The Attorney Issue

Truth and Consequences

An innovative program helps teens think through their actions before it’s too late.

BY CARRIE KIRBY

ANNAPURNA HOLTZAPPLE WILL never forget watching her friend get sentenced.

“She walked away in handcuffs. This one night interrupted everything she’d been planning for her future and her education,” says Holtzapple, 17.

What’s worse, Holtzapple was the victim, having been hit by her friend’s car in a drunk driving escapade.

Fortunately, Holtzapple was not really injured and her friend not truly prosecuted. The hearing happened onstage during Teens & the Law, a community outreach program that the Marin County Bar Association puts together each year with the Marin County Office of Education.

A year after she participated in the dramatization, though, the images remain imprinted in Holtzapple’s mind. The message that small decisions can snowball into catastrophes has also stuck with her.

“That was eye-opening,” the Tamalpais High School senior says.

That is just the sort of epiphany organizers Dorothy Chou Proudfoot and Charlie D. Dresow are going for. This year, Proudfoot, a Marin County deputy district attorney, and Dresow, a defense attorney, are involving more teens in the one- to-two-hour session because kids seem to pay more attention when their peers are involved. The first session was presented at Tamalpais High School in October, and the organizers plan to create similar programs with students at Novato High School and San Rafael High School later in the academic year.

This year the program again focuses on the consequences of underage drinking and substance abuse, because this is an area that consistently lands Marin teens in court, the organizers say.

“Marin County has a really acute drug and alcohol problem. It’s rampant,” Proudfoot says. “The teenage drinking problem has been among the worst in the state for years.”

This year, the program’s plot revolves around a house party where things get out of hand — something that happened repeatedly last summer in Marin.

“At certain key points of this evening we show where things go south and let the kids know how easily things can slide down to felony charges,” Dresow says.

Students who participate or attend receive credit toward the community service hours required by schools to graduate. In addition to the live vignettes, which culminate in a sentencing, student-made videos are also featured.

One myth that the organizers strive to debunk is that Marin kids — many of them high achievers — are immune from running afoul of the law. These dramatizations show the audience that good kids like them can ruin their lives without intending to do anything wrong. “It’s more like, you got a scholarship to an Ivy League school, but you start drinking and steal something at a party and push someone,” Dresow says. “Will you go to prison? Probably not. But will your plan to go to college and play in a sport be totally derailed? Yes.”

TRUE CRIME: Five of the biggest criminal cases ever in Marin County.

MARIN COUNTY ENJOYS the lowest violent crime rate in the Bay Area, but even our neck of the woods has its notorious incidents. We spoke with District Attorney Ed Berberian and reviewed media reports to compile this recollection of the five biggest cases of recent years:

LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON

Crime July 2009 Conviction July 2011

THE SON OF a successful businessman and convicted killer, James Mitchell followed his father’s darker footsteps. Mitchell, one of the heirs to the Mitchell Brothers porn empire, clubbed his ex-girlfriend to death on her Novato lawn while their baby daughter cried nearby. It was their child’s first birthday.

Back in 1991, Mitchell’s father, Jim, shot his brother and was convicted of manslaughter.

The younger Mitchell was sentenced to 35 years to life in prison for murder.

MOUNTIES GET MARIN MAN

Crime February 1999 Conviction February 2013

WHEN POLICE RESPONDED to a Corte Madera burglar alarm, suspect Michael Lena pointed a gun at them and ran. Authorities caught up with Lena in Canada, where a shootout with Royal Canadian Mounted Police landed him in prison for 12 years.

Lena was extradited in 2012 to stand trial in Marin, where he represented himself, spewed insults at court officials and generally made a spectacle of himself.

Berberian says he worried Lena might intimidate the jury, but they stood firm, finding him guilty of assault with a firearm against police, residential burglary and possessing a gun as a felon. He is serving a 51-year sentence. A HIT FROM THE INSIDE

Crime September 2008 Conviction April 2013

TONG VAN LE was gunned down in his Novato garage while his wife and children slept in the house.

