Emily Dahm (ACBA) - Berkeley Law

Louis Goodman / Emily Dahm - Transcript

Louis Goodman 00:07 

In collaboration with the Alameda County Bar Association, this is Love Thy Lawyer, where we talk with members of the ACBA about their lives and legal careers. I'm Louis Goodman, the host of the LTL podcast, and yes, I'm a member of the Alameda County Bar Association. Emily Dahm is a partner in the Pleasanton-based firm of Bonjour, Thorman, Burns, Dahm, and Wargo.

She has extensive felony and misdemeanor trial experience, and before going into private practice honed her criminal skills as a San Francisco Public Defender. Emily also has experience as a civil litigator. In connection with both state and federal contract and corporate legal matters, she's worked in Hong Kong and mainland China, and as a result, she has street proficiency in Mandarin. 

She is a long-term member of the Alameda County Bar Association, and, perhaps, most impressive to me, she is a strong climber when riding her bike in the Oakland Hills. Emily Dahm, welcome to the Alameda County Bar Association and the Love Thy Lawyer podcast.

Emily Dahm 01:29 

Thank you so much for having me, Lou, and I will slowly but steadily, you know, disabuse everyone that everything you just said was true. I am a mediocre climber on my bike in the Oakland Hills, but I sure try. 

Louis Goodman 01:41 

How about the Mandarin skills? 

Emily Dahm 01:43 

Okay, so the Mandarin was definitely very oversold. 20 years ago, I would say that would be an accurate description of my Mandarin skills. Now, not so much. 

Louis Goodman 01:52 

Where are you speaking to us from right now? 

Emily Dahm 01:54 

I'm in my office in Pleasanton. 

Louis Goodman 01:56 

How long have you been in that practice? 

Emily Dahm 02:00 

Just a smidge over seven years now. 

Louis Goodman 02:03 

I set it up a little bit in the introduction, but perhaps you could tell us in your words how you see your practice. 

Emily Dahm 02:10 

We have sort of two main practice areas. One half of our practice is criminal defense. The other half of our practice is plaintiff's side personal injury. 

Louis Goodman 02:19 

Where are you from originally? 

Emily Dahm 02:21 

Well, no one particular place. I moved about eight or nine times before college. So just kind of the upper Midwest, I consider myself a South Dakotan since I spent collectively the most time in South Dakota before I left for college.

Louis Goodman 02:38 

Is that where you went to high school? 

Emily Dahm 02:40 

I graduated from Old Gorman High School, Good Catholic School in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. 

Louis Goodman 02:45 

So when you graduated from Catholic school in Sioux Falls, you ultimately went to college and where'd you go? 

Emily Dahm 02:54 

Keeping with the Catholic school tradition, I went to an all girls Catholic school in Minnesota called the College of St. Benedict. It is in St. Joseph, Minnesota, outside of St. Cloud, which is not far from St. Paul. So as you can see, we are very holy. 

Louis Goodman 03:10 

Well, what was that experience like going to college at an all girls Catholic school? 

Emily Dahm 03:16 

So there is an adjacent men's school, St. John's university. So it wasn't, we had classes at each other's campuses and such.

I think that I really miscalculated what a all girls Catholic school, college experience would be, I thought this was going to be a very kind of feminist capital F, you know, let's go ladies. And it was not. And I really thought about transferring after my first year, but then I realized if I transferred, I was going to transfer to some place where I think everybody was going to kind of be like me, think like me. And I don't think I was going to have as enriching an experience, so I stayed. And I think it was the best decision I ever made. I loved the school. I think I got a top shelf education. I made such great connections with my professors who really, really without them, I can't even imagine that I would be anywhere close to where I am today, without getting to know them. And so I'm glad that I didn't go with my impulse to get the hell out of there. 

Louis Goodman 04:25 

Now you have a couple of degrees beyond your bachelor's. Obviously you have a JD and you also have a master's degree in law and diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University.

So I'm wondering if you could tell us, after you got out of college, where you went to school, and if you took any time off between the time you got out of college and the time you started your graduate work. 

