City attorney runs hard, alone.

SAN FRANCISCO -- With Election Day less than two weeks away, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera has a lot to feel good about: He's filed a string of high-profile suits, scored some impressive victories and racked up a fat campaign war chest.

Oh, and he's unopposed.

Four years ago, Herrera faced off against four candidates to replace longtime City Attorney Louise Renne. This time, campaign disclosure reports show he has raised $282,000, most of it from the legal community.

To Herrera's thinking, that's just playing it safe.

First, he said, he wasn't sure anyone would challenge him until the Aug. 12 deadline for entering the race. And, he said, it's arrogant for politicians to take voters for granted.

"Even if I have no opponent, I view it as my responsibility to get the message out about the good work this office does," Herrera explained. "I think I should earn people's votes. Voters want people to make their case about why they should vote for you, not that they should just do it by default."

The defining moment of Herrera's tenure came last year, when he joined forces with Mayor Gavin Newsom in challenging a ban on same-sex marriage.

Only a week after Newsom made history by ordering city clerks to issue marriage licenses to couples of the same gender, Herrera backed him up in court.

Herrera sued the state of California to have the existing marriage laws declared unconstitutional on the grounds that they discriminate against gays and lesbians.

Herrera won an early victory in March when Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer issued a landmark ruling in his favor. But the battle is far from over, with the final decision likely to come from the California Supreme Court in a year or two.

"That will be Dennis' legacy," said attorney Matt Davis of San Francisco's Walkup Melodia Kelly Wecht & Schoenberger, a Herrera supporter who previously worked for Renne.

Davis put the case in the same league as the 1967 U.S. Supreme Court decision invalidating state laws, once prevalent, that barred inter-racial marriages.

Herrera also has a U.S. Supreme Court victory to his name. In June, the City Attorney's Office successfully defended one of San Francisco's affordable housing laws against an attack by a property owner.

The ordinance in question forces hotel owners to pay a fee for every room they convert from residential to tourist use.

The high court ruled that the owners of the San Remo Hotel could not go forward with their takings lawsuit in federal court after losing their claims in the California Supreme Court. San Remo Hotel v. San Francisco, 125 S. Ct. 2491

Herrera's adversaries in housing litigation give him mixed reviews.

"I don't like his clients very much, but I really like him," said Andrew Zacks of San Francisco's Zacks Utrecht & Leadbetter, who represented the Sail Remo and has several landlord cases pending against the City Attorney's Office.

Zacks said he has won some and lost some but never settled a case with Herrera, whom he called a "very tough adversary."

Zacks particularly praised Herrera for resisting the temptation to personally argue the San Remo case in Washington. D.C. He called Herrera's decision to hire veteran Supreme Court litigator Seth Waxman "a stroke of genius."

"It cost the city a lot but they won, so it's hard to argue with it," Zacks said, adding: "A lot of city attorneys want to have the glory of going and arguing the case themselves."

Zacks also said he appreciates Herrera's professional attitude toward attorneys who challenge city laws and agencies.

"He's a reasonable person who's truly interested in the perspective of his opponents," he said.

Herrera doesn't get the same endorsement from Neil Eisenberg, a San Francisco real estate litigator who lost to Herrera in the 2001 election.

Eisenberg has defended a suit initiated by the City Attorney's Office alleging that a low-budget hotel owner moved long-term residents from room to room to evade the city's rent control ordinance. City and County of San Francisco v. Mosser, CGCA-02-414860.

Eisenberg said the case was "politically motivated" by advocacy groups and the bulk of it was thrown out because Herrera's deputies failed to do any "substantive" work on it.

A spokesman for Herrera said the office plans to appeal the partial dismissal of the case.

Another of Herrera's former election opponents spoke highly of him.

"I think he's done a fine job," said Jim Lazarus, a former longtime aide to Sen. Dianne Feinstein who lost the 2001 runoff for city attorney. Lazarus said that under Herrera's leadership, the City Attorney's Office "continues to be well run."

Some of Herrera's most contentious litigation stems from disputes with construction firms that were awarded big contracts with the city.

Targeting fraud was a theme in his 2001 campaign.

The biggest of the contracting cases, initiated by Renne, seeks damages against Tutor-Saliba, which worked on the $2.4 billion expansion of San Francisco International airport and is one of the country's largest public works contractors.

The company is considered all the more formidable because its president. Ron Tutor, is a frequent contributor to politicians throughout the state.

The city's suit claims the company manufactured delays mid issued false work-change orders, greatly inflating the project's final price tag, and circumvented city laws aimed at helping minority-owned companies.

