Dionne Choyce / Louis Goodman Podcast Transcript

Dionne Choyce / Louis Goodman – Podcast Transcript

[00:00:00] Louis Goodman: Hello, and welcome to Love Thy Lawyer. Where we talk to real lawyers about their lives in and out of the practice of law, how they got to be lawyers and what their experience has been. I'm Louis Goodman, the host of the show, and yes, I'm a lawyer. Nobody's perfect. In law school he won a regional championship sponsored by the American Trial Lawyers Association.

He has evaluated, handled, negotiated, and tried dozens of criminal cases. He is a member of the Charles Houston Bar Association and the Sacramento Consumer Attorneys. He has extensive experience in personal injury cases, representing injured individuals in motor vehicle accidents and other catastrophic incidents.

He is truly a people's lawyer with excellent people [00:01:00] skills, Dionne Choyce. Welcome to Love Thy Lawyer. 

Dionne Choyce: Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. 

Louis Goodman: It's my pleasure to have you Dionne. I've always enjoyed talking to you. Where is your office? Where's your office located now?

Dionne Choyce:  Thank you.  I have two offices. I have an office in Fairfield, California.

I also have an office in Sacramento, California. 

Louis Goodman: And what kind of a practice do you have?

Dionne Choyce: So I do criminal, traffic and personal injury. As you know, I started my career  in the DA's office, and I got a tremendous amount of experience doing criminal cases. And from there I opened my own practice where I was heavily involved in criminal cases.

My practice has kind of evolved where I used to do like 80% criminal and 20% personal injury. That's kind of flip-flop now where I do probably 70% personal injury and maybe 30% criminal and traffic. 

Louis Goodman:  Where are you [00:02:00] from originally?

Dionne Choce:   I'm from the Bay area.  My family's from Berkeley, California.

My mom and dad are both graduates of Berkeley High. That's where they kinda met and fell in love. And  we grew up in Berkeley, but you know, my dad was in school at the time. So he went to school in Idaho and I was actually born in Idaho. And he was,  once he finished school there, we came back to the Bay Area, back to Berkeley, and then we moved to Richmond area where I spent most of my school age days and graduated from Salesian High School.

Louis Goodman:  What was your experience in Salesian? 

Dionne Choyce:   Salesian actually helped me get a stable and a good foot on track in terms of my educational goals. And I had a great experience my first year there, I got straight A's and I realized that I [00:03:00]  I could do the work and it was just a matter of the environment. I kind of thrived in that environment.

Louis Goodman:  When you graduated from Salesian, where did you go to college? 

Dionne Choyce:  Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, which happens to be an all male college. As well as and all African-American Male College Prep.  My brother had went there.

My brother is two years ahead of me. And so he was there  when I ended up starting, he was going into his junior year when I started as a freshmen. So he kinda brought me in acclimate, me and I sort of had a little head start there with him going there. But Morehouse College, you know,  had some very famous Alumni, probably one of our famous is Martin Luther King Jr.

And it was a tremendous experience for me coming from California where[00:04:00] we kind of have a melting pot. It's pretty diverse here.   In Atlanta was it a little bit of shock for me coming from California. Cause you know, you still got remnants of the segregated South.  You  still have a lot of  the deep South traditions, Confederate flags, that sort of thing. So it definitely was a very eye-opening experience  for me  going to the South, being raised primarily in California. 

Louis Goodman: What did you take up at Morehouse? What did you major in? 

Dionne Choyce: English.   When I first got to Morehouse and read all of the pamphlets cover to cover in terms of their curriculum, their different majors,  what would be the best fit for me going forward, knowing that I wanted to become a lawyer and English stood out [00:05:00] because  all of the reading and writing necessary to pursue an English degree, which I felt would prepare me for law school and the insane amount of reading and writing that you have to do there. So once I decided that English was going to be my major, I stuck with it, graduating in four years and I was very focused. 

Louis Goodman:  Where did you go to law school? 

Dionne Choyce:  Well I took a detour before I went to law school. I ended up going to law school in California back at McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento.

Louis Goodman: So in-between Morehouse and McGeorge, let's talk about what you did then

Dionne Choyce: When I started to get involved in my major,  I started to volunteer at afterschool programs,  teaching kids doing work in [00:06:00] schools around Atlanta, Georgia. And I started to catch the eye of my Dean in the English Department.