Emily Dahm 04:50 

So after college, I went to a small town in central China, about an hour and a half's drive outside of Chongqing. I taught English at a university there for a year and I had studied abroad in the same town, a different university, but in the same town when I was an undergrad. So that's how I ended up there. So I did that for a year. Then I came back to the States. I got a job at the U.S. Department of Labor in D. C. I worked in the labor department two years, first on the welfare to work program, and then I worked on international labor issues, primarily child labor issues in the department. 

So I was there for two years before then I went to graduate school and I actually applied, I did graduate school and law school at the same time. I did like a joint degree. I ended up going, starting graduate school first at, well, the Fletcher school. So that was my master's program. I did two years there. Then I came out to Berkeley to do law school. Then I bounced back and forth until I was done with the whole thing. 

Louis Goodman 06:00 

So you were in the masters and the JD sort of simultaneously? 

Emily Dahm 06:05 

Yeah. Yeah. I figured out a way to cut a year off of bullshitting. 

Louis Goodman 06:09 

What prompted you to get an interest in China?

Emily Dahm 06:13 

Studying abroad there? 

Louis Goodman 06:14 

Well, can you tell us a little bit about the experience in China? 

Emily Dahm 06:17 

I was there for six months, 1995, the fall of 1995. We were way out there. There were, you know, other than my sort of group of about 10 fellow students, there were no other foreigners around, people did not speak English. We had to learn Chinese. 

The presence of the Communist Party was felt while we were there. So for example, we had made really good friends with a couple of students, Chinese students in the English department. They would tell us how they were being very clearly told that they were to learn English from us, but not to get too close to us, not to get too involved with us.

And I remember traveling with one of my friends that I made there and we had to, it was almost like we were having an affair. You know, we went to the bus stop, but we had to go to get on the bus. We had to pretend like we didn't know each other. We had to walk from different directions. We sat in different spots on the bus until that person was convinced that there was nobody who was going to snitch on us on the bus, and then we could actually like hang out together.

And then on the way back, we had to do the same thing and pretend like we didn't know each other. We just happened to be on the same bus because she would have gotten in a whole bunch of trouble if she'd traveled with me. 

Louis Goodman 07:38 

When was it that you first decided that you wanted to be a lawyer, when was it you first decided that you wanted to apply to law school? And those don't necessarily have to be the same answer. 

Emily Dahm 07:50 

I don't know if it was me or if it was my family, but I put it this way, the first suggestion that I should be a lawyer was when I was about eight years old. My nickname my grandpa gave me was the mouth and, you know, I earned it very much through my teenage years.

My poor mother, I just argued and debated her on everything. I just exhausted her always advocating for something, some idea, some person. And I just loved it. I loved it. I always wanted to be the person fighting for the underdog. The law just seems like that's the place you do that. That's the place where you get to stand up and you get to say what's right and you get a fight for someone who maybe can't fight for themselves. And it just seemed like such a pure and good thing to do. And I wanted to do it ever since I was little, maybe I didn't know it was called a lawyer, but that's what I wanted to do.

Applying for law school, if you'd asked me in college, 100% I was going to apply for law school. If you would ask me a couple years after college when I was working, I would have said, well, I don't know, because I was kind of exploring the, you know, the diplomacy, the international relations aspect of things. But I always knew that getting a law degree was going to help me, no matter what I decided to do. So, applied for law school, came out here. I hated law school, but I really liked learning about the law and I love being a lawyer to this day. 

Louis Goodman 09:23 

Right now, you're a partner in a very successful, very well respected practice here in the East Bay.

Can you kind of walk us through your legal career from the time you graduated from law school and passing the bar and then your work experience? 

Emily Dahm 09:41 

So I graduated from all my schools in 2004. My first year as a lawyer, I spent in Hong Kong. I'd been a summer associate at Latham & Watkins in their Singapore and Hong Kong offices.

I couldn't believe anybody was paying me to go to Asia, let alone that much. I thought that was just pretty cool. And then they hired me directly into the Hong Kong office and I was thrilled, and I went to Hong Kong in Hong Kong at least then I haven't been back since China has taken more of a intense hold over it.

