Larkin

I. Introduction

Defendants, the law partnership of Williams, Woolley, Cogswell, Nakazawa & Russell, and individual partners, Reed M. Williams, David E. R. Woolley, Forrest R. Cogswell, Alan Nakazawa, and Thomas A. Russell, appeal from an order denying their petition to compel arbitration of a dispute with plaintiff, Blake W. Larkin. The trial court relied on the decision in Smith v. Superior Court (1962) 202 Cal.App.2d 128, 131-134 [ 20 Cal.Rptr. 512 ]. We conclude Smith should be limited to its facts and that opinion has no application to the present case, which involves an agreement to arbitrate the disputes between the parties. We apply the California Arbitration Act (Code Civ. Proc., § 1280 et seq.) and reverse.

II. Background

Plaintiff filed a complaint for dissolution of the law partnership and an accounting. The complaint alleged one of the partners, Mr. Williams, had breached the partnership agreement by failing to “ ‘devote his best efforts and substantially all of his normal business time to serving professionally the [f|irm and its clients’ ” as required by the agreement; further, as a result of Mr. Williams’s conduct, “it [was] not reasonably practicable to…