I was born in San Francisco. My parents had recently moved there from Oakland. After the 1989 earthquake, they worried about the possibility that another natural disaster would take out the bridge between their work in San Francisco (where they would be during the day) and home (where myself and later my brother would be).

My mom’s parents were chemistry professors, and I enjoyed science and math in school. They felt like places where there was an identifiable right answer. That gave me a sense of certainty and clarity. But I went to an international school through high school, and that led me to pursue international relations in college at Tufts University. When I started thinking about changing to a quantitative economics major, I called my dad. I remember sitting in my freshman dorm stairwell on the phone with him. He believed in having a plan.

My dad was the person in my life who believed in me. He was diagnosed with cancer after my freshman year and died nine months later. He was unable to finish what he viewed as his most important professional project. He was a lawyer for a Catholic health system. A few years earlier, a nun at one of the system’s hospitals had approved the decision to terminate a woman’s pregnancy. The woman’s doctors said she would almost certainly die if her pregnancy continued. The nun was excommunicated for that decision. The Church wanted the hospital to agree to never perform that procedure again. Instead, my dad began the momentous task of separating the hospital system from the Catholic Church. 

I took a leave of absence from school while my dad was sick. He didn’t want me to; he said that wasn’t part of the plan. I returned to Tufts after his death. I gathered myself and kept moving forward with the new plan. I finished my major and added a minor, wrote a senior honors thesis, and graduated on time and magna cum laude.

After college, I worked as a Wall Street investment banker. I was quickly doing the work of a vice president, including building and maintaining client relationships. I helped Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac trust us again and worked on their credit risk transfer transactions, which allow them to give loans to people who might not otherwise be able to own homes while shifting the associated risk away from taxpayers. 

While money is important in any business relationship, it was never my primary motivator. I was driven by solving my clients’ most complex problems and building meaningful relationships. I worked long hours, and I coordinated and executed large deals. I also learned what kind of lawyer I didn’t want to be. While my work was interesting, it wasn’t fulfilling.

In my first year of law school, I took a class on the death penalty taught by Steve Bright, one of the nation’s leading lawyers representing individuals facing the death penalty. He taught us much more than legal principles. The core of his teaching—and his life—was the importance of treating everyone, including poor people accused of crimes, with humanity and respect.

Inspired by Steve and his class, I spent my first summer in law school at a public defender’s office. I was immediately captivated. I stayed several weeks beyond the time I could be paid—up until the Friday before I had to fly back to resume law school. Being a public defender became my profession and my identity for four years before I joined Stritmatter. I remain committed to standing up for my clients against powerful adversaries, but now I have more resources and leverage to do so.

I’ve been fortunate to work and learn in prestigious places surrounded by impressive people, including at Goldman Sachs, Yale Law School, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Those experiences taught me a lot about how the world operates. 

But those institutions didn’t reflect how the world actually is. Few of the people I encountered ever had to worry about how the police would treat them or how they would pay their bills if they were seriously injured and unable to work. Nor did they seem concerned that others did have to worry about those things. I found that disconnect shocking, given how much power those institutions wield over others’ lives. The law, in particular, often treats people in a way that is sterile and dehumanizing. It has been an honor to spend my legal career standing beside my clients and helping judges and juries see them as real people. I try to help people find the right answers, answers that will help solve the challenges in their lives.