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2 ALEXANDER Y. ADAMS graduated magna cum laude from UCLA in 2009, as a U.C. Regents Scholar. He received his law degree from the UCLA School of Law, in 2013, where he served as president of the university s Empirical Legal Scholars Association. Mr. Adams was a law clerk in the Narcotics Unit at this Office last year, where he wrote and argued Romero motions. He also researched and wrote a bench brief on the multi-million dollar consumer protection trial against Overstock.com. He served a number of legal clerkships: at the U.S. Attorney s Office in Los Angeles; at the San Francisco District Attorney s Office; and at the Los Angeles District Attorney s Office. From 2009 to 2010, Mr. Adams volunteered to teach English to under-served aboriginal villagers in the isolated, mountainous backwoods of Taiwan. There, he lived in a one-room cement shack where all the furniture was on stilts because the small home would flood during the rainy season. The fluent Mandarin speaker said that there is a phrase spoken among those who live in the Taiwanese mountains: We are born with our palms facing upwards and our job is to find a way to leave this world with our palms facing downwards. What that means, he said, is that we come into this world as supplicants but we should spend our lives giving back. However, after no one was prosecuted for the prostitution of one of his 12-year-old students, Mr. Adams decided to leave teaching to dedicate his life to advocating on behalf of victims. The next year, he began volunteering at D.A. s Offices working to get justice for victims. For fun, Mr. Adams does handiwork like carpentry and caulking and listens to U.S. Supreme Court arguments on his way to and from work trying to predict how the justices will respond to each argument. I find this is a fun way to stay up-to-date on changes in Constitutional jurisprudence. Laurie Levenson, law professor and David W. Burcham Chair in Ethical Advocacy at Loyola School of Law, called him one of my favorite students of all time. The professor said: He has the right combination of brains, initiative, creativity personality and integrity to be an outstanding prosecutor.

3 JEREMY AVILA - graduated from the University of Southern California in 2008, where he was awarded the Order of the Laurel & Palm, the highest non-academic honor at the school. Mr. Avila was a member of the student government, serving as Treasurer of the university, and he was active in several community service programs including a program he and others founded at a local high school dedicated to teaching and inspiring disadvantaged students to go to college. That is my own background. My father was a first generation immigrant from Portugal and my mother is a second-generation Mexican-American. I am the first person in my family to achieve an education. Mr. Avila received his law degree from the UCLA School of Law in 2011, where he was a moot court champion in the 1L competition and was selected to represent UCLA in the statewide Roger J. Traynor Moot Court Competition. He was co-editorin-chief of the Chicano-Latino Law Review. He comes to this Office after serving two years as a deputy district attorney for the Monterey County District Attorney s Office. There, he prosecuted domestic violence, DUI and general misdemeanors. He tried nine jury trials and eight bench trials. Mr. Avila was post-bar clerk for this Office in 2012, working with D.D.A. David Ezgar on sentencing issues on a gang homicide case. He was an intern for the California Appellate project in 2012 and was an intern at the White House, with the Domestic Policy Council, advising White House staff and federal offices in implementing the President s national service, social innovation and open government agendas. Mr. Avila was a law clerk for the U.S. Attorney s Office, Civil Division, Northern California, in A native of San Jose, Mr. Avila was a member of Bellarmine Prep s speech and debate team. His sense of justice grew from his family s background and his own. As such, he is deeply passionate about LGBT rights and issues, as well as securing justice for communities and individuals who have been taken advantage of or otherwise victimized. As he puts it: Hey, you get paid to argue with people and always do the right thing. You can t ask for a better job than that.

