Ed Howard

Early life and education

Edward Paxson Howard IV was born in Santa Monica, CA and raised in Los Angeles, CA. He graduated from Taft High School in 1981. Howard received his B.A from George Washington University's (GWU) political science program in 1986 where he was Editor-in-chief of the GWU year book Cherry Tree, state chairman of College Democrats for Washington DC, Editorials Editor for the GWU student newspaper The Hatchet, and Editor-in-Chief of the GWU arts and literary magazine Wooden Teeth. He was elected vice president of the GWU College Democrats, as well elected to student senator, where he chaired the Senate Finance Committee. He also founded Political Awareness Week at GWU. He won various awards and honors, including GWU Excellence in Student Life Award, the Outstanding Service to GWU award, and was selected for the Omicron Delta Kappa National Leadership Honor Society]. Howard received his J.D from Loyola Law School in 1990, where he was awarded the American Jurisprudence Award for Constitutional Law and was selected as Chief Justice of the Moot Court.

1991-1995

During law school at Loyola Law School, Howard interned as a law clerk for the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, where he conducted approximately fifty preliminary hearings before the Los Angeles County Municipal Court. He then became an Associate of the downtown Los Angeles office of Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker (now Paul Hastings LLP), where he worked in on First Amendment and insurance coverage issues, including representing the rap group N.W.A.

Howard's career in public interest law began in 1991 when he became an Associate for the former Westwood office of Hall & Phillips, later Hall & Associates. The firm's diverse practice included litigation and legislative advocacy in the areas of civil rights, consumer protection, the environment and land use. The firm is most famous for the Friends of Mammoth decision, which made environmental rules and regulations applicable to private developers, and the Century Freeway litigation, which assured fair compensation for displaced homeowners. Howard's major achievements while at Hall & Associates included serving as the lead counsel on behalf of consumer groups in two California Supreme Court cases of first impression: Amwest v. Wilson (fully implementing Proposition 103, a 1988 insurance reform measure) and 20th Century Garamendi (1994) (unanimously affirming lawfulness of Garamendi's complex premium rebate regulations resulting in over $1 billion in refunds ). Howard's other work while at the firm includes fighting for various environmental issues and sex equity in education. While at Hall & Associates, Howard also served on the Drafting Committees for Proposition 186, an initiative that proposed to establish a state single-payer health care program. Though defeated, the initiative modeled the program's feasibility and was the largest grassroots political campaign fund-raising effort in California history.

1995-1999

From 1995 to 1998, Howard served as the Executive Director and lead staff attorney for the now dissolved Center for Law in the Public Interest (CLIPI). While at the CLIPI, Howard worked on such cases as: Gregorio T. v. Wilson (1994) (successfully challenging anti-immigrant Proposition 187, lead on administrative and initiative law issues); Wenger v. Trans Union (1995) (landmark challenge to credit reporting agency practices); Carmen Doe v. Wilson (1997) (challenging former Governor Pete Wilson's effort to end prenatal care to undocumented women at Christmas time); California Women's Law Center v. State Board of Education (1995) (successfully overturning Board of Education regulations on sexual harassment, leading to the enactment of new regulation); and Proposition 103 Enforcement Project v. Quackenbush (1998) (successfully invalidating amendment to Proposition 103). In 1996, Howard took the lead on drafting what ended-up being Propositions 214 and 216 regarding HMO reform. Also, while at the CLIPI, Howard wrote and spearheaded enactment of AB 156 (Murray), a sweeping reform of credit bureau practices that brought the issue of identity theft to the attention of the nation. Facets of the legislation have been copied in over ten states. He also co-wrote AB 50 with the California Bankers Association in 1998, the nation's first bill to regulate biometric identification, by making illegal the sale of voice, fingerprint and retina databases to third parties. It also prohibited the use of such information in discriminatory practices. His experience as a lead counsel for California Supreme Court and appellate cases in initiative matters led the 15th Dean of Loyola Law School to ask Howard to serve as the Adjunct Professor of Law from 1994 to 1998, where he created and taught California's first class devoted to Initiative Law. During his time at CLIPI, Howard served as an adviser on auto insurance, health care reform and personal privacy issues for former 1998 gubernatorial candidate Al Checchi.

"In art you can only alter a facsimile of reality. In policy, or law, you can be directly creative and alter the way people live their lives. You can change the world you live in."

Howard worked as the senior counsel for the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights from 1999 to 2000, where he helped engineer the nation's first major class-action managed care reform lawsuits: a nationwide RICO class action against Aetna-U.S Healthcare and a statewide California class action against Kaiser Permanente for false advertising. The Aetna Lawsuit claimed that Aetna had been advertising that they were committed to maintaining and improving quality, while, in fact, they had been consistently undermining quality medical care in order to cut costs.". Similarly, the reason for the Foundation's lawsuit against Kaiser was that the HMO had implemented systemic policies and practices based on monetary concerns that interfered with the medical judgement of Kaiser doctors. In 1999 Howard became a partner at Kornarens and Howard, a litigation firm specializing in consumer rights, land use, health care, copyright and trademark litigation, civil rights, writ, law and motion, and appellate practice.

