S.F. Attorneys Steve McDonald and Steve MacDonald Do Legal Battle Once Again

You sure about that?

Perhaps San Francisco lawyer Steve McDonald will pep himself up tonight by renting Highlander. He may take some solace in the film's oft-repeated refrain "There can be only one!" -- for, in his line of work, and in the matter of his existence, there is not only one.

Once again, the tenant attorney is arguing a case against his namesake, Steve MacDonald. In fact, SF Weekly discovered this because our intended call to MacDonald was inadvertently placed to McDonald. McDonald didn't hold it against us. These things happen.

The M(a)cDonalds are currently doing battle in the wrongful eviction case College v. Lee (McDonald claims his clients were moved from their longtime unit so the landlords could move family in -- but instead rented it out for more money; MacDonald -- who speaks Cantonese -- contends the owner move-in did occur, but after one of the new residents suffered a stroke 32 months later, the apartment was rented out at market rate).

Yet the two crossed swords in an even more tongue-twisting case several years ago: McDonald took on MacDonald in Ngo v. Ngo.

"Oh, that was fun," admits McDonald of the 2005 case.

The property dispute among members a Vietnamese family was truly a delight for the lyricist in all of us, but -- Mcdonald! MacDonald! Potato! Po-tah-to! Let's call the whole thing off -- well, they called the whole thing off. McDonald claims that the families came to an internal settlement after a year of battling it out in court.

As for how he distinguishes himself from his namesake, McDonald has his own -- wildly biased -- system. "I tell people I'm 'Steve the Good,'" he says with a chuckle. "He's 'Steve the Bad.'"

MacDonald laughs at that. "He's the pretender to the throne," he adds with a laugh.