Healdsburg, California – from www.healdsburg.towns.pressdemocrat.com – A Healdsburg attorney and soccer mom has emerged as a top legal adviser to the multi-billion dollar adult film industry in its fight to retain a signature feature that is politely referred to as the ‘money shot.’

Karen Tynan, an employment law specialist who counts local wineries among her clients, represents Los Angeles-based porn stars, producers and talent agencies in their bid to make sexually explicit movies without using condoms.

The frequent-flier from Sonoma County’s small airport jetted off Thursday to the industry’s annual convention in Las Vegas, where she was on a panel discussing workplace safety issues.

After mingling for a few hours with the micro-mini-and-heels set, Tynan planned to forgo an awards ceremony known in the trade as the porn Oscars and hop a plane back to Sonoma County in time for her teenage daughter’s volleyball tournament.

“I have my priorities straight,” said the 46-year-old Empire College law school graduate whose southern accent reveals her Georgia roots.

“I’m just a regular gal.”

That “regular gal” image is at least partly responsible for her success in the male-dominated field that has produced names like Larry Flynt and Ron Jeremy and was chronicled in the movie “Boogie Nights” starring Burt Reynolds and Mark Wahlberg.

In less than four years since industry officials plucked her name at random off the Internet, Tynan has become “invaluable and broadly relied upon” for her knowledge of workplace regulation, said Jeff Douglas, chairman of the Free Speech Coalition, the industry’s leading trade group.

She is called upon frequently to appear at court hearings opposite lawyers from the California Occupational Safety and Health Administration and visits studio sets to ensure compliance with state laws.

“I found Karen on a Google search,” said Douglas, who is based in Santa Monica.

“It was a match made in heaven. Everybody loves her. And this is not an industry that is favorably inclined toward lawyers.”

Today, Tynan represents more adult film companies than any other lawyer on Cal-OSHA issues, she said. The battle for condom-free sex makes up the bulk of her work.

Since an HIV outbreak rocked the industry in 2004, the Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation has been pushing to make them required for anyone making a pornographic movie.

Tynan’s clients prefer monthly testing as an alternative because it allows them to continue to give consumers what they want and reduces injuries caused by prolonged exposure to latex.

“You can’t create a product that no one is going to buy,” Tynan said.

Tynan said that since testing became the standard, there have been no transmissions from on-set sex, although there have been scares.

This summer, when a Florida porn star was reported as being HIV-positive, Tynan and Free Speech Coalition officials conferred by conference call and halted all production for about a week.

“It was a false positive,” Tynan said. “But everyone in the industry completely shut down while we made sure no one came in contact with the performer.”

Her clients suffered a setback this week when the Los Angeles City Council adopted a mandatory condom ordinance. However, the city has yet to figure out how to enforce it.

“Relatively speaking, it’s a non-event,” Douglas said.

“By virtue of this action there won’t be a single, solitary use of a condom.”

Tynan didn’t set out to be a porn industry lawyer. She doesn’t even watch the films.

“I’m too much of a Catholic girl,” she said.

She was happy practicing labor law for clients in building and property management after graduating from Empire College about 10 years ago.

It was a second career that allowed her to settle down and start a family after a stint as a merchant marine. Her husband is a ship’s pilot for Chevron.

One day in 2008 she picked up the phone and her life changed.

“The next thing you know they are sending me a retainer and I’m flying to L.A.,” she said. “It’s been a good experience for me.”

Now she has clients in gay and straight porn, in San Francisco and Southern California’s famed San Fernando Valley, nearly 500 miles away. Unlike other businesses hurt by the recession, Internet-based porn is solid.

She said her first visit to a set was in San Francisco, where she recalled being impressed by the craftsmanship of a fake doctor’s office used in a shoot.

She’s watched live sex shots but said it hasn’t really fazed her.

“They are really a bunch of smart, entrepreneurial people,” said Tynan. “It’s inspiring and exhilarating to work with them.”

Not everyone shares her enthusiasm. Some friends wonder how she can work in an industry viewed as sleazy and demeaning to women. Others ask how a mother with a teenage daughter can advocate condom-free sex.

She reminds them porn is a legally protected form of expression. Encouraging safe sex for kids and advising adult performers are two different things, she said.

It’s led to more than a few awkward moments at school meetings and family functions.

“I’m not embarrassed or ashamed about what my clients do,” she said.

At the same time, she has plenty of support at home and counts people such as District Attorney Jill Ravitch as friends. She’s a past leader of Sonoma County Women in Law.

Santa Rosa defense attorney Chris Andrian said he met Tynan about five years ago on a case involving employment issues. He said he was immediately impressed by her legal prowess and charmed by her southern drawl.

“She’s priceless and a wonderful woman,” Andrian said. “I’m crazy about her.”

As much as Tynan admires her new clients, she sees herself as different from them in some ways.

At the Adult Video News convention in Las Vegas, Tynan will stand out among the porn stars and thousands of autograph-seeking fans perusing booths with life-sized blow-up dolls and other sex toys.

Despite her new calling, she’s still a housewife from Healdsburg, she said.

“I’ll be in my business suit with my reading glasses on and my iPhone in my hand,” Tynan said. “It makes me easy to find in a crowd.”