He was the victim of a hit ordered to prevent him from testifying against a suspect in a robbery at his San Francisco liquor store. Larry Blay Jr. arranged the execution from jail with the help of fellow members of a neighborhood gang, Berberian says.

Novato police used Golden Gate Bridge license plate photos, text messages, jail phone recordings and cellphone tower records to piece together the case.

“There were thousands of pages of text messages that they went through line by line,” Berberian says.

Blay and three conspirators were convicted of murder and given long sentences. Driver Sean Washington took a plea deal for manslaughter.

“FAMILY” NIGHTMARE

Crime 2001 and before Conviction December 2002

NEIGHBORS WERE SURPRISED to learn that 13 children had lived in the heavily curtained Marinwood home, because the property was always quiet. Surprise turned to shock when the occupants’ dark deeds and bizarre lifestyle were exposed.

After toddler Ndigo Campisi-NyahWright died of malnutrition, authorities found that Winnfred Wright had fathered all the kids with several women, with whom he lived in a cultlike group that called itself The Family. The children were whipped and fed a diet so restrictive that many of them had bone deformities caused by rickets.

The DA charged Wright and the mothers with second-degree murder, manslaughter and felony child endangerment; they ended up all pleading guilty to the child endangerment charge.

Berberian says the plea deal saved the weak and traumatized children from having to take the stand.

“[Requiring that testimony] was one of the things we did not want to do,” Berberian says.

Wright was sentenced to 16 years. Mary Campbell got 10 years and Deirdre Hart Wilson seven years and four months.

In 2010, Wright was scheduled for unsupervised parole, but Berberian successfully convinced state prison officials to keep him on supervised parole. SERIAL KILLER REVEALED

Crimes 1977–1994 Conviction August 2013

DECADES BEFORE HE was caught, he was known as the “Alphabet Killer,” because his victims had first and last names starting with the same letter. The identity of the serial killer was a mystery until 2010, when journals and photographs describing decades of horrific crimes turned up in the Reno home of elderly photographer Joseph Naso.

Naso stood trial in Marin, because one of his victims was found strangled near a Fairfax road. Prosecutors charged him with four murders and presented evidence implicating him in two more.

There are probably more victims, Berberian says.

“We believe he killed 10 people, at least, based on the evidence,” the DA says.

The trial was challenging not only because of the age of the evidence but also because Naso represented himself, Berberian says.

“He’s very narcissistic … He did not make it a pleasant experience for our trial attorneys,” the district attorney adds.

Nevertheless, prosecutors prevailed, and Naso received Marin’s first death sentence since 1990. C.K.

YOU HIRE A lawyer to write up complex documents containing abstruse legal syntax. But an attorney’s bill should be easy reading.

There are two main ways attorneys charge for their services: by the hour or by contingency. The latter, common in personal injury and workers compensation cases, means the attorney receives a portion of the settlement if you win.

Some attorneys charge a flat fee for a defined task such as drafting a document or a set monthly fee for regular consultations.

Nothing in your bill should be a surprise, because when you first hire a lawyer, you’ll sign an agreement laying out the terms.

“The engagement letter should spell out not only the rates, but how time is billed, what the

expectations are in terms of payments, and what happens if payment is not made in a timely manner,” says Katherine Dulany, a Bay Area employment lawyer and litigator.

Answers to common billing questions:

What is a retainer fee? Paid at the outset of a case and held in a client trust account, this is a prepayment or deposit for the services your attorney will render. The attorney can draw on this account instead of asking you to pay each month, draw on the account only when bills aren’t paid on time or just hold the fee as security.

This setup is different from having a lawyer “on retainer,” which means that you pay a monthly fee to ensure the attorney’s availability.

There are two main ways attorneys charge for their services: by the hour or by contingency.

How can I save on attorney fees? Anything you can do to save your attorney time should lower your bill.