And, you know,  she felt that I would have great success in the field of education. And she knew my desire to go to law school. She introduced me to a program up at Harvard. It was a one-year master's program in education. And she kind of convinced me to take a year off and do that master's program at Harvard University.

And I got my Master's in education there, and it was a great experience. And that whole area is just like the brain pulse of America. It's just so many intelligent people. 

Louis Goodman:  How long were you at Harvard?

Dionne Choyce:   It was a one-year program. 

Louis Goodman:  What did you do after that?

Dionne Choyce:   I went back to California and I started law school. 

[00:07:00] Louis Goodman:   So academically you've pretty much went straight through. 

Dionne Choyce: True. Yes, sir.

Louis Goodman: When did you decide that you first wanted to be a lawyer? When did that kinda come across? 

Dionne Choyce: Well,  I really got interested in becoming a lawyer, watching Perry Mason when I was a kid.   I admired him.

I used to always enjoy how, he would always solve the case into the trial or do something spectacular where like a high,  Gotcha.   That kind of was the that piqued my interest.  He was always well-dressed. He was articulate, always had a command in the courtroom and  that really intrigued me. And so as a kid, I would always say, I want to be a lawyer. I want to be like Perry [00:08:00] Mason. And then as I started to matriculate through high school and I ended up in college, the OJ Simpson trial was going on, that whole OJ Simpson ordeal.

And  I really got to see, and listened to that trial.  I was just fascinated by all the players,  it was just,  I just couldn't get enough of it.  I woke up every day and listened to that trial over and over again. And that sort of cemented  my goal of becoming a lawyer from then on.  

 I was intrigued by  the Perry Mason shows . And so that's kind of sealed the deal, seeing Johnny Cochran, seeing him actually doing it live. And I wanted to be like Johnny Cochran and to be honest, so  that kinda [00:09:00] fueled the passion. I didn't know any lawyers growing up to be honest.

Louis Goodman: And how was your experience at McGeorge? Did you enjoy it? 

Dionne Choyce: I loved it.  I wouldn't change it at all.

Louis Goodman: What was your first legal job?

Dionne Choyce:  You mean out of law school or during law school?  

Louis Goodman: Well what did you do during law school?

Dionne Choyce: My first job after my first year I was, I worked at an employment law firm and I had the opportunity to go overseas and I always tell students coming up, if you ever have the opportunity to go overseas, do that. Cause I did this internship my first year, if it's employment law firm,  one of the big employment law firms in Sacramento and I hated it. And so I said after that experience that, [00:10:00] that's not the Perry Mason type experience.

 I want to be in the courtroom. I want to get trial experience. And so I started to hone in on the Alameda County DA's Office. And I heard great things about their office. And then from there, I decided to figure out a way to get in there. And so I ended up going to work for the California District Attorneys Association, which was located in Sacramento at the time.

They are the largest District Attorney's Association of all the DA's in California and they deal with policy and writing grants and supporting District Attorney's Offices across the country. If I can get in there, maybe I can figure out a way to find my way to a DA's Office, eventually Alameda County.

So I did an internship with them after my first year. [00:11:00] I met a guy named Larry Brown, who was the Executive Director.   I worked with him and we got to  become pretty,  close and he liked my work. And so he was really good friends with Nancy O'Malley and they were like, real close, so obviously he put in a good word for me. And I interviewed with Alameda County for their summer internship for the second year. And I was one of 10 internships and you probably are aware of that internship program and know how competitive and difficult it is to get into that program. And  once you're in there, you kind of have, unless you mess up, you pretty much got it.

I got a job in Alameda County, so it ended up working out for me and I that was my first job out of law school.  

Louis Goodman: So when you got out of law school, then the DA's office hired you as a Deputy DA?

Dionne Choyce:  Correct. And so that summer, as you know, as an [00:12:00] intern, I was able to do my first jury trial supervised by Butch Ford.

It was a DUI. I think it was Kapsack who was the defense attorney? I think it was Kapsack and he had all, Kapsack was well-known DUI lawyer back then.   He would have a lot of attorneys that would come watch him during trials. And, you know, he wrote a book. 

Louis Goodman:  Yeah.

