

  • Conservation Easements

  • Conditional Use Permits

  • Development Agreements

  • Variances/Dedications/Exactions/Conditions of Approval

  • General and Specific Plan Approvals and Amendments

  • Land Use Due Diligence, Approvals and Defense of Approvals

  • Master-Planned Communities

  • Subdivisions

  • Zoning Regulations

Litigation

Ms. Truman engages in a full range of litigation and alternative dispute resolution matters. She defends cases in state and federal courts with a focus on real estate, land use and environmental disputes. Ms. Truman has substantial experience at the trial and appellate court levels, representing and defending projects and developers against challenges to land use approvals.  

Environmental

Working cooperatively with public agencies and consultant teams, Ms. Truman obtains resource agency approvals and permits required to proceed with development projects.  Ms. Truman has over three decades of experience shepherding projects through the CEQA process from the pre-application phase through defense of legal challenges. 

    • Land Use, Environmental Law, Litigation, CEQA, and Related Environmental Clearances

    Kathleen O’Prey Truman counsels clients, typically owners or proponents of large and challenging development projects, throughout the entire entitlement and permitting process, represents them during administrative hearings, and defends them against lawsuits brought under a variety of environmental laws.

    She has extensive experience with federal, state and local environmental laws, including the California Environmental Quality Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Historic Preservation Act, the Clean Water Act, the federal and state Endangered Species Acts, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, CERCLA, Prop 65 and the Unfair Business Practices Act.

    She has shepherded projects through a variety of local, state and federal agencies, including the City and County of Los Angeles, the City of Anaheim, the City of West Hollywood, the City of Santa Monica, the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, the California Department of Fish and Game, the California State Office of Historic Preservation, the California State Lands Commission, the California Coastal Commission, the California Coastal Conservancy, the California Public Utilities Commission, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

    Prior to forming the Law Offices of Kathleen O’Prey Truman, PC, Ms. Truman practiced for seventeen years at the land use boutique of Truman & Elliott LLP and thirteen years with the international law firm of Latham & Watkins LLP.  She also served as a judicial clerk for the Honorable Cynthia Hall, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in 1992. Ms. Truman has been recognized as a Super Lawyer since 2014.

    • American Bar Association

    • Los Angeles County Bar Association

    • Women Lawyers of Los Angeles

    • UCLA Chancellor’s Associates

    • J.D., University of California, Hastings College of the Law, 1991, magna cum laude

    • B.A., University of California, Los Angeles, 1988, cum laude