4 JAMES H. BAUMANN - graduated magna cum laude from Arizona State University in He received a law degree from the University of San Diego School of Law in While in law school, he was a member of the San Diego Law Review and the Moot Court Executive Board. Mr. Baumann was elected the president of Pride Law the LGBT law organization. Mr. Baumann comes to this Office after serving a year as a Deputy District Attorney in Fresno County. While there, he was assigned to the Misdemeanor Unit where he prosecuted eight jury trials. He won four of five DUI trials. He was awarded the Distinguished Attorney of the Quarter in both the Fall and Winter of Earlier last year, Mr. Baumann was a volunteer Assistant District Attorney for the San Francisco District Attorney s Office where he prosecuted two jury trials. He also served as a Post-Bar Law Clerk and a volunteer Deputy District Attorney in this Office in While here he was assigned to the Homicide Unit and was supervised by D.D.A. David Boyd. Mr. Baumann said: He is a good teacher and he pushes you to really analyze what you are doing and gets you ready for being a D.D.A. I think everybody coming into the Office should intern for David Boyd. Mr. Baumann was a law clerk for the State Attorney General s Office, Criminal Division, in San Diego in Previously, he served as an intern for Koeller, Nebeker, Carlson, Haluck LLP in San Diego; for the San Francisco D.A. s Office; and as legislative intern for the Arizona House of Representatives. During his college years, Mr. Baumann became a certified personal trainer and worked at 24 Hour Fitness helping clients achieve their weight loss and fitness goals. His love of the law seemed to come early. At the age of five, he made his brother, sister, and cousins re-enact the O.J. Simpson Trial. He played the part of the prosecutor. I don t think we had all the legal aspects nailed down and it was more theater, he said, but it seemed becoming a prosecutor was on the radar from a young age. Then, later in life, his sense of justice and perseverance was tested. At the age of nineteen he came out to his parents as gay. Shocked, they drew away. Supported by his maternal aunts and grandparents, he was encouraged to continue studying and moved to fulfill his dream of becoming a lawyer. Two years later, he and his parents reconciled. He said, My coming out experience taught me the importance of standing firm in my convictions.

5 ALEXIS CAUSEY - graduated from University of California at Davis in 2004, making the Dean s List. While there she was a member of the co-ed cheerleading stunt' team. She received her law degree last year from the Santa Clara University School of Law, where she received the Witkin Award for Academic Excellence for her article: Reviving the Carefully Limited Exception: From Jail to GPS Bail. The 52-page article explained how GPS monitoring could alleviate some correctional population concerns in California. Ms. Causey was a bar-certified law clerk starting in 2013 for this Office in North County, drafting more than 30 motions to suppress. All ten motions she litigated during suppression hearings were successfully denied. Said her supervisor D.D.A. Cindy Hendrickson: Ms. Causey is one of the finest interns I have had the pleasure of supervising. She can whip up a well-written, authoritative memo in no time flat. Her courtroom abilities have convinced senior attorneys to entrust her with tasks that would not ordinarily be given to a brand new attorney. She is a team player. She was a judicial extern with the Pro Se Department of the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California in San Jose. She also recently volunteered as a Deputy District Attorney with the Marin County District Attorney's Office. Before she aimed her career toward becoming a prosecutor, Ms. Causey was following a career path at Wells Fargo. From 2001 to 2010, Ms. Causey worked at Wells Fargo Bank, rising to become an assistant vice-president. She had launched her career as a teller while a freshman in college. While there, she was robbed by man who said he would blow up a bomb if she didn t comply. Terrified and not wanting to testify against him when he was finally apprehended, she realized in the most visceral way which side of the law she felt aligned with: the prosecution. Ms. Causey explained: I had enough customer service at Wells Fargo to realize that I feel strongly about upholding what the rules are. I don t have as much time for somebody s personal story of why the rules shouldn t apply to them.

6 MARINA MANKARYOUS - graduated magna cum laude in three years from Santa Clara University in 2009, accelerating her education to alleviate the cost. She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the National Political Science and Foreign Languages honor societies. Ms. Mankaryous received her law degree from University of California Davis School of Law in 2012, where she was the managing production editor of UC Davis Journal of Juvenile Law & Policy. She co-authored Information Technology and the Construction of Moral Reasoning, Empathy, and Affect: Crossing Time, Space, and Attitudes in Virtual Reality" published in the International Journal of Science in Society as well as Sovereignty over Jerusalem: A Legal Solution to a Disputed Capital" in the International Journal on World Peace. Ms. Mankaryous comes to this Office after serving as a Solano County Deputy District Attorney since last year. While there, the prosecutor argued 13 misdemeanor jury trials, with 11 guilty verdicts. In 2011, she was a post-bar fellow for the San Francisco District Attorney s Office, where she had clerked the year before and interned in She was a participant in the Public Law Program at American University in Washington D.C. and volunteered for Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project. Born in Cairo, Egypt, Ms. Mankaryous is fluent in Arabic and proficient in Spanish. It s important to know where you come from in order to make any change, Ms. Mankaryous said. She said she has seen political and religious oppression in Egypt. For some crime victims, There is no one to help. They say to themselves, Oh well, at least I didn't die. The work I do helps people. I stand up for them and give them a voice. This is why I do this job.