Dionne Choyce:  He would do all the training. And so a lot of people looked up to him in terms of what he was doing in the DUI world. And so during the trial, I had all these defense attorneys in there watching it, so it was pretty cool. It was a guilty verdict. Louis, back then,  I didn't have much understanding what I was actually doing. I was kind of [00:13:00] like, You know, I had a good court presence.   I was good at communicating to the jurors, but the legal pieces of the DUI and the scientific parts of it,  I didn't know how complicated it was. I actually was very  surprised at the work that was needed to actually prosecute DUI cases.

Louis Goodman: Yeah. DUI is complicated. You know, there's  a lot of science involved and  it's really complicated cases. 

Dionne Choyce: And as a defense attorney, it's even moren complicated because  you have to find a way  to win,  DUI case. And they're not sexy cases for a defense attorney.

A lot of times jurors really don't like them. The law's usually against you and got no brake CHP officers who make damn good witnesses 

[00:14:00] Louis Goodman: In DUI cases, as I'm sure Bruce Kapsack would tell you that the law’s against you, the facts are against you,  the judge is against you. The jury's not real excited about this, you know, so  being the Perry Mason in a DUI case is tough.

Dionne Choyce: Yeah. 

Louis Goodman: How long did you spend in the DA's office?  

Dionne Choyce:   I spent about three and a half, four years there. So being at the DA's office was a great experience. Lots of good attorneys, great judges. I mean, you really feel like you're somebody being a part of the DA's office, right. 

Louis Goodman: And you're not stuck in some back room doing research in a cold environment.

Dionne Choyce: Exactly. For me, it was a great experience, but I knew early on that I wasn't a career DA. I knew that in my heart that I wasn't a true prosecutor. 

Louis Goodman: So when you [00:15:00] left the DA's office, what did you do? 

Dionne Choyce: Well,  at the time I was going through these challenges.  I had a buddy of mine that I went to law school with, at McGeorge who kept asking me to team up with him.

He did DUIs and he was kind of like the younger version of Kapsack.  He had the really bold ideas about specializing in DUIs and traffic out here in Sacramento. And he had a whole marketing plan and all that,  he didn't have the experience. 

Louis Goodman: Now you've been a lawyer for quite a while.

You've had prosecution experience, defense experience, civil experience, personal injury experience. What is it that you really like about practicing law? 

Dionne Choyce: The criminal experience,  I've always been drawn to the excitement of being in court. You know,  being a trial lawyer.   I really enjoy being a [00:16:00] trial lawyer.

And so,  that to me, It been the greatest part of being an attorney. And then the second part is now is owning my own business. And there's a lot of great attorneys out there, but there are a lot of poor businessmen or women who struggle running the business part of things. 

Louis Goodman: Well, how has the business aspect of it gone for you?

Dionne Choyce:   Well I think it's gone very well.   I've obviously, I've had challenges and ups and downs, but  I think in the early part of private practice,  one of the biggest things for me was how to use my money and put it back in the business to grow the business. My dad was a developer and my grandfather was a contractor.

And so  I've been able to also develop these commercial buildings and I'm pretty proud of that because,  I [00:17:00] know it takes a lot of money to do, but at the same time, when it's all finished,  it really is  a great accomplishment to have something that you can call your own.

Louis Goodman: Yeah, absolutely. If someone were coming out of college and talking about going to law school, being a lawyer, would you recommend that it’s something that they  truly want to do?

Dionne Choyce:  I mean, being a lawyer  it's not easy. You know, we'll see the good parts of it,  the nice car, the material things, but they don't see the long hours you put in, you know, going to the jail at eight o'clock and staying there till 9 and 10,  taking calls from clients late night and early mornings.

And you know, all of the grind work that you do, it's a hustle. And especially [00:18:00] owning your own practice.   It's not like you can rely on a steady paycheck. I mean, you really have to hustle  for the money that you earn. 

Louis Goodman: What, if anything, would you change about the way the legal system works?

Dionne Choyce: Well, I definitely think,  there needs to be criminal justice reform and I think it's been happening slowly. We're still a long way away. But you know, like for example, when we used to do all these drug cases back in the nineties and 2000, all of that stuff is pretty much gone away now. It really has, hasn't it?

