Fatima Silva - HBO Star / Reasonable Doubt

Louis Goodman / Fatima Silva - Transcript

[00:00:03] Louis Goodman: Welcome to Love Thy Lawyer, where we talk with attorneys about their lives and careers. I'm your host, Louis Goodman. Today we welcome Fatima Silva to the podcast. A Bay Area Native. Ms. Silva dedicates her practice to criminal defense. She started her Alameda County career working for the legendary James McGrail.

She also has a nationwide audience and following. As she starred on the HBO hit Reasonable Doubt. The show ran for five seasons and helped secure the release of nine wrongfully convicted inmates. In addition to practicing law, she teaches trial skills, coaches mock trial, and worked with Upward Mound.

Fatima Silva, welcome to Love Thy Lawyer. 

[00:00:55] Fatima Silva: Thanks so much for having me. 

[00:00:58] Louis Goodman: It's so nice to have you. I've been wanting to get you on the podcast for quite some time. Where are you speaking to us from right now? 

[00:01:06] Fatima Silva: First off, I'm not gonna lie, I've listened to some of your podcasts and I'm like, that's a bummer I've never been asked to be on.

It would be really cool. So I'm glad we ran into each other. I am home today here in Oakland. I live in Oakland. It's days I get to work from home. I have a baby girl, she's one, and little by little I've been letting go of, you know, being at home with her. But I still hold on to one day where I tell myself I'm gonna work from home, but how much work I'm actually able to get done is questionable. 

[00:01:37] Louis Goodman: And where's your office? 

[00:01:39] Fatima Silva: My office is in Berkeley on Rose Street and Shaddock. I share an office space with Morris Law there in Berkeley. It's very cool. I was renting space from Seth Morris for a few years and then we moved to this great new spot in the gourmet ghetto. 

[00:01:54] Louis Goodman: Can you tell us what kind of practice you have?

How do you describe your practice? 

[00:02:00] Fatima Silva: Um, purely criminal defense. That's it. I tell everyone, I'm so sorry. I may know a little about landlord tenant, or I definitely know a lot about civil law. I did personal injury for many years as well, working with Jim McGrail. He was the one-stop shop in Livermore, so he took everything. So I know a little about a lot, but really my main practice that I know a lot about a lot is criminal. 

[00:02:25] Louis Goodman: How long have you been practicing law and how long have you been on your own? 

[00:02:31] Fatima Silva: Oh, I graduated law school in 2008. I'm aging myself here. And then I joined Jim McGrail in 2011, and that's when I was introduced to criminal law. So I've been really doing purely criminal, mainly criminal since 2011. 

[00:02:48] Louis Goodman: Where are you from originally? 

[00:02:51] Fatima Silva: I'm originally from Union City, California. I'm a James Logan grad, so that's here in the Bay. 

[00:02:56] Louis Goodman: When you graduated from Logan, where'd you go to college? 

[00:03:00] Fatima Silva: St. Mary's in Moraga. My college was smaller than my high school. 

[00:03:06] Louis Goodman: That's really quite a transition really from James Logan to St. Mary's. Logan is a huge suburban school, but it has a lot of almost inner city feel to it. At least that's how I felt whenever I've been there. And St. Mary's is a small, beautiful, suburban campus out in Moraga. Mm-hmm. What was that like going from high school in Logan out to St. Mary's?

[00:03:31] Fatima Silva: It was a culture shock, to say the least. No, I grew up in a bubble growing up in Union City. I would say everyone there predominantly around that time, especially in class of 2000, I'd say everybody was same socioeconomic status. Very diverse. That's what I loved about James Logan. It's one of the most diverse high schools in the Bay Area. And then I visited St. Mary's. My dad was really big. I'm the first to go to college in my family, and so my dad had worked with a lot of folks who were alumni. He worked for the city of San Jose, and people kept saying, oh, tell her, look at St. Mary's. And I really don't know what we were thinking because it's a private school.

And I knew in my mind I wanted law school one day, but I saw the campus and I had never experienced something like all the schools I was looking at were pretty inner city, and St. Mary's is like this oasis out in the middle of the top peak of Moraga. It's a really sleepy, quiet town, and for some reason I was like, oh yeah, I'll go to college there.

There's really nothing going on there. But I loved what the school was about. Entered to learn, leave to serve Lasallian social justice is really what the school is about. I had an amazing time at St. Mary's. Highly recommend it, but the culture shock of, it's the first time I was really around rich kids.

It's just like, oh wait, you don't have student loans? Your parents are flat out paying this? Back then it was maybe $35,000 a year, and I thought that was a done, but yeah, it was a learning curve for me and just trying to not lose my identity in all of that, but I think that everybody goes through that through college. 