But hell of a city, just an amazing city. And I loved it, but I was doing project finance, which did not take my height to the highest height or my heart to the highest heights. It became really clear to me within that first year that this is not for me, this is not what I want to do. And if I don't make a change, you know, you're going to get, I'm going to get stuck here doing this kind of law.

So I had spoken to the partners there and said, I will go do litigation in any office that this firm has worldwide. You put me anywhere you want, but put me in litigation because this is, you know, not for me, and I just got lucky that the San Francisco office was really understaffed and they had a big case and they just did not have enough junior associates to put on it.

So they said, you want to go to San Francisco? And I thought, well, that's easy. All you know, I just graduated from Berkeley, I love it out in the Bay Area. All my friends are still there. So I moved back and I worked in Latham San Francisco office for about another couple of years. And, you know, there's litigation and then there's being a trial lawyer and I realized that, you know, I don't want to be a litigator.

I want to be a trial lawyer. I was really looking for how do I kind of get back to what I wanted to do in the first place, which is I wanted to be the person fighting for the other person in the courtroom. And a really good friend of mine, she was going to lunch and she grabbed me to come along with her and who she ended up going to lunch with was the then manager of the misdemeanor unit of the San Francisco Public Defender, an excellent attorney named Nikki Solis.

I had lunch with her and I was like, blown away because here's somebody who is doing like here. It was this is the thing. This is what I wanted to do I wanted to feel like her. I wanted to be in court like her. I wanted to be in trial like her, I wanted to fight like her and so I kind of fangirled her and I was sending her my resume, and I was like, you know, if you guys are ever hiring and it took a while, but then I got the call and interviewed and then became a San Francisco Public Defender. 

Louis Goodman 12:35 

How long were you there? 

Emily Dahm 12:36 

Eight and a half years. And I loved it. Loved it. Best job on earth. I got paid with the government to mess with the government.

I mean, it's a thing of beauty kind of described becoming a Public Defender. It's sort of like, you know, when you come home after a long day and you put on your comfy clothes, your sweat pants, your slippers, like just everything is just like, Oh, this is perfect. That's how I felt like that was, that felt like home to me.

That felt like I finally found the right way to be a lawyer for me. And I just think it's the greatest job on earth. 

Louis Goodman 13:12 

Now you ultimately took those skills that you learned as a public defender and moved to a private practice. 

Emily Dahm 13:20 

I did. 

Louis Goodman 13:20 

How does being in private practice as a criminal defense attorney differ from being a Public Defender?

Emily Dahm 13:27 

I would say that the number one thing that is so different is you have to talk about money, you know, 

Louis Goodman 13:35 

Yeah, I know. 

Emily Dahm 13:37 

Yeah. There is a purity to being a public defender where, you know, I don't have to worry about that, you know, if the case should go to trial, the case you go to trial and have to talk with the client about how much this is going to cost. If we need an expert, we need an expert. We don't have to talk about that stuff. So that is very, very different. And that is a skill. And it is something that I felt took a little bit of time to get used to talking to clients about that. And, but that's very different. On the other hand, I'm not in court every single day, all day long managing calendars, I have a much lower caseload and feel like I can give my cases the kind of attention that I wished I could give them when I was a public defender. So I really enjoy it. I really enjoy it. I feel like I can do great work and I still get to do all the things that I enjoy about being an attorney, about being on this side of the table in a criminal courtroom and able to make a decent living while doing.

Louis Goodman 14:42 

If a young person were just coming out of college and thinking about law as a career, would you recommend that? 

Emily Dahm 14:48 

I would have a lot of questions for that young person. First of all, I would really discourage them from going from college directly into law school. Law school is a huge undertaking, and I'm referring both to the financial undertaking, which for these young folks coming out of school now and for the amount of debt that they're looking at is unseemly.

I really worry that people who are going into the law hoping to do great things with their skills, working in nonprofits, working in the public interest are just going to be so disappointed at their inability to do that when they come out with that kind of debt and it's far more debt than even what's going on when I was coming out of law school 20 years ago. 

