Candidate for
City Attorney; City of Los Angeles

Carmen "Nuch" Trutanich grew up in a working class neighborhood in San Pedro. At age 57, he was elected LA's City Attorney after a highly competitive race. During his first term, Trutanich has compiled an impressive recording of winning for Los Angeles.

Trutanich is known as "Nuch" (pronounced Nooch) by family and friends. Trutanich's parents are first generation Americans.

Trutanich got his BA and MBA from USC and received his law degree in 1978. He began working as a deputy in the hard-core gang unit at the LA County District Attorney's office and was later promoted to the newly-formed environmental crimes/OSHA unit.

After almost a decade in the DA's office, Trutanich went into private practice where he handled 100's of cases, many of them jury trials, and received an "AV" rating from Martindale-Hubbell. That rating signifies that he is held in the highest esteem by his peers for his legal ability and ethical standards.

Throughout his career, Trutanich has focused on environmental compliance and litigation. The California Lawyer has named him one of the top 10 attorneys in the state in the fields of environmental and land use law.

In 2008, after a successful career in private practice, Trutanich was recruited by civic leaders to enter the LA City Attorney's race, his first attempt at elected office. The goal of the civic leaders was to put forward an outsider, an independent who could stand the heat in the City Hall kitchen.

The Los Angeles Times endorsed Trutanich, saying: "He has the civil practice background to get a handle on Los Angeles' penchant for agreeing too easily to settlements, and impresses us as a man ...[who would] serve notice that the city will not roll over at the merest threat of a lawsuit by a billboard company or a disaffected employee." Once in office, Trutanich proved that the LA Times was right in its prediction: since 2009, the City Attorney's office has won favorable verdicts in more than 90 percent of the approximately 150 cases that have gone to trial. These favorable verdicts have saved taxpayers from $285 million in potential damage claims

Trutanich has provided vigorous and innovative leadership to protect the taxpayers. His office has saved taxpayers $284 million by winning 134 of 147 civil liability cases brought against the city.

In 2011, the national Association of Prosecuting Attorneys honored Trutanich with its Innovations in Criminal Justice Award, citing his use of civil injunctions to attack graffiti vandals and to protect skid-row's homeless from predatory drug-dealers.

Trutanich has also sued insurance companies that tried to deny coverage to women after they contracted breast cancer. He has fought to protect residents of neighborhoods hit hard by the mortgage crisis from banks that aggravated blighted neighborhoods by failing to maintain hundreds of properties they had foreclosed on. The City Attorney is now pursuing a novel plan to keep guns out of the hands of those who are ineligible to possess them as part of his effort to curb gun violence, down almost 14 percent in Los Angeles during the last two years alone.

Trutanich has been married to his wife Noreen for 34 years. The couple has our adult children: two are teachers, two are public prosecutors. They have three grandchildren. "Public service is in our DNA," Trutanich said.