Litigation
Jun. 15, 2002
Outspoken Solo
Top 30 Women Litigators - Jennifer L. Keller - Irvine sole practitioner Jennifer L. Keller knows what it's like to be the only woman in a field dominated by men.
Jennifer L. Keller
Irvine sole practitioner Jennifer L. Keller knows what it's like to be the only woman in a field dominated by men.
She faced that very situation the only time she ever shot a hole-in-one on the golf course.
"I was six months pregnant and playing with a bunch of men at the Green River Golf Club, where I was the only female member," Keller, 49, recalls. "When it happened, they just looked the other way."
Keller has worked for nearly 24 years as an attorney, primarily doing criminal defense work, although last year she won a civil case when she defended Chapman University against allegations of fraud by its law school students. Cooper v. Chapman University, 782504 (Orange Super. Ct. Sept. 24, 2001).
"I've enjoyed branching out into civil litigation. The skills you acquire in the criminal [law] world are hard to acquire in the civil world, and it gives me an advantage," she says.
Keller says she got into the field because of her love of television's "Perry Mason" and because when she was 16 she met a female judge who made a great impression on her.
"She cemented my desire to become an attorney and go out into the criminal law field," Keller says. "I like the competition and the idea that you're vindicating an important life."
The outspoken attorney - she's a tried-and-true Democrat in largely Republican Orange County - says her career is the ideal match for her personality.
"There's never been a single day I've regretted it, even in the low times," she says. "It is a perfect fit for me."
Christina Landers
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