kara weisman

Ms. Weisman began her career working for the San Mateo Superior Court as a court attorney. Although, attorneys and staff members were being laid off due to budget cuts; the court managed to find the funds to extend Ms. Weisman’s contract. She was hired to develop, implement and present a bilingual Small Claims Workshop for self-represented litigants. The program turned out to be a success as more self-represented litigants were prepared in court or able to resolve their disputes outside of court in mediation. As a result, the Administrative Office of Courts, the government entity that funds all the state courts in California, published the workshop for all the Superior Courts of California.

At present, Ms. Weisman represents in and out of custody defendants for felonies and misdemeanors from arraignment through post conviction. She has had three felony bench trials, and successfully obtained a dismissal of a felony case involving charges of auto theft and receiving stolen property.

Upon leaving the District Attorney’s office, Ms. Weisman worked as an Associate at the prominent immigration law firm of the Law Offices of Robert B. Jobe. There, Ms. Weisman concentrated her practice in the areas of asylum, deportation defense, immigration cases impacted by crimes, immigration detention, family-based immigration, green card applications/waivers, and citizenship. She applied her extensive trial experience to work on cases set for trial. Particularly, she applied her extensive Criminal Law experience to work on immigration cases impacted by crimes. Ms. Weisman represented immigrants from countries such as Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Brazil, Turkey, Kyrgyzstan, and India.

Ms. Weisman had the unique opportunity to work at several District Attorney Offices in the Bay Area, including San Francisco, Contra Costa, and Santa Clara. She was assigned to the Misdemeanor, Felony Law & Motion, and Conviction Integrity Unit. While assigned to these divisions, she prosecuted hundreds of cases involving violent as well as non-violent crimes. These cases ranged from misdemeanor crimes, such as: DUIs, theft, auto-theft, failure to register as a sex offender, to felony crimes, such as: murder, robbery, identity theft, ect. During this time, Ms. Weisman successfully tried eight criminal jury trials. She worked with complex evidentiary issues related to drug and alcohol expert analysis, post-custodial confessions, and handwriting comparison.

Ms. Weisman gained a business perspective of the law in which the focus is less on the “why” and more on the “what” in order to drive profitability. Company executives treated her equally as other attorneys in the legal department such as allowing her to manage relationships with high net-worth clients, heads of divisions within Qualcomm, and outside counsel. As part of her duties, she analyzed strategic alliances and licensing agreements to manage risk and establish proprietary rights of the parties.

Ms. Weisman was one of two law students from the United States selected to work for the Managing Partner of one of the most prestigious full service law firms of Argentina. Ms. Weisman worked entirely in Spanish on projects related to international commercial arbitration.

Activities and Societies: Phi Beta Kappa Dean's Honor List