Why is The Law Office of Scott Herndon located in Berkeley?
Why have I chosen to keep my office in Berkeley, when my highest-profile sexual assault and personal injury cases are venued in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and elsewhere? The short answer is perhaps too simple.
Berkeley is where I chose to raise my family. I wanted my family to grow up in a college town, bustling with ideas, bookstores, and public parks. I wanted to live in a place that is as diverse as any great city in the United States, where races, classes, genders, and orientations of all kinds meet on a daily basis.
Berkeley is a quiet town with big city problems, just like neighboring Oakland and Richmond. It is a place where anyone can walk their dog within earshot of some of America’s leading thinkers and political activists, or play pickup basketball with professors in the psychology department. It is like a Californian version of Brooklyn, where ideas are exchanged as ordinary days pass, and an increasingly chaotic national political scene develops before our eyes.
Why is it Important for Lawyers to Stay Involved in Academic Work?
The deeper answer goes directly to my practice as a working, independent academic. Living within walking distance of the Cal and within a short drive of Stanford University, where I taught for years, allows me access to world-class thinking, and enables me to live in the world of new ideas, careful questions, and constantly renewed expertise in multiple disciplines. This helps me work constantly to improve my philosophical, social, and technical approach to the cases my law firm takes. If we are better prepared to teach a jury about the context of a particular case, we are better prepared to show why that case matters. If necessary, we are better prepared to frame the experiences of my clients like the shifting image of a kaleidoscope. The strategies applied to our cases adapt and deepen, and are continually informed by new research and a careful arrangement of the facts.
In high-profile cases, this work is essential. Because the lawyers on the other side of the aisle—not to mention insurance carriers, mediators, arbitrators and judges—must be convinced that their own views of the case do not fully capture the facts on the ground. When millions of dollars and reputations are at stake, nothing less will do. There is nothing more rewarding than turning an “ordinary” or “common” set of facts into something extraordinary—a case of first impression, driven by a new, more detailed, or nuanced theoretical approach than the other side had ever imagined existed.
In this respect, I am more effective as an “outsider” to Hollywood and Los Angeles, than if I owned an office on Wilshire Boulevard, or if my office were nested in a high-rise in downtown San Francisco. We have resolved multimillion dollar cases involving people you see everyday on television, or CNBC. We are the law firm that you have never heard of in the news.
All of this has been intentional, and driven by our clients’ desires to live their lives in privacy and peace. We do not broadcast or use our clients as human advertisements. If we become known for our trial work, it will only be if our clients elect first to do so.
There will be a case soon, if the circumstances require it, where the general public will see us at work in trial, all across the nation. Our work and preparation mean that we are ready for the moment. We are ready to expand, open offices in Los Angeles, and war rooms where needed, and go to trial with all of our work on display. But only if we need to do so.
Being close to Cal always reminds me of my first love: teaching college students to think and live in a complex world. When a potential client calls me about a case, I always try to imagine that this is someone visiting my office hours at Stanford. My clients are people who want to learn, and be treated with the utmost respect and generous time. (In this respect, it has been my joy to support Cal football, my former students, and our local non-profit newspaper, Berkeleyside.org, throughout the years.)
I hope this page answers the question as to why The Law Office of Scott Herndon is in Berkeley (with no billboards on our freeways), when so many of our cases are in San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Sacramento.
A Final Example: The San Francisco 49ers
But as a final example, consider where the San Francisco 49ers once trained in summertime during their Super Bowl years. The 49ers trained in the sleepy foothill town of Rocklin, CA.
Imagine. Perhaps the greatest collection of talent in NFL history, preparing for one of the greatest runs of success we have ever seen. All alone in a tiny foothill town in gold country, surrounded by oak trees. With no distractions.
Would the 49ers have been any better if they had practiced in downtown San Francisco, or Los Angeles? I don’t think so. In fact, these vast cities may have done just the opposite. They may have distracted the team from their fundamental mission: To prepare and train to be the best they could be.
