Dina Randazzo, Class of '08

Dina Randazzo ’08 is Of Counsel at EPGR Lawyers in Orange County, California, where she specializes in complex business disputes. Previously, she practiced at Latham & Watkins, LLP and Schilling Law Group, PC. At King Hall, Dina graduated first in her class and was admitted to the Order of the Coif. She is the President of the Public Law Center Board of Directors and serves on the UC Davis School of Law Alumni Board where she co-chairs the Student Alumni Outreach Committee and runs the mentorship program.

What drew you to business litigation?

I fell into business litigation towards the middle of my career. At Latham, I started as a patent lawyer for a year, and then I became an environmental lawyer. I loved environmental law because I was able to work with scientists as well as lawyers. Then I went to a smaller firm where we were doing all different types of business disputes, mostly breach of contract for small and medium-sized businesses and also individuals. I became adept at handling any business issue that would come in the door. What I like about handling these small business disputes is that I have a direct connection with the business owners and individual clients, I am not working with in-house counsel. Usually it is a very stressful and difficult time for them, they never wanted to be involved with litigation. Most of them have little or no experience with litigation. This is often the only case they have ever had to deal with in their life. So it’s very gratifying to be able to resolve their disputes and get them back to where they want to be, which is operating their business or starting a new business or moving on to a new venture and not being stuck dealing with lawyers.

What do you like about working at a smaller law firm?

I started at a large law firm. I spent six years at Latham & Watkins. Since 2015, I have been at two smaller law firms. One of the benefits of the smaller firm is that we tend to handle matters for smaller companies and individuals — including everyday disputes that involve friends and other people who are in your life. At Latham & Watkins, we were only doing big companies’ big litigation. At the start of my career, I worked on huge matters that lasted years for large companies, working with in-house counsel. There were positives to that, but now I enjoy working directly with everyday people to help them with their business disputes. My job is to resolve their disputes quickly and try to be nimble and creative. My goal is to quickly and inexpensively get them back to where they want to be, which is hanging out with their families and working at their businesses.

What do you do when you aren’t at work?

There are two main things that I do: I volunteer a lot, and I play tennis. I’m the President of the Public Law Center, which is the local non-profit legal organization in Orange County. It actually used to be run, for many, many years, by a UC Davis alum, Ken Babcock. I’ve volunteered with the Public Law Center since day one of my career, and I’ve worked my way up to the board. I’m also on the Alumni Board for the Law School, and I’m on the executive board of my daughter’s school PTA. In the last 5 years, I’ve come back to playing tennis. I played in high school and then too many years off because the competition used to be stressful for me. Now tennis is my fun mental outlet. When I’m on the tennis court, I do not think about anything else going on.

Why did you choose to attend King Hall?

King Hall aligned with my goals going into law school, which were social justice oriented. I was one of the many people who go to law school with this idea of making a difference, giving back and giving a voice to the people who don’t have one. I very distinctly remember my application essay for law school. It was about being very proud of helping this friend of mine in high school have a voice when she was trying to articulate and she just was not very assertive. I was making the arguments for her. That was something that I wanted to be able to continue doing with my law career, giving people a voice who couldn’t speak for themselves. King Hall definitely aligned with all of those goals.

What is your favorite King Hall memory?

Graduation was a very proud moment for me. I graduated first in my class after working really, really hard in law school. Being able to represent the class and speak at graduation was a highlight of law school.

Also, I have very distinct memories of sitting with my friends in the Reading Room, trying to be quiet and study, but we were debating a political issue of the day. I can’t even remember what it was. But I remember we all had very different opinions, and it was a fun, hushed, whispered, spirited debate. I have this lovely image of smart, articulate women all sitting around the table appreciating each others’ opinions. It’s something that you don’t always get to do now, outside of law school.

Finally, I must give a shout out to my wonderful roommates in law school, the 1718 Pole Line ladies. Law school would not have been the same without them. I lived in an amazing house filled with powerful, smart and fun women. I remember having parties at our house with all the law school invited, because that was the way it was at King Hall. When you had people over, everyone’s invited. I remember looking around at one point and seeing so many different people from different places all hanging out together. That to me was very much the essence of King Hall culture. Everybody was getting along. There was no pretension or unnecessary competition. Everyone inside the classroom and outside the classroom hung out together, which I really appreciated.

How have you stayed involved with King Hall?

I’ve been on the Alumni Board for the past six years. I’ll be terming out this April. During that time, I co-chaired the Student Outreach Committee and ran the mentoring program. I was behind the scenes making the mentoring matches for many years. I’m currently mentoring a 3L. I am proud to say that I also helped launch a shadowing program. The Student Outreach Committee did a survey and took feedback from students about how alumni can help them. One of the things they said they wanted were shadowing opportunities. It’s very challenging to do shadowing in the real world — trying to connect students with alumni — but in the last few years we have been able to get multiple students to shadow real practitioner alumni and learn from them.

Of what are you proudest?

The thing I’m most proud of in my career is my work for the Public Law Center. I went to school wanting to do social justice and ended up working at Latham & Watkins. But I have been involved with the Public Law Center since day one. During my very first year at Latham, I worked excessive hours, and I still took on a couple pro bono projects, including helping a victim of human trafficking who had come from Thailand thinking he would be working in an orchard but got stuck in horrible conditions. I was able to secure a T visa for this individual and subsequently ended up helping multiple individuals get T visas throughout my career.

Then I began working on the administrative side of the Public Law Center. I was a founding leader of the PLC Advocates, which is kind of the junior PLC board. It’s a group of younger lawyers that strive to help with the PLC mission. As part of my work on that, I was part of creating the first annual Halloween Bash, which is the second largest fundraiser that the Public Law Center does every year. That event has grown tremendously since I started it eleven years ago. Now it’s a prominent — and very fun — fundraiser for the organization every year. Then I joined the Board and have worked my way up through the ranks until now I’m the President. Through my PLC Board work, I had the privilege of hiring a wonderful new Executive Director at PLC, Monica Glicken, who replaced Ken Babcock when he retired. Now I’m participating in strategic planning for the organization. I am so proud to have had the opportunity to give my time and help shape an organization that helps so many vulnerable people in Orange County who can’t afford legal services.

Do you have any advice for current law students?

Be kind and respectful to everyone in your class. Networking is so important and you will want to stay in touch with and can continue grow with your classmates as you progress in your career. You never know who you’re going to want to reach out to or who’s going to reach out to you later in your career. Your classmates may end up helping you find your perfect job.

Also as hard as it can be, don’t just study. Take advantage of the many interesting opportunities that are available to you. Being in law school is such a unique and wonderful opportunity to be in a community of people who are thinking and learning. You can have discussions with a diverse student body and go to events where you get to talk about interesting issues of the day. Those opportunities start to dwindle as you walk away from the educational world.