The other thing is, you know, the practice of law, there's so many different ways to be a lawyer. There are so many flavors of lawyering. And so, you know, I think that it's such an intense experience to go to law school. It's three years of your life, lots and lots of money.

You should be going because you have a real passion for the law and what you want to do with it. You may not know exactly what you want to do with it, but I feel like if this is something that, you know, you really feel that you can, this is, this is the avenue you're going to go down. And this is what you really passionately feel strongly about doing by all means go for it and let's figure out the best way to deal with the money situation.

But I would discourage anybody who's like, well, you know, I could always be a lawyer. 

Louis Goodman 16:25 

What advice would you give to someone coming out of law school? 

Emily Dahm 16:29 

Be a joiner, get out there, meet other lawyers, meet other people in the profession, you know, build a network of people, not just, you know, for professional reasons, although that's really, really important, I think, but to have other friends in the legal profession who you can rely on who you can call upon, who you can say, boy, I've got this issue and maybe you don't want to ask your supervisor, but you need to have somebody you can trust who might give you some good advice about how to handle a situation or do you have a brief on this? You know, I just think it's so important to stay connected and to build that network and especially, you know, you're going to probably change jobs at some point, or perhaps many, many times in the future. And that network of people you build and that you connect with are going to be a huge help for you along that way, and you may not see that year 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 out of law school. But I can sit and tell you here at year 20 out of law school, that's a huge benefit to you career wise.

Louis Goodman 17:40 

Well, since this podcast is sponsored by the Alameda County Bar Association, maybe you could tell us a little bit about your experience along those lines with ACBA? 

Emily Dahm 17:50 

The number one professional organization, I think all lawyers should be involved in is their local bar association. One, you know, you should be there to support it because your local bar association supports you and ACBA is a fabulous bar association. And I say that not just because my partner, Megan Burns is the president elect for next year. But, but like, for example, when I got into private practice, that was one thing I really, I did not have as a public defender. We can be very insular as public defenders. I was not connected with my bar associations, with any professional organization. So, you know, Jules and Michael are founding partners at this firm. They did a great effort to make sure I knew about ACBA, I got involved in ACBA and I have been a member, but I've been involved in the criminal law section and, you know, puts on some of the best MCLE programs free, if you're a member, which is incredible and on all kinds of topics, you know, not just sort of subject area, but you know, how do manage stress, how to manage the business side of the practice, so many things that you might not get elsewhere, and they advocate for the lawyers in this County.

So I'm a big believer in joining bar associations. Next year, I'm going to be the president of the California Attorneys for Criminal Justice, which is an, a statewide organization that advocates for not only to people in the practice of criminal practicing criminal defense, but for really fundamental reforms to the criminal justice system. We have a very, very active and successful legislative committee that has, you know, if you've enjoyed some of the changes as a criminal defense attorney, if you've enjoyed some of the changes to the penal code that you've seen over the last couple of years, that's in large part due to CACJ, we support private criminal defense attorneys who, you know, a lot of us are in small firms.

We're solos and we don't have that big office support that you get in a Public Defender's Office. So it's a great way to meet other practitioners, to support other practitioners, and to get a lot of training and experience we put on with CPDA, which is the California Public Defenders Association.

We put on every year, the Annual Death Penalty Conference, which is huge amount of training, not just on handling death penalty cases, but on all aspects of criminal defense. And if you haven't gone ask somebody, you should go. 

Louis Goodman 20:28 

And I suppose if you're a Deputy District Attorney listening to this, you now know who to blame.

Emily Dahm 20:34 

That's right. I'll take the heat. I'll take the heat. I got no problem. 

Louis Goodman 20:39 

Let's say that you came into some real money. A few billion dollars, let's say 3 or 4 billion dollars. What, if anything, would you do differently in your life? 

Emily Dahm 20:48 

Okay. My son and I have had many discussions about this because he liked to go on walks with me, especially during COVID, and that was his, if you had unlimited money, you know? So my son and I have developed any number of dream homes in various locations around the world. We naturally have a mountain green dream home. We have our beach side dream home. We have our dream home in the Alps. So I think I would probably buy a lot of homes so that I could go visit different locations.