Louis Goodman:   

It has. Do you think that, do you think the legal system is fair? Do you think the criminal justice system is fair? 

Dionne Choyce: Absolutely not. No. It, the rules are laid up to target certain types of people, certain types of area. I think there's [00:19:00] targeted prosecutions, targeted law enforcement areas that, affect mainly black and brown people.

People who have low economic status. I think  there definitely needs to be reform. I think prosecutors sometimes feel that,  it's all about getting convictions. And that's a problem. I think the attitude and these DA's offices,  they have to change that sort of attitude about just trying to get convictions all the time and really do justice and work for the people.

You know,  there's a lot of homeless challenges. There's people with mental disabilities that make up the majority of the defendants in the criminal justice system and you can't just put those people in a box and think that's going to solve the problem. You're still going to have these mental health challenges.

They're still going to [00:20:00] have economic challenges and homelessness, and they have to think of ways to deal with those things other than incarceration. 

Louis Goodman: What other sorts of things do you like to do? Any sort of recreational pursuits travel experience?

Dionne Choyce:  I love to travel. 

Louis Goodman:  Where have you been, what do you like?

Dionne Choyce:  I just came back from Barbados recently.

I was there for like three weeks. I've lived in Thailand for six months with my wife, current wife and I, we went out there and took a sabbatical. I've been pretty much, throughout Southeast Asia, Vietnam, Cambodia. I really liked Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Japan. And then, and I've also been a central America.

We traveled and lived in Nicaragua for two weeks. They own a farm with a family. It was a part of a project my wife was doing and  we got  to see how some [00:21:00] of the rural farmers in Nicaragua live and experienced that whole thing. Great experience. In fact, we're trying to go back there this year.

We can't, but yeah, traveling,  it's one of those things where, if you're a trial lawyer, I think that traveling is a must because you have to be able to experience different cultures, to experience different types of people, the way they live, the way they eat. And that helps you when you're communicating with jurors, in my opinion.

So somebody told me that trial lawyers have to travel, you know, that's that's enough. And that's what I like to do. 

Louis Goodman: Let's say you came into some real money, somehow fell into $3 or $4 billion. What, if anything, would you change in the way you live your life? 

Dionne Choyce: I thought about very recently because, you know, I think the lottery is like almost a billion dollars.

Now I was thinking about going to get a ticket and I was like, what would I do if I actually won? But [00:22:00] what would you do if you actually won? I think I was still, I see the same thing I'm doing, you know? I mean, obviously I think I, I could not take as many cases that I  have and maybe have more of a selective type of practice, but,  I actually love what I do.

I love helping people. I love getting justice when I can. I think that being a lawyer is who I am. It's a part of me. I can't distinguish the two necessarily. And so  I think I would continue doing what I'm doing, but I also would You don't have the resources to give back more into the community.

And so one of the things that I'm doing next door, I was able to purchase a property next door to my Sacramento office, where I'm developing a [00:23:00]  property for the youth where  they will  be able to come in and do events. They'll be able to have like a working space. And I want to bring in vocational training, as well as coding training too, to help the youth with some of the changes in technology that are taking place.

Artificial intelligence and those types of things to get ahead in the world of technology.  

Louis Goodman: Let's say you had a magic wand that was like one thing in the world, legal world or otherwise, and you could change one thing. What would that be?

Dionne Choyce: One thing if I could change would probably be the criminal justice system.

 I think that prisons, jails, all of that stuff just doesn't work. 

Louis Goodman: Dionne Choyce. Thanks so much for joining me today on Love Thy Lawyer. I've certainly enjoyed talking to you and it's been fascinating hearing about your history. 

Dionne Choyce: Thank [00:24:00] you so much for having me. I appreciate it. 

Louis Goodman: That's it for today's episode of Love Thy Lawyer.

If you enjoyed listening, please share it with a friend and subscribe to the podcast. If you have comments or suggestions, send me an email. I promise I'll respond. Take a look at our website at lovebylawyer.com, where you can find  all of our episodes, transcripts, photographs, and information. Thanks as always to my guests who share their wisdom and the Joel Katz for music, Bryan Matheson for technical support and Tracey Harvey

Dionne Choyce:  You're always fighting somebody, you know, it was a client or the judge, or, you know, somebody you're always, you're always dealing with something, something, you know,

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