Encino-based Pearlman, Brown & Wax LLP recently made two partner promotions, adding to its cadre of statewide leadership.
David Downing and Corinne Spencer were named nonequity partners last month. Downing was previously an associate in the firm’s workers’ compensation practice, while Spencer was senior employment counsel in the labor and employment practice group.
“As managing partner at Pearlman, Brown & Wax, I could not be happier that we have invited two of our best to join the partnership of our firm,” said managing partner Barry Pearlman in a statement. “I am so excited to call them both my partners.”
Spencer started at PBW as a law clerk in 2010 and joined as an associate after earning her law degree in 2012. She pivoted to Lewis, Brisbois, Bigaard & Smith downtown as a counsel in 2015 and then rejoined PDW in 2019 to chair the firm’s labor and employment group.
“They offered such a great opportunity,” Spencer said of rejoining the firm. “It was something I wasn’t necessarily looking for, but I was just a seventh-year and overseeing that department and the growth process was just such an amazing opportunity.”
Since coming aboard as chair of the group, Spencer said she has added several associates and looks to continue bolstering the practice.
“She started her career with us and since her return she is credited for the continued rapid growth of the department,” Pearlman said.
Though she has plenty of career ahead of her, Spencer noted that the “opportunity to build” to becoming an equity partner one day is “definitely there.”
“It’s definitely a place where people are prioritized and there’s room for growth, and I’m excited by that,” she said.
Downing, a seventh-generation Angeleno, joined PBW in 2015 after, coincidentally, a stint at Lewis Brisbois. Prior to becoming a lawyer, Downing said he’d worked his way up to leadership positions in human resources and in retail, and so it was natural for him to seek it here.
“I’ve been shooting for that since day one,” Downing said. “When I came here, I came specifically because of the partnership that was and still is in place here. The equity partners are each, in their own ways, titans in the field, and I’ve been able to learn from them by working with them. They made me into the litigator I am today.”
Downing said he’s not done shooting for a larger role at the firm.
“I have quickly identified myself as a Pearlman, Brown & Wax lifer. Partnership is something I’m very proud of, but I’m not done. I intend to be here for the long haul,” he said. “It’s been no secret to the equity partners that I have my eye on the ownership circle.”
Pearlman hailed Downing as “an amazing attorney, mentor and has not only great legal skills but also people skills that make him such a great addition to our partnership family.”
PBW, formed in 1984, has six offices — its home Encino location, in addition to offices in Oxnard, Orange, San Diego, Concord and Sacramento.