And all of these homes have guest homes. You know, guest facilities. So I would be entertaining as many people as I could at my new dream homes. 

Louis Goodman 21:25 

So we can come visit? 

Emily Dahm 21:26 

Absolutely. It'd be boring to be there by myself. 

Louis Goodman 21:29 

Do you think the legal system's fair? 

Emily Dahm 21:31 

Of course not, but it's the best one we got and I wouldn't trade it for another.

I am committed, and I think just about every lawyer who involves themselves in the legal system is committed to improving it. And I think that's what we do. We've got a lot of room for improvement, but, you know, I spend all day around lawyers who are trying their damnedest to improve it and I think that's what makes it so fun to keep practicing.

Louis Goodman 21:57 

We have a number of people who are on the call with us, and I would like to give them an opportunity to ask some questions or make a comment. I'm going to come back at the end with a couple of questions for you, but what I'd like to do is open it up right now. And let's, if we could start with, and by the way, if you're, if you're a little late to getting to the program, this is like law school. You're going to get called on. So get ready to have a question or a comment. 

Emily Dahm 22:30 

Half these people are in my office. You're going to watch them drop off like flies now. 

Louis Goodman 22:33 

That's all right. Well, then, then you'll buy them lunch. 

Emily Dahm 22:37 

Either that or they're going to give me trick questions. 

Louis Goodman 22:39 

Lee Maritano, do you have a comment or question for Emily?

Lee Maritano 22:45 

I sure do. Hi Emily. I was just going to type in into the chat. I was curious if you have any like best tips for preparing for trial? 

Emily Dahm 22:56 

Yeah. Oh, okay. I think everybody's, you know, you got to kind of figure out what your process is and what works for you. I'm one of those people who like, I have to touch every piece of paper in the case.

I still, even though I have everything digitally, I still am a binder person. I need to flag everything and highlight every, that physical act, marking up the documents helps commit all that information to my brain. And then it's like, I have like a map in my head of where everything is. 

Being prepared is, you know, it sounds like such a cliche, but boy, it is everything, knowing your case, knowing the evidence, knowing where it's at, and I will say this until I'm in the grave, he or she, or they who know the evidence code will prevail in court. Know your evidence code. If you've got a piece of evidence, how are you getting it in? Like no, for real, how are you getting it in? What's the objection you're going to get and how are you going to respond and get it in?

If the other side has a piece of evidence that you don't want in, how are you keeping it out? Like, for real, how are you keeping it out? What is the objection? What is the basis for your objection? Why are you right? But know your evidence code, and be prepared. And like I said, if you're going to be the proponent of some evidence or some testimony that you think is going to draw an objection, be ready for it. Be ready for it. Because the other side may be doing it on the fly, but if you prepared for it and you know You know what the section is and it says it's admissible and you know what the case is that interpreted that probably gonna win. 

Louis Goodman 24:30 

How about Kathy Rivera? 

Emily Dahm 24:32 

Kathy is my paralegal on my criminal side of the case, of my cases.

Kathy Rivera 24:36 

How do you separate yourself from your cases to your everyday life? 

Emily Dahm 24:41 

I don't. You know this. I don't. I mean, I would love to say that you can go home and turn off the switch, but I think any criminal defense attorney, and I'm sure a prosecutor would say the same thing, doesn't turn off. And I think you bring, you bring yourself into your cases.

They come home with, you know, I think that's just sort of part of it. I don't see any way. This is sort of what I've always said about being an attorney. I have never had a boring day in my profession and not all my days are easy, but I've never had a boring day and sometimes it gets, it feels very, you feel things very intensely in your cases and you feel things very intensely when you're talking with clients, because I'm meeting somebody and they're my client, things have not been going real well for them. They would not need my services if everything's going great. So I am usually helping people at their lowest and it can be very emotional. 

Louis Goodman 25:36 

Christine. 

Christine 25:36 

Oh, sure. What is the funniest thing that's happened or that you remember happening to you in a trial? 