The effort took on political overtones when airport commissioners, who approved many of the big-ticket changes to Tutor's construction schedule, refused to appropriate cash to fund Herrera's case.

The county's Board of Supervisors sided with Herrera and ordered the commission to come up with an initial $2.5 million. Herrera has estimated the case could ultimately cost $7.5 million. San Francisco's Farella Braun & Martel is providing outside help for the long-running case.

The suit seeks more than $30 million in damages and is pending in federal court with trial set for January 2007. City and County of San Francisco v. Tutor-Saliba Corp., C025286CW

The case even spawned a $5 million defamation suit by Tutor when Herrera derided the construction magnate in a speech as "greedy" and a "corrosive influence."

But a San Francisco judge concluded Herrera's comments amounted to free speech and that he enjoyed immunity as a public employee discussing a legal proceeding.

"I found it amusing because it was so ridiculous," Herrera said during a recent interview in his City Hall office.

An attorney representing Tutor, William Eliopoulos of San Jose, did not return a phone call.

Other contracting cases brought by Herrera's office include:

* A whistleblower suit that netted $3.4 million against a Texas technology company accused of rigging bids to provide computer equipment to San Francisco schools. U.S. ex rel San Francisco Unified School District v. Nippon Electric Company Business Network Solutions Inc., C02-2398JCS.

* A $125 million fraud suit pending against construction conglomerate AMEC over the still-unfinished San Bruno jail. The suit accuses the London-based firm of withholding information about its convictions for improper billing and operating without a valid contractor's license. City and County of San Francisco v. AMEC Construction, CGC 05-442988

* A $3 million settlement with a Denver-based real estate investment trust stemming from code violations in public housing projects in the Bayview/Hunter's Point neighborhood. City and County of San Francisco v. Apartment Investment and Management Company, 404010.

The same-sex marriage litigation isn't Herrera's only tangle with government laws.

He is proud of San Francisco's distinction as the only city to refuse a demand for hospital abortion records from former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Ashcroft sought the patient records while preparing to implement the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.

But Herrera and Planned Parenthood persuaded a federal judge that turning over the records would have violated patients' privacy rights. Herrera called Ashcroft's subpoenas "not only over-broad, but outrageous."

One of Herrera's few losses came last year when a superior court judge declared unconstitutional the city's 20-year-old affirmative action ordinance in light of Proposition 209, a voter-approved constitutional amendment prohibiting preferences on the basis of race and gender.

"But we kept it alive for eight years," Herrera said, referring to the City Attorney's Office's ability to beat back several prior challenges to the San Francisco law.

Herrera had mixed results in a fraud suit filed last year alleging that two companies received kickbacks that cheated the city out of millions of dollars.

One of the companies, Cobra Solutions, which sold high-tech supplies to San Francisco, had hired Herrera's former law firm for advice on dealing with the city. Cobra later accused Herrera of using inside information about the companies' relationship with the city in the fraud suit.

A trial judge decided to disqualify Herrera's entire office from working on the case because of the potential for a conflict of interest with his former firm.

The 1St District Court of Appeal upheld the disqualification, setting a new precedent for public law offices and ethical conflicts, and the City Attorney's Office is now appealing to the state Supreme Court. City of San Francisco v. Cobra Solutions, S126397

Herrera had better luck convincing a trial judge to throw out a suit filed by Cobra that accused Herrera of breaching professional ethics by suing the company in his public capacity after representing the company. Cobra Solutions v. Herrera 431277.

A New York native, Herrera, 42, earned his law degree from George Washington University School of Law in Washington, D.C. He started his law career with San Francisco's oldest maritime law firm, Derby Cook Quimby & Tweed. After working briefly for the city attorney's trial team, he was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1993 to help run the federal Maritime Administration in Washington, D.C.

Herrera then returned to private practice as a partner with the maritime firm Kelly Gill Sherburne & Herrera. Mayor Willie Brown appointed him to the city Transportation Commission in 1996 and the Police Commission in 1997.

He oversees a budget of $56 million and represents more than 100 city agencies.

Herrera says he enjoys overseeing a range of issues his office works on. But, he acknowledged, "sometimes I miss really practicing the law and delving into details."

Herrera, a Catholic, lives in the Potrero Hill neighborhood of Dogpatch with his wife, Anne, and son, Declan.

And, no, he is not planning at this time to run for mayor.

"My ambition right now is to be the best city attorney I can be, and I think I have plenty of work to keep me busy," Herrera said. But he didn't rule it out. "I've always had the view that doing a good job ... provides opportunity in a host of directions."