“Provide the attorney with all the necessary documents at the beginning,” advises San Rafael attorney Dotty LeMieux. In the tree law cases LeMieux frequently handles, those documents might be surveys or property deeds. In a divorce, it might be a spreadsheet showing assets or a parenting schedule.

Anatomy of a Bill

What you need to know about legal fees before you hire an attorney.

What if I can’t afford it? If you can’t afford an attorney’s rate, it never hurts to ask for a discount. Even if he won’t lower his rate, an attorney might refer you to a less expensive colleague or a legal clinic.

Marin County Superior Court’s Family Law Facilitator answers questions and helps people file paperwork without a lawyer.

What else should I consider when it comes to

billing? Probably the biggest thing clients can do to cut costs is to minimize conflict. When two opposing parties work together, they can get through court quickly or even avoid court and settle matters through alternative dispute resolution.

“If you keep the level of acrimony [with the other party] down, your bill will be lower,” says San Rafael family law attorney Rachel Castrejon.

What recourse do I have if I feel my bill is

unfair? The Marin County Bar Association runs a fee arbitration program to help clients and attorneys settle billing disputes. For a fee, a committee of volunteer lawyers takes the client and lawyer through binding or nonbinding arbitration.

“They will look at the documents, review the fees and see whether or not they’re in line with what is customary for that type of case,” says Mee Mee Wong, executive director of the Marin County Bar Association. C.K.

THE VEEN FIRM, P.C.

711 Van Ness Ave., #220 • San Francisco, CA 94102 415.673.4800 • www.VeenFirm.com

FOUNDED IN 1975, THE VEEN FIRM began as a one-man operation assisting victims of catastrophic events. In the nearly four decades since then, the firm has grown to more than 30 members, while still retaining its focus on complex plaintiffs’ personal injury cases. Injury cases are often very challenging for plaintiffs, and because of that, The Veen Firm strives to be a source of emotional support—as well as a powerful advocate in the courtroom—for its clients. By bringing a unique trial team approach to bear on its clients’ cases, The Veen Firm has been able to both stand up to large opponents and provide clients with the customized attention of a smaller boutique firm. There are three trial teams at The Veen Firm. Each team is made-up of a diverse group of highly talented attorneys, paralegals, and assistants. A number of attorneys at the firm have been practicing together for decades. The trial teams collaborate with each other and draw on the experience of all the attorneys in the office to ensure clients are receiving the best representation possible. Many of the firm’s case referrals come from other attorneys and former clients, which the firm sees as the highest compliment and vote of confidence.

The trial teams are managed by Anthony Label, Craig Peters and Eustace de Saint Phalle. Overseeing these three trial teams is Bill Veen, winner of the San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association’s (SFTLA) Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008 and Trial Lawyer of the Year Award in 2003. In 2014, Veen was selected by his peers as Best Lawyers’ 2014 San Francisco Lawyer of the Year for plaintiffs’ personal injury litigation. In addition to providing strategy and guidance to the firm’s three trial teams, he continues to distinguish himself in complex trials. For example, in 2010 he achieved the largest injury verdict in Marin County history for the case Travis v. Bison Builders. Because of its approach, The Veen Firm was recently voted the Best San Francisco Personal Injury Law Firm in the Recorder, one of California’s leading legal newspapers. The firm has also been ranked Tier 1 in San Francisco for plaintiffs’ personal injury litigation by U.S. News – Best Lawyers “Best Law Firms.” Several of the firm’s attorneys have been listed in The Best Lawyers in America and Super Lawyers and accepted to invitation-only trial organizations such as the American Board of Trial Advocates.

