John C. Orr, born in Ventura County, is a fourth-generation lawyer and farmer. His great-grandfather, Orestes Orlando Orr, moved to Ventura from Illinois in 1878. In 1882 he opened his law practice in downtown Ventura and was elected district attorney two years later. In 1910 his son Harold Frank Orr joined his firm. H.F. Orr would later be elected city attorney, a position he held for 35 years. In 1915 H.F. Orr recruited Erle Stanley Gardner, who later became the author of the Perry Mason series. Their law firm, Drapeau, Orr and Gardner, was located on the third floor of the building on the corner of Main and California streets.

American lawyer and author Gardner wrote his first novel The Case of the Velvet Claws while working with Orr. Born on July 17, 1889, in Malden, Massachusetts, Gardner graduated from Palo Alto High School and pursued his legal education independently after being suspended from law school. He passed the state Bar exam in 1911. Much of his fictional writings are based on his experiences as a trial lawyer in Ventura. Gardner often worked with lower-income clientele, particularly Chinese and Mexican immigrants. This inspired him to establish the Court of Last Resort in the 1940s, which was an organization that helped support defendants who were imprisoned unfairly or couldn't afford adequate legal representation. Gardner remained with Sheridan, Orr, Drapeau, and Gardner until 1933 when he published The Case of the Velvet Claws. Many of the locations in that story are based on the historic Pierpont Inn.

In 1970 Frank E. Orr, John C. Orr's father, joined the firm. Gardner died of cancer on March 11, 1970, at his ranch in Temecula, California. H.F. Orr died on March 1, 1969.