Los Angeles City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto
LOS ANGELES - Los Angeles City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto’s office has denied committing professional misconduct during litigation over a high-speed police car collision that resulted in the city recently paying an $18 million settlement.
During the course of a trial in Los Angeles County Superior Court, an attorney for two elderly plaintiffs who were severely injured during the collision alleged that Feldstein Soto had called one of the plaintiffs’ expert witnesses, Dr. Andrew Fox, a neurosurgeon, seeking a political donation.
“On Aug. 16, 2025, city attorney and counsel of record Ms. Feldstein Soto made a telephone call to Dr. Andrew Fox, plaintiffs’ retained neurosurgeon, attempted to ingratiate herself with him and asked him to make a contribution to her political campaign,” a declaration filed with the court by plaintiffs’ attorney Robert Glassman states.
The following month, the parties in the case settled the lawsuit mid-trial for $18 million. The settlement was approved on a City Council vote of 10-3 and signed by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. Typically, attorney fees and related trial costs consume about a third of such settlements.
In his court declaration, which was disclosed in an article this month published by the LAist, Glassman argued that Feldstein Soto’s bid to solicit a campaign contribution from an expert in a pending court case ran afoul of the California Rules of Professional Conduct.
“Through her ex parte communications and political solicitation designed to privately cultivate favor with plaintiffs’ retained expert, she attempted to compromise plaintiffs’ access to Dr. Fox’s accurate and unbiased testimony,” Glassman said. “It placed Dr. Fox in an untenable bind, where any given response to her overtures invites pressure and a sense of obligation.”
But the City Attorney’s Office denied that any ethical breach took place.
“The city attorney was unaware that the expert had any involvement in the case when she made the fundraising call,” Feldstein Soto’s spokesman, Ivor Pine, told the Southern California Record in an email. “He neither disclosed that he was involved in the case nor did he donate to her campaign.”
Litigation often produces allegations that have no basis in fact or law, according to Pine, as well as legal tactics that diverge from the merits of the case. In addition, the city did not pursue previous settlement offers in the case, which involved an on-duty Los Angeles Police Department officer who was driving at an estimated 80 mph on Balboa Boulevard before colliding with another car making a left turn.
“The lowest settlement offer the city received prior to trial was $68 million,” Pine said. “During the course of the trial, the plaintiffs offered to settle at $40 million over two years, then at $34 million over two years and finally at the $18 million over three years, ultimately approved by City Council.”
Glassman said in a blog post that the evidence plaintiffs’ attorneys advanced during the jury trial caused the city to accept settlement terms.
“When the evidence was presented at trial and the truth became inescapable, the city raised the white flag,” he said. “The settlement will not make our clients whole, but it will enable them to get the treatment they need so they can move forward with their lives.”
The parties who were injured as a result of the collision, brothers Stephen and Richard Paper, suffered skull and facial fractures as well as brain bleeds, leading to multiple operations and rehabilitation, according to the plaintiffs’ law firm, Panish Shea Ravipudi LLP.
City officials contracted with private attorneys, Justin Sanders and Robert Dixon of Sanders Roberts LLP, to represent them during the course of the litigation, including the civil trial.