ROUDA FEDER TIETJEN & MCGUINN

44 Montgomery Street, Suite 4000 • San Francisco, CA 94104 415.398.53980 • www.rftmlaw.com

THE AWARD-WINNING TRIAL ATTORNEYS AT ROUDA FEDER TIETJEN & MCGUINN have provided their clients with skillful advocacy and heartfelt compassion since 1980. The firm has resolved many cases in Marin and throughout California. Three of the firm’s five attorneys are North Bay residents. Firm founder Ron Rouda and his family are longtime residents of Belvedere, where Ron swims the lagoon daily. John Feder raised his children in San Rafael and volunteers at the Marin County Superior Court. When not in trial, Cynthia McGuinn spends her free time hiking Mt. Tam or gardening at her home on the back side of Tiburon. As leaders in their field, RFTM attorneys have served on the executive boards of a number of prestigious attorney organizations and have taught courses at U.C. Berkeley School of Law, U.C. Hastings College of the Law and Harvard Law School. Though the firm has garnered national recognition for securing significant recoveries on behalf of their clients in personal injury, wrongful death and medical malpractice cases, they take even greater pride when their cases trigger changes that promote community safety, in addition to positively impacting the lives of their clients.

CASES WE BELIEVE IN. PEOPLE WE CARE ABOUT.

KEEGIN HARRISON

1000 Fourth Street, Suite 600 • San Rafael, CA 94901 415.456.4000 • www.keeginharrison.com

KEEGIN HARRISON | SCHOPPERT SMITH & KARNER LLP—PROVIDING EXCEPTIONAL LEGAL REPRESENTATION

FOR OVER 50 YEARS. Large-firm sophistication in a smaller, more responsive package. Keegin Harrison’s clients include businesses, individuals, public agencies and nonprofit organizations throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. While many of Keegin Harrison’s lawyers have benefitted from large-firm experience, the firm’s size and Marin County location allow it to provide services more cost-effectively and responsively than its larger competitors. Keegin Harrison is known for its expertise in real estate and land-use planning, business law, and employment law. The firm’s estate planning group has decades of experience helping families plan for the future. Its mergers and acquisitions group represents both buyers and sellers in transactions of all sizes ranging from basic to complex, and has successfully closed countless deals. The firm’s litigation attorneys have expertise in all stages of commercial litigation and have an established track record of concluding disputes efficiently and favorably. All of Keegin Harrison’s attorneys deeply value professionalism and client service, and they have been repeatedly recognized by peers and clients for the high quality of their legal services. The Keegin Harrison lawyers routinely donate their time to the Marin community—volunteering, holding elected and appointed positions in local government, and serving in leadership roles in community nonprofit organizations and the local bar association.

KATE WARNER CONSTRUCTION LAWYER

1005 A Street, Suite 312 • San Rafael, CA 94901 415.457.7977 • www.katewarnerlaw.com

“AN OUNCE OF PREVENTION OR A POUND OF CURE”: HELPING BUILDERS AND OWNERS OBTAIN, PLAN, BUILD,

MANAGE, MAINTAIN, AND REPAIR RESIDENTIAL, COMMERCIAL AND PUBLIC PROJECTS … and with the litigation/ disputes they can trigger. For 31 years Kate Warner has built solid, top industry relationships which allows her to assemble targeted teams of experts to navigate AND achieve the best possible Real Estate and Construction/ Project results. Firm in the belief that resources should go to construction, not the legal process, she quickly and candidly provides practical and efficient solution options, from pre-project feasibility to the final sign-off. With skill and unique contacts, she and her teams can manage and resolve your construction disputes before, during or long after the last nail is driven. She’s an invited member of: Associated General Contractors; Marin Builders Exchange; Construction Specifications Institute; Forensic Expert Witness Association AND WestCon, California’s leading construction consultant’s organization.

Project Tips:

Contracts: They should clearly define the mutual goals and benefits, and how all parties will obtain them. Don’t be intimidated, think about how it will work in the real world or revise the contract if it won’t. Ask questions and talk about expectations BEFORE you sign. Insurance: It’s not a warranty. Send the contract(s) to the broker to assure the project is covered, and ask for the insurer’s claims handling reputation.