Our Team
Meet our team in Santa Barbara
Joakim Tan
I was born and raised in Sweden. After high school and mandatory military service I moved to Taipei, Taiwan to study and work. I came to San Francisco in 1987 and spent the next 7 years living, studying and working in the Bay Area. I received my B.A. in Political Science at U.C. Berkeley in 1992, and my J.D. Law Degree at Cornell Law School in 1997. I have been admitted to practice law in Texas, Maryland and California, and spent the first half of my career as a prosecutor in Dallas and Baltimore. The one thing that life and law has taught me is that life is rarely black or white; right or wrong. There’s a lot of gray. People aren’t usually 100% good or bad; guilty or not guilty. There’s the area in between. To me, that’s where most of us live. We make good decisions and bad decisions in response to a multitude of factors. The law itself tends to be inflexible and not very nuanced.
About me:
I enjoy sports, playing squash and working out, music, I used to play bass semi-professionally for some years, also play guitar and Chapman Stick, I enjoy reading fiction and love animals. I have 2 Bernese Mountain dogs and 2 black cats that my wife and I love to spend time with.
Porter
Porter doesn’t do any legal work. But he is good to have around if you are having a bad day or feeling stressed out.