Personal Injury & Torts
Jul. 20, 2002
Piping Up
Pacific Grove sole practitioner Stephanie Atigh always had a highly defined sense of right and wrong. About 40 years ago, she learned in her elementary school class that federal lawmakers only hired boys as congressional pages.
Pacific Grove sole practitioner Stephanie Atigh always had a highly defined sense of right and wrong.
About 40 years ago, she learned in her elementary school class that federal lawmakers only hired boys as congressional pages.
"It made me feel that there was something wrong," Atigh, 52, recalls thinking at the time. "Why can't girls be [pages]?"
With her teacher's encouragement, she wrote a letter to her local representative asking for the job.
A response came back that Capitol Hill didn't have "dressing rooms" to accommodate girls, Atigh says.
That setback didn't stop her from challenging other perceived injustices, such as when her older sister got punished by their mother.
"I would pipe up and say, 'That's not fair,'" Atigh says. "I'd think of mitigating circumstances."
Her exasperated mother used to respond, "What are you, her lawyer?"
Her polemical skills paid off in a recent case. She helped defend law enforcement accused of violating a man's rights by confiscating marijuana that he allegedly used for medical reasons.
The case never got to a jury. The trial judge granted a summary judgment motion. Rodrigs v. City of Capitola, CV139674 (Santa Cruz Super. Ct. April 15, 2002).
To Atigh, the decision shows that pot users such as the plaintiff can't "hide behind" the Compassionate Use Act of 1996 when they allegedly grow more marijuana than a reasonable person can smoke.
The plaintiff's attorneys argued that no one should condone the behavior of Atigh's client, who helped take away "medicine" from a person suffering from multiple sclerosis.
Other lawyers who have litigated against Atigh find that, at times, she doesn't recognize the merits of the other side's case.
"She does suffer some blindness, but I think most government attorneys do," Monterey sole practitioner Mary-Margaret O'Connell says.
She has known Atigh on both a professional and personal basis since the early 1990s.
When Atigh worked as Salinas' city attorney, O'Connell advocated on behalf of several police officers threatened with administrative discipline or termination.
Reaching a settlement occasionally became difficult because of Atigh's tunnel vision, she says. But O'Connell points out that Atigh, to some extent, was hamstrung because she had to follow orders from city officials.
Overall, O'Connell considers Atigh bright and imaginative.
And Atigh's true personality - someone who's caring, sweet and funny - shines through when the workday is done, O'Connell says.
"She's able to leave the job behind," O'Connell says. "She doesn't let it drag her down."
SNAPSHOT
Stephanie Atigh
Law school: Santa Clara University School of Law, 1975
Case types: Municipal law
Career highlights: Pacific Grove sole practitioner, 1996-present; Salinas city attorney and assistant city attorney, 1984-96; executive director and staff attorney, Legal Services of Cape Cod, Mass., 1980-84; staff attorney, Community Legal services, San Jose, 1976-80; Volunteer in Service to America, San Jose, 1975-76
Eron Yehuda
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