DAN CASSIDY and TERRI






Dan goes fishing with Terry at Castro's Camp in Baja.

CLICK HERE FOR A SLIDE SHOW OF THE TRIP
My Biography

I have 5 adult children-- 3 men(Dan jr.,Tim,Stephen) and 2 women( Jeanine,Kathleen). All ofthem are hard working and good parents. My youngest daughter is a succesful small business owner of 2 fairly large beauty and hair salons in San Diego County. My youngest son is an Attorney in Orange County. The oldest daughter's husband is career Army currently serving in Iraq. She is a realtor in Texas but is moving back to California next year when hopefully her husband will retire from the army. The other two sons are climbing the corporate ladder in management /sales positions.

14 grandchildren ranging in ages from 22 to 3. Two of my granddaughters will graduate from college this year. One grandson is in the airforce. The 3 year olds are twin girls. You may remember my youngest sister Becky. Her son is a paramedic in the army. He was wounded in Iraq but is ok. My other sister Maryann passed away in Hawaii of a blood disease that was never identified about 26 years ago. I raised my niece and nephew who turned out just fine. I graduated from USC in 1959 where went with JBHS classmate John Frasier on an NROTC scholarship. I think another JBHS classmate, Burt Dole attended Stanford on an NROTC scholarship. Anyway I had a great time at USC. I was president of the Squires a sophmore men's honorary. I also was president of the Trojan Knights which is the Junior/Senior men's honorary and Chief Justice of the men's judicial court. During the year I was president of Squires we infiltrated the UCLA card stunt committee and altered the card stunts so that a block USC appeared somewhere in every stunt. When I was president of Knights we printed a phony Daily Bruin newspaper quoting members of the Bruin football team as being afraid to play the Trojans and stating that they wished they had gone to USC. We substituted our paper for theirs and distributed it on the UCLA campus. needless to say it created quite a stir. After graduation, I owned and operated several small businesses but was always under capitalized so I sold them. I went to work for the LA County Flood Control District so that I could attend Loyola Law School at night. I had 4 children at the time. I graduated in 1968, passed the bar and went back to work for the county in its civil attorney office (County Counsel) I became an Assistant to the County Counsel in 1973 in charge of the Labor Relations Law Division. I left for private practice at the end of 1975. I became a partner in that firm in 1976. After the death of one of my partners in the PSA plane crash in San Diego in 1978 the original partnership deteriorated. Two of my partners and I formed our own firm in 1980. We specialized in representing Citys,Countys,Special Districts,Colleges and School Districts in their Labor Relations.

I have spent the better part of the past 23 years negotiating with Police , Fire, Transit District and teacher Unions. I think I have sat across the table from every union you have ever heard of including the Teamsters, the United Auto Workers, IBEW, Correction Officers union, Police Officers Association, Brotherhood of Fire Fighters, SEIU, AFSCME, California Teachers Association, Classified School Employees Association, Technical Clerical Union, California Nurses Association, to name a few. We have grown from 5 to 47 attorneys with offices in San Fransisco and Los Angeles. During a strike at the Metropolitan Transit District in Los Angeles in 2000, I sat across the table from the Reverend Jessie Jackson. He got the publicity but we got the settlement at less than the MTA had on the table before the strike. Currently the ATU has been on strike for 3 weeks after negotiations on a new 3 year contract failed. The other unions while not on strike are honoring the picket line. I bet they don't bring the Reverend back even if the strike continues for another 4 weeks.

I am now semi retired. Working about half time and traveling with my wife Terri the rest. While Terri is licensed to practice law in California she has spent her professional life as a Director of Human Resources in the City of El Cajon, then Deputy Superintedent of Schools in Capastrano Unified School District and currently the Director of Human Resources at the Mesa Water District. She too spends a lot of time in labor relations. This past spring we went on a cruise from Tahiti to Hawaii. We also flew to Munich and then took a river boat down the Danube to Vienna, Budhapest and Bratislave. During the fall Terri and I go to all of the USC football games, home or away. We went to the bay area for the USC/Cal game in September. After the game we went up to the Napa area to visit two restaurants and a bakery that we have a small ownership interest in the city of Yountville. (The French Laundry, Bistro Buchon and Buchon Bakery) We went two weeks later to Chicago for the USC/Notre Dame game. There I mixed pleasure with business. I am a part (very small part) owner of Wolfgang Puck's Spago restaurant in Chicago. It is not doing too well and we may close it. I was also a partner of Puck's in LA but sold that interest as I began entering retirement. My youngest son Stephen graduated from the Uof A so we always do a father-son trip to Tucson for the USC/Arizona game. Terri stays at home and entertains some of our grandchildren. I really think she prefers that since she also opted out of the Seattle trip.We are lucky that 9 of the grandkids live within an hour's drive.

While we have been fairly successful in business what is the most important aspect of life is the happiness we have had with our family and friends.

Dan Cassidy's Law Firm Web Site
Dan was a nice guy in High School. Now he's a lawyer!

RETURN TO THE HOME PAGE