7 While in law school she worked for the Northern California Innocence Project. TRACI MASON - graduated from University of California, Santa Barbara in In 2004, she received her law degree from Santa Clara University School of Law, where she served as the research editor for the Santa Clara Law Review. Ms. Mason worked as a private defense attorney in San Jose from 2005 to 2013, representing defendants in more than 100 felony and misdemeanor cases. She handled numerous appellate matters. She was the second highest ranked defense attorney by the Metro Active publication in its Best of Silicon Valley 2012 issue. Ms. Mason is a certified yoga instructor. She is also a member of the Board of Directors for the Art of Yoga Project, a non-profit organization that assists girls in the juvenile justice system by teaching yoga to learn body confidence and boundaries. Earlier she had been a certified rape crisis counselor for the Santa Barbara Rape Crisis Center. These women need a voice. Oftentimes they blame themselves, Ms. Mason said. They need an advocate. In 2004, she was a law clerk for the Pro Se Department of U.S. District Court, Northern District. The year before, she served as a law clerk at The Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment. As a defense attorney she gained a more pragmatic and less idealistic view of the American legal system, and realized that it "was a far more accurate mechanism for discerning guilt than I had thought. Her experience working in the criminal justice system and witnessing the impact of crime on victims and society as a whole led her to a decision to pursue a career as a prosecutor.

8 KELLY MEEKER - graduated from Sonoma State University in In 2012, Ms. Meeker received her law degree from UCLA School of Law, after being awarded the Dean s Scholarship all three years. While there, she was co-chair of the Student Ambassador Program. Ms. Meeker is coming to this Office after being an associate at Citron & Citron in Santa Monica, practicing civil defense litigation. Before that she was a staff attorney at Waters, Kraus & Paul in El Segundo. She had also served two stints as a major crimes law clerk at the Los Angeles District Attorney s Office working alongside elite prosecutor John Lewin. Deputy District Attorney Lewin called Ms. Meeker whip smart with an impressive work ethic. Kelly is simply a can t miss trial lawyer, he said. More than any of the plus law clerks who I have directly supervised in my career, Kelly has always been the one that the support staff, judges and personnel always remember. She has an enthusiasm and a sense of humor that cannot be topped. Ms. Meeker was a certified legal intern at the San Diego D.A. s Office in 2011 and served two stints as an intern with the Found Animals Foundation in Los Angeles. She was also a law clerk for the Los Angeles City Attorney s Office in Ms. Meeker said that it felt like she had always wanted to be a prosecutor, a professional desire that arose out of her respect for police officers and wanting to do something that helped protect her community. This sounds simplistic, but I m contributing to this place that I live in, she said. At night I feel like a good guy. About to join our professional family, Ms. Meeker is part of a big Italian family. While studying for the bar, her beloved grandfather, the family patriarch, passed away. I know my Papa Joe would be very proud of me. Sometimes in life we are faced with adversity and heartache. It affects our lives in ways that are not so easily overcome. I am sure there will be more challenges like this one in the future, but I know I have it in me to work hard and conquer any obstacle that shall come my way.