Emily Dahm 25:42 

Years ago, when I was a Public Defender, which my client was accused of making love to a BART seat, he was charged with indecent exposure, which if you know, indecent exposure requires that you are intentionally exposing your genitals with the intent that other people look at them.

So essentially everybody look here. And I, my point to the jury was that while certain parts of his anatomy may have been exposed, they were not visible, nor was he intending to direct the public to look at them. Because of where he was seated on the BART seat. So when I did my closing argument, I took two of the chairs from the courtroom and set them up as if they were a BART seat.

And I, in my suit and heels, began mimicking the behaviors my client was reportedly doing with himself across those chairs. But the whole point and I told the jury, I said, look, it's gonna get a little freaky deaky, but I got a reason for doing this because the point is he was below the seat line below the seat line and yeah, I got the verdict I wanted. It was lewd, but not indecent. And the whole point was, I had to do some pretty crazy stuff in front of the jury. I thought the judge was going to die of embarrassment. She was a very straight-laced, you know, decorum type person and me mimicking male masturbation at her courtroom was probably not what you thought was going to happen. Not that Monday. 

Louis Goodman 27:13 

How about Mahsa Gholami? 

Emily Dahm 27:16 

Mahsa is our excellent associate on our personal injury side of our practice. I told you you're going to get my whole office, well. 

Mahsa Gholami 27:21 

Hello. Yeah, I am. I work with Emily. So, I am biased, but I work with Emily because she's one of the best attorneys I've ever met. And so it's a sense of pride that I work with her and I stick around. 

Emily, if you weren't a lawyer, what would you do other than what I would guess is comedy? 

Emily Dahm 27:41 

It's so funny because I think about like, oh, if I could never practice the law anymore, what would I do? And I don't know if I would be any good.

I think I'm funny. I think other people think I'm funny. I don't know if that means I would be a good comedian. So I probably get up and bomb a whole bunch, but that's probably what I would try. I can't think of anything. I don't know. It just seems like a tragedy to me to not be able to be a lawyer.

And so I don't even know what I would do. I would have to find something else that was in the realm of advocacy. I can't imagine not being an advocate for somebody or some worthy cause. 

Louis Goodman 28:18 

Lisa Simmons. 

Lisa Simmons 28:19 

Hi, Louis. Always a pleasure. Thank you so much for continuing to provide this amazing program and always have stellar guests like Emily.

Hi, Emily. I had the pleasure during COVID when I was opening my practice to speak with you on the phone, and I've been looking forward to seeing your face and speaking with you again, and it's a real pleasure to join in. 

Emily Dahm 28:44 

Well, thank you so much. It's good to see you again. 

Lisa Simmons 28:47 

Thanks, and I have to say, your dedication on the BART seat reenactment is outstanding now.

One of my colleagues at the Public Defender's Office made a little poster board thing for me of all the newspaper articles that came out because of course I ended up in all the like news of the weird this case and stuff and so I still have that in my office. And then on that note because you that's the standard that you dedicate all of this to my question to you it's a very general one but, what do you think makes a great criminal defense attorney? And on the other end of the spectrum, what do you think makes a very poor criminal attorney? 

Emily Dahm 29:32 

Okay. You know, I, I think to be a great criminal defense attorney, you have to start with being empathetic. I mean, if you don't care about your clients, if you don't get to know them, if you don't understand sort of what brought them to need your services in the first place I think you're going to really have a hard time advocating for them. You have to really understand them and understand who they are and all those pushes and pulls on them. And I think it helps very, very much if you are competitive. Most of the lawyers I know are either former athletes or they, they have some sort of other like sport or hobby that they are competitive in. I think you have to be competitive and I think particularly being on the criminal defense side, I joke and tell my son that I'm a professional loser. That I'm like one of those, you know, blow up, you know, things that, you know, you punch it and it comes right back up for more. You have to be resilient, you have to be competitive. And I feel like being on this side of the table, so much is stacked against you that when you actually get some, you get a success, you get a motion granted, you get that beautiful, not guilty, you know, it was so hard to get it. That it just is such a, a feeling of euphoria and accomplishment that I just can't imagine it feels anything like that when you're on the other side and those come so easily and you feel like you're doing the good fight.

