Seena Samimi

Associate

Seena Samimi is a litigation attorney focusing on municipal and public agency law, and complex commercial matters. Seena represents public entity clients in all phases of litigation (including appellate level) in areas such as: municipal regulation of marijuana distribution facilities, sober living homes, drug and alcohol abuse recovery facilities, water rights, Brown Act compliance, land use and property issues.

Before joining Best Best & Krieger LLP as an associate, Seena worked at Latham & Watkins in Los Angeles, practicing primarily in the areas of litigation and environmental law. He has represented many major companies in significant real estate, contract, fraud, antitrust, intellectual property and loan/financing disputes.

In mid-2011, Seena moved to Santiago, Chile, where he served as lead in-house counsel for a construction company building a highly renowned project on the foothills of the Andes. Living in Chile until February 2014, Seena directly handled, and in some cases, managed, local counsel on a wide variety of legal matters (property/real estate, landlord/tenant, environmental, permitting, municipal law, litigation, contracts, construction, insurance, tax, labor/employment, etc.).

Representative Matters:

• $10.3 million jury verdict for a breach of fiduciary duty claim against managers and directors of a real estate development company. Precision Development LLC v. Plyam
• Prevailed at summary judgment in federal district court on claims for breach of loan guaranties and alleged loan-to-own scheme involving a $1.5 billion Arden real estate portfolio. Daniel v. Wachovia Bank, N.A
• Worked on obtaining and defending approvals for the development of one of the two largest seawater desalination facilities in the Western Hemisphere, particularly before the California Coastal Commission.

Seena graduated summa cum laude from the University of California, Los Angeles with a bachelor’s degree in political science (international relations concentration), and with minors in anthropology and Near Eastern languages & cultures. After graduating, he served as a visiting professor at Nur University in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, teaching two seminars in Spanish regarding politics and conflict in the Middle East.

He received his law degree from Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, where he was an editor of the California Law Review and the submissions editor of the Berkeley Journal of International Law. During law school, Seena also interned at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of New York (Civil Division) and the East Bay Community Law Center in Berkeley, Calif. (assisting underprivileged clients with legal issues).

Speaking Engagements:

• CREW (Commercial Real Estate Women), Sacramento, CA, March 12, 2015
• Lawline, New York, NY, National CLE presentation, June 9, 2015
• Thomson Reuters Legal Ed Center, Los Angeles, CA, National CLE presentation, July 9, 2015
• Appraisal Institute, Northern CA Chapter, San Francisco, CA, Oct. 16, 2015
• CREW (Commercial Real Estate Women), Los Angeles, CA, Nov. 18, 2015

"Sober Living Homes and Drug Rehab Facilities – The San Clemente Experience"

• Association of California Cities - Orange County, Sept. 9, 2015

Education

• Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley
• University of California, Los Angeles, B.S., political science

Bar Admissions

• California