9 ANDREW DREW MILLER - graduated from University of California, Santa Barbara in Last year, he received a law degree from Santa Clara University School of Law, where he was co-president of the Criminal Law Society and made the Dean s List his last two years. Despite his success, law school began roughly, when he struggled in contracts class. But I remembered why I went to law school. I wanted to be a prosecutor and was not going to let one bad grade stop me from achieving this. Mr. Miller eventually graduated in the top 15 percent of his class. Mr. Miller was a post-bar law clerk in this Office in 2013, working in the Gang Unit and helping now-retired Assistant District Attorney Karyn Sinunu-Towery on the successful prosecution of County Board of Supervisor President George Shirakawa. Wrote Sinunu-Towery: On more than one occasion, I asked for help on complex and obscure legal issues. In each instance, Mr. Miller found cases that solved the problem and enhanced the prosecution. Mr. Miller was a bar-certified law clerk for the Santa Cruz District Attorney s Office last year; the Santa Barbara County District Attorney s Office; and this Office in 2012, in the Misdemeanor Unit. Previously, Mr. Miller was a law clerk for the Hon. Socrates Manoukian; and for the Barun Law Firm in Seoul South Korea. In the years between college and law school, when he hit the reset button, Mr. Miller was a branch manger at Securitas Security USA and at the commercial truck division of Enterprise Rent a Car, both in L.A. Prosecution was a goal, and helping victims a personal mission. When he was in sixth grade, he had been bullied in Physical Education class. A school administrator had intervened and stopped it. Nobody deserves to be treated this way, the assistant principal told him. That stuck. Now the 6 foot 2 inch, 245 pound prosecutor is unlikely to be bullied. When victims of crime come to us they need help, he said. I want to be able to help people and tell them, 'We take what happens to you seriously. This will never happen to you again.' Mr. Miller said he sees the world as made up of those who stand by in the face of crime or be part of the solution. He wants to be part of the solution (and, by the way, part of the Office softball team.)

10 MATTIA MURAWSKI - graduated magna cum laude from Wheaton College in Massachusetts in 2005, where he was a student senator. He received his law degree from Santa Clara University School of Law in While there, he was a member of the law review, spearheading a conference that assembled academics and jurists from around the country to discuss the legal implications of changing family structures. He also published a law review article, and has a second article forthcoming this spring. His high academic performance in law school garnered him the Pahl and Emery academic scholarships, and a CALI Award for academic excellence in Constitutional Law. Since graduating in 2008, Mr. Murawski worked as an associate at Jones Day in Palo Alto, where he represented large corporate clients in complex civil and classaction litigation in state and federal court. He has wanted to become a prosecutor ever since clerking for this Office in Mr. Murawski recalled working a gang case with D.D.A. Lance Daugherty during the summer he spent here. Mr. Daugherty had just won a case. As they walked from the Hall of Justice the jury met them on the steps. They congratulated and thanked Mr. Daugherty for doing such a great job. Murawski said: I was blown away with the feeling that he had done something truly good for the community. I remember telling him: Wow, that must feel amazing. Mr. Daugherty replied: I have the best job in the world. That stuck with me, Mr. Murawski said. In addition to his experience clerking with our Office, Mr. Murawski was an extern with the California Sixth District Court of Appeal in 2006, and with Superior Court Judge Jerome Nadler in He also interned at Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich and Rosati in Murawski was born in Bologna, Italy, but his family is deeply rooted here in San Jose. They have been here for five generations, mostly living in the downtown neighborhood of Naglee Park and always deeply involved in city improvement and cultural efforts. Giving back to the city is definitely a key reason that I wanted to work here.