[00:05:08] Louis Goodman: What sort of things did you like to do in college? What did you experience? 

[00:05:11] Fatima Silva: I was a nerd in undergrad. I was a part of a program called SALT, which was Social Action Leadership Team. So what I really loved doing was going out to the local nonprofits throughout the Bay Area, mainly San Francisco, Berkeley surrounding cities.

Moraga is really centered, it's alone up there, but it's really centrally located to a lot of great nonprofits. So what we would do is, we organized students to every weekend go out and volunteer. We would either paint an inner city school or help people with their resumes. We worked with the Homeless Action. All of those nonprofits, we were out there doing things. So I started that while at St. Mary's, 'cause that's always been my passion. 

[00:05:55] Louis Goodman: Now you ultimately went to law school. Did you take some time off between college and law school or did you go straight through? 

[00:06:02] Fatima Silva: I took a year off and I worked at Mofo Morrison Forster in San Francisco. Yeah. Which was a really cool experience. I was like a, an admin there, a floater on all the different floors and I was doing all kinds of law, not criminal, and realized I didn't wanna do any of those. Trust and estates and those things. 

[00:06:22] Louis Goodman: But you liked being around lawyers and the law world.

[00:06:26] Fatima Silva: It was so cool. It was really cool, and it solidified what I wanted to do. Everyone was extremely supportive. I got to meet so many new lawyers and older lawyers who just said, look it, if you, if this is what you really love, go for it. And so I think I always knew it was what I wanted to do, but after that year I was like, uh, maybe I'm on the fence. Maybe I just keep working. But it really solidified that that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to go on to law school. 

[00:06:56] Louis Goodman: Where'd you go? 

[00:06:58] Fatima Silva: I applied to all schools in New York and the first one I said I would get into, I went to, and that was Pace Law School, which I thought was in New York City, which is why I was really excited. Turns out everyone, there's a PACE undergrad in New York City, and I remember when I went to look at it with my parents, I walked, I said, where are we going?

We're going to the middle of nowhere. It was Westchester County and that's where Pace was. But it was a really cool small school that really focused on social justice. Their main thing is environmental justice, but it ended up being a really great choice. 

[00:07:34] Louis Goodman: Why did you wanna apply to New York schools?

[00:07:37] Fatima Silva: Because I had hoped if that didn't work out, I could just go to Broadway and fulfill my real dream of being on Broadway. You know? I thought that was easier. Turns out it's harder, much harder. I took some Broadway dance classes, like I was in law school, and I was like, I need a break. Let me go take some Broadway classes. Remind myself what I really would love to do. I took these classes with all these young people who were really trying out for Broadway, and I realized, okay, I'm a joke here, so maybe I'll just stick to law. That's my back, my backup. 

[00:08:12] Louis Goodman: So the, so you lived like a real life, like RENT? 

[00:08:18] Fatima Silva: I did. Every weekend I would go into the city. I eventually moved to the city. That was my goal. So after first year of law school, I was in the city. Every weekend I would go and I'd show my student ID and get my $20 ticket where I'd get to see Mamma Mia, maybe with a pillar in front of me. I had like half a view, but it was amazing and it was $20 tickets on and seeing the most amazing Broadway shows. 

[00:08:41] Louis Goodman: I'm gonna put a pin in the law thing and come back to it. I'd like you to talk a little bit about your kind of showbiz career. 

[00:08:53] Fatima Silva: Yeah, that's interesting because I never thought television or acting in that kind of regard. I love people who love theater know the two are very different. And so I had grown up loving theater, doing theater classes, but never thought about television. And then one day I'm sitting in my office and at this point I had been working for Jim maybe about seven years. We were having a great time. Jim was stepping out a little bit and going, you take over, and I was really tired.

We were really busy and I remember feeling, I don't know, I need to do something else. In the meantime, I've always done something on the side. For many years I was in a wedding band while at night and then law by day, and so I just had the itch and outta nowhere. I got a call from a guy who said he was a producer and somebody had recommended me for a show.

I was like, who would do that? Why? Why would I be good for a show? And he had said it was Rebecca Feigelson and at the time I think she was pregnant, so they had called her and said, are you interested in trying out for this show? And she's, Nope. And I guess they asked her for other names. And so she had said, call Fatima.

And they didn't tell me much about it. They just came and did a whole like recording of me with clients throughout my office. They said, just be yourself. I had no idea what the show was or anything. I realized when they left, I did not wanna do tv. I didn't like it. The cameras made me uncomfortable in my face.

And he even had little feedback. Maybe try this. And I'm like, this is me in real life, bro. These are real people. But I guess when he would gimme the feedback, I guess I actually, I'm a little people pleaser, so I would try harder and then months went by and I didn't hear back and I was like, oh, thank God.

And then they called and said, you've been selected as the person to be the attorney on this show and I said no at first because I was getting married and I was already 35 and I wanted babies and they said I would have to travel for six months. None of it made sense for somebody who is trying to stay local, has a practice established career.

But my husband actually encouraged me and he is like, you can't say no to that. I think he just wanted a break from me maybe six months of the year, but, but yeah, we did it. 

[00:11:05] Louis Goodman: Tell me a little bit about the show. I've seen it. I've watched it. 

[00:11:09] Fatima Silva: Oh, really? 

[00:11:09] Louis Goodman: Oh yeah, of course. And and you seem so serious when you're on it.

[00:11:14] Fatima Silva: I know. It's so funny. And my partner too, and I guess we are serious about what we do, but behind the scenes we're total goofballs and I think you, you have to be in order to deal with the content that we were dealing with. It's a heavy show, but the reason I said yes to doing it is it's pretty incredible.

The producer had this idea after, I don't know if you remember the Serial podcast with Adnan Sayed when that first came out. We were all addicted years ago. It was like one of the first podcasts that you followed, this criminal story, and he thought, what if we do this for more people? Their families think they're wrongfully convicted.

What if we. Heard them out and we did it in a way, he's such a, this, my producer, I love him. He's, it can't be just an a defense attorney and it can't be just a homicide detective. You're on two different ends. We need both of you together to agree. So he came up with this concept of loved ones reaching out, thinking their loved one was wrongfully convicted, and they would have to provide at least three, four different leads as to why they felt they were wrongfully convicted. And then we would look into those and see is there potential here to help this family? And by helping them, we would leave them with an appeals lawyer or an investigator, depending on what the leads were. And then I would try and work closely with them.

But a lot of this is, most of this is out of California. I got to go all over the country. Which was wonderful and other times not so wonderful. Fargo isn't the greatest in the middle of the winter, but it was pretty incredible, a really incredible opportunity, and we got to help a lot of families. 

[00:12:52] Louis Goodman: The thing that I found interesting about it is, and I would encourage anyone to watch at least a few episodes of Reasonable Doubt on HBO, search for it and find it that as most of the listeners to this podcast understand, the government doesn't go out and just kinda round up the usual suspects and try and make innocent people guilty. So the vast majority of people who are in the criminal justice system accused of crimes, really have done something. And so it's difficult, I think from a sort of TV or radio or podcast production point of view to find a lot of innocent clients.

[00:13:36] Fatima Silva: It's hard. 

[00:13:37] Louis Goodman: Yeah. And what I thought was interesting about the setup of this program is that in some ways it, it's, you were saying to the families, even if we don't think that your loved one is innocent, we're gonna explain to you why he's guilty. Or you are gonna, you're gonna at least come I that part to some realization. Yeah. Mm-hmm. I'm sorry, what? What did you say about that? 

[00:14:03] Fatima Silva: I said I hated that part. 

[00:14:05] Louis Goodman: Telling them that. 

[00:14:06] Fatima Silva: Well, as a criminal defense attorney, I, I think I'm a criminal defense attorney through and through. It's in my heart. I can't, I'm not the person to sit in front of somebody and say, you are guilty, or this is why, all the reasons. I'm good at giving, setting expectations and giving a realistic outlook on a case, but it's really hard, especially to tell loved ones. Remember, we're not sitting down with the actual person. We get, my partner meets with them. He interviews them. They felt that was best that the homicide detective did that portion.

But I'm sitting down with people who love these people, how it's so hard to tell a mother, to tell a father or a wife that we think your loved one actually committed this crime. And that's not something I ever got comfortable with. Um, that portion was really hard for me. So whenever they were, we felt guilty or we couldn't help, I leaned on my partner a lot for that You could take over here.

There was a few times I was really strong and it, I did that when I felt like this person needs to be released. This person is also in prison with their loved one, and it's really unfair and I'm here. And the purpose of this show was exactly that. The producer said, I want, when somebody's behind bars, oftentimes the families are, they're behind bars with them and it's really hard for them to move forward, especially if you're dealing with an inmate who may have committed the crime and is extremely manipulative and really want you only to focus on their case and how can you live on the outside and have this freedom and I'm in here. And so there were a lot of parents who were just exhausted and they had exhausted every resource and possibility in there