2000-2005

While at Kornarens and Howard, Howard drafted an initiative that according to Edmund Sanders, in the [Los Angeles Times]] (1999) would " allow identity theft victims to require that banks, credit card companies and others delete their names and personal information from marketing lists.. [and] prevent banks from continuing to spread any misinformation about consumers through unsolicited credit card offers and other junk mail. The measure would also allow a consumer to collect damages from a bank or credit card company that sold his or her account numbers to anyone convicted of a felony who then used the information to victimize the consumer."

He also represented the Bolsa Chica Land Trust before the California Coastal Commission, responsible for crafting the legal theories, grass roots advocacy, and submissions that lead to the Commission in 2000 unanimously preserving not just ribbons of land around wetlands but large tracts of adjacent land. The Commission was subsequently sued by Signal Landmark and Hearthside Homes, Inc. and Howard represwented the Land Trust in that case, which turned aside the developer's challenge.

In 2000, Howard became the Chief Policy Consultant & Special Counsel to State Senator Liz Figueroa. Ed had wide-ranging duties that included speech writing and developing, drafting, lobbying, and negotiating the Senator's legislative agenda, especially in the areas of health care, health insurance, property-casualty insurance, labor, Workers’ Compensation, consumer rights, and privacy. He drafted and staffed AB 32 (2000) (a bill jointly authored with Republican Assembly member Keith Richman to reform and expand Medi-Cal and Healthy Families and insure thousands more California children), SB 771 (2001) (establishing a state-maintained "Do Not Call" list that bars telemarketers from calling anyone on the list; jointly authored by Republican Assembly member John Campbell; now copied federally by the FTC); and SB 1950 (2002) (broad reform of Medical Board's doctor disciplinary practices).

In 2005, Howard became the Chief Consultant of Joint Committee on Boards, Commissions and Consumer Protection. As Chief Consultant, Howard spearheaded the investigation and review of all the state's boards and commissions. Howard successfully staffed SB 231 (Figueroa), a landmark reform of Medical Board operations. In the same year Howard was named the Chief Consultant of the Senate's Government Modernization, Efficiency & Accountability Committee. Howard's duties included working on bill analyses and legislative reform proposals. Howard's staff work include SB 577 (2005) (reforming government finance regulation); SB 796 (2005) (requiring Internet access to government information); and SB 954 (reforming information technology procurement).

2006-present

In January 2007, Howard became the Senior Counsel for the Children's Advocacy Institute (CAI) based in the University of San Diego School of Law. In 2007 Howard oversaw CAI's and Morrison & Foerster's precedent-setting federal lawsuit on behalf of foster parent advocacy groups (California State Foster Care Association, California State Care Providers Association, and Legal Advocates for Permanent Parenting). The purpose of the suit was to seek more money for parents caring for abused and neglected foster children. After three and a half years of litigation, in 2011, the US District Court in San Francisco ordered the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) to "immediately" implement new, higher reimbursement rates for California foster parents. While at CAI, Howard has worked on enacting a statute increasing transparency of foster care operations and numerous laws aiding homeless and foster youth. Among these laws is SB 39 (2007) which allows the press and public greater access to county documents when children under the supervision of CPS die. This law has prompted broad press coverage of the operational shortcomings in county child welfare services, especially in Los Angeles and Sacramento Counties.

Howard was part of the legal team that persuaded a judge to strike down regulations promulgated by the State Department of Social Services pursuant to SB 39 that had previously blocked information from being released to the press and public when local child welfare agencies had failed to act to prevent a child from being fatally abused or neglected. Other laws Howard has worked on through CAI include the law that permits more than two parents to be legally recognized as parents and AB 2632 (Maienschein) (2014) that requires criminal record clearances in community care facilities.

When our government uses its blunt power to come into a home and remove children from their parents, you and I assume a terrific moral and spiritual responsibility to do right by these children; a responsibility to do better than the parents we took them from.

In 2007 Howard also became the Senior Counsel for the Center for Public Interest Law (CPIL), a nonprofit, nonpartisan academic and advocacy organization also based in the University of San Diego School of Law that studies occupational licensing and monitors California agencies that regulate businesses, trades, and professions. Howard's work with CPIL includes enactment of reforms dealing with the accountancy profession, reform of the regulation of for-profit postsecondary education businesses, SB 658 (2011) (the nation's first law regulating funeral website pricing), and reforming the State Bar of California. Howard was responsible for the press stories exposing that former UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi had accepted a post on Devry University's board of directors.

Notable Howard Advocacy, Inc. Clients