11 SANDIP PATEL - graduated magna cum laude from Boston University with a major in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in 2001; and a Master s degree in Biotechnology. In 2007, he received his law degree from Santa Clara University School of Law, where he was awarded the Best Oral Advocate in Appellate Advocacy and was a member of the Phi Delta Phi, Legal Honor Society. He has worked since 2008 as an assistant district attorney in San Francisco. There as the senior trial attorney in the Mortgage and Investment Fraud Unit, he was the prosecutor in the high-profile and highly-complex Dark Prince white collar crime case that concluded after an eight month jury trial with the main suspect convicted of 13 felonies and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Mr. Patel also worked in the Office s criminal trial unit and as the office s Public Records Attorney. From 2006 to 2008, he was a certified law clerk/post Bar for San Francisco District Attorney s Office. He was previously a research assistant at the Northern California Innocence Project and clerked in 2004 for the Federal Public Defender. When he is not trying technically-difficult cases, Mr. Patel is often climbing some of the world s highest mountains, including Russia s Mount Elbrus, the highest mountain in Europe at 18,510 feet. There s a feeling when you get on top of a mountain, Mr. Patel said. It gives you an appreciation to be alive. Though climbing mountains and prosecuting criminals, at least superficially, would appear to have little in common, both share some key principles. Every trial, no matter how short, is different and presents its own set of challenges. As far as being a prosecutor, Mr. Patel said he liked helping to make his community safe. In one of his San Francisco cases, a drug dealer went to kill his target and finding him not home yet raped the victim s girlfriend, then shot her in stomach. When the victim arrived, the dealer shot him in the head. Incredibly, the woman survived and testified. Moved by the resilience and courage of the victim, Mr. Patel knew he had found his professional calling. At that point I knew that this was it. I said I m never leaving. And I didn t.

12 TERESA ANN SOUTO - graduated from the University of San Diego in 2010, where she was a member of the Tritones a cappella group. She performed alongside Taylor Swift at the Academy of Country Music Awards. At the University of Colorado Law School, she was an accomplished mock trial participant and coach. Among other accomplishments, she was the 2012 Carrigan Cup champion. She also continued to perform musically, as a cast member of the Glamorous Law School: the Musical. Her solo: Dating in law school is a mistake. She graduated in Ms. Souto was a certified post-bar law clerk in this Office starting in August 2013, assigned to the Misdemeanor Unit. Earlier last year and the year before, she clerked for the 2nd and 20th Colorado District Attorney s Offices in Denver and Boulder. Ms. Souto interned with the City Attorney s Office in Greeley, Colorado. During her first jury trial at the Denver DA s Office, a defense attorney accused her of improperly kicking potential jurors off the panel, then tried to use a lookalike to confuse the officer, then accused her of coaching the witness, then - after Ms. Souto won the case - wanted to shake hands. She had accused me of being racist, dishonest and unethical. I decided to look her in the eye and shake her hand. I wanted her to know that I was none of those things, I was a professional. While a college student, Ms. Souto worked for San Diego s Department of Public Works, where part of her job involved dumpster diving. She would open up trash bags and make sure there were no recyclable materials among the foul-smelling waste. Finding an offending material, she often worked with businesses to comply with the law. Ms. Souto spoke of parallels with this unusual job to that of a prosecutor in a courtroom. When making a plea offer, I have to keep in mind how I can keep this defendant from reoffending. If I did something that betters their chances of never coming back, and never creating another victim, I will have done a better job as prosecutor. She said she likes that there is a three bin recycling system in this Office.

13 MY PHUONG THI TRUONG - graduated from University of California, San Diego in 2004, where she was a captain of the mock trial team and a varsity sprinter. I need to do it in high heels now, she said. Mrs. Truong received her law degree from University of California, Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco in While there, she was a mock trial team volunteer coach for Mission High School and was a Roger J. Traynor Moot Court team member. Since 2008, Mrs. Truong was a deputy district attorney with the Ventura County District Attorney s Office. She most recently served in the Sexual Assault/Family Protection Unit. In one of her last preliminary hearings, a 16-year-old girl who had been sexually molested and sodomized by her stepfather expressed her hope that she gave good enough testimony for the prosecutor. That broke my heart when she was worried about me while she was testifying about this horrifying event, Mrs. Truong said. She said she has wanted to be an attorney since the sixth grade when a boy in her class got into an argument with her and said, You should be a lawyer. In 2008, Ms. Truong was an attorney with Rastegar & Matern in Torrance, specializing in class action labor and employment litigation. She was an extern in 2006 for the Hon. Chief Justice Vaughn R. Walker of the U.S. District Court in San Francisco. That year, she served an internship with the San Diego City Attorney s Office. Being a prosecutor is pretty much the only job I can see myself doing and being proud of it, she said. I feel like I am doing something more than just working, making a difference, helping others.