What makes a bad criminal defense attorney? Laziness. I think being callous, like assuming your clients are guilty, feeling that because they are, they're not worthy of your best effort. You know, you can see that in people who are, you know, and like I said, being a criminal defense attorney, listen, whether your client committed the charge defense is only one half of the damn question. The other half is okay if they did and the government can prove it and the government can do without lying, cheating or stealing, that doesn't answer the next question, which is what is the fair and just punishment in terms of the totality of the circumstances, not just of the crime, but of the defendant?

And so, you know, if you walk in there with an attitude towards your clients, that these are people not worthy of your best effort, like you have no, in my opinion, no business. Being in that line of work. Sounds like being a prosecutor would be a great job. 

Louis Goodman 32:10 

Tom Butzbach, 

Tom Butzbach 32:12 

Mr. Goodman, you're doing a beautiful job.

I have a comment today that is kind of crazy, but Emily, you show so much joy towards the field. Before I saw you speak today, I was going to quit the business. After seeing you today you've made me think that I'm gonna continue and try to find the same joy you do. It's contagious. It's awesome. 

Emily Dahm 32:39 

Well, thank you. You know, I got to say, I'm not always joyous, that's for sure. 

Tom Butzbach 32:45 

No, you have ups and downs. Well, everybody does, but the general joy is there. The other thing that was interesting to me is the idea that when you're in a profession, like the law, you can't just leave it at night. Like everybody thinks that you can turn it on and off. Any profession, I think that's hard to leave. So I really appreciated that answer that you gave. One of the most important things that I see that you do is you pause before you talk, and that is such an important, for me it's just means that you're thinking, and I just love it. So thank you for your interview today. I learned a lot. 

Emily Dahm 33:21 

Well, thank you so much. 

Louis Goodman 33:22 

Emily, if someone wants to get in touch with you, perhaps to discuss being represented by you or your firm or an attorney, would like to get in touch with you to talk to you about a case, what's the best way to contact you? 

Emily Dahm 33:37 

So I would say just go to our website. It is www dot bonjour, like the French word for Hello, Bonjour, B O N J O U R, and A N D Thorman T H O R M A N dot com. Those of the last names of our founding partners, Jules Bonjour and Michael Foreman. Excellent, excellent, excellent lawyers who I'm so thankful to have had the opportunity to practice with and get to know. Stellar lawyers, even better human beings.

Louis Goodman 34:13  

And I can tell you from personal experience that if you Google Emily Dahm, D A H M attorney, you will come up with a link to the Bonjour and Thorman website. 

Emily Dahm 34:29 

That's right. 

Louis Goodman 34:30 

Emily, is there anything that you wanted to bring up or discuss or comment on that we haven't had a chance to touch on already? 

Emily Dahm 34:39 

I don't think so. I'm sure I've said too much. 

Louis Goodman 34:42 

On behalf of everybody who has been on this call and on behalf of the Alameda County Bar Association and the Love Thy Lawyer podcast, Emily Dahm, thank you so much for joining us today on the podcast. It really has been a pleasure to talk to you. 

Emily Dahm 35:01 

Thank you so much, Lou. It's been awesome to be here and thank you everyone who joined.

Louis Goodman 35:06  

That's it for today's edition of Love Thy Lawyer in collaboration with the Alameda County Bar Association. Please visit the lovethylawyer.com website where you can find links to all of our episodes. Also, please visit the Alameda County Bar Association Website at ACBAnet.org, where you can find more information about our support of the legal profession, promoting excellence in the legal profession and facilitating equal access to justice.

Special thanks to ACBA president Pamela Ross and Criminal Justice Chair Annie Beles, staff members Cailin Dahlin, Sayeed Randall, Valerie Brown Lescroart and Hadassah Hayashi.

Thanks to Joel Katz for music, Bryan Matheson for technical support, Paul Robert for social media and Tracy Harvey. I'm Louis Goodman.

Emily Dahm 35:57 

I know lots of people don't practice anymore, I feel like I'm one of the only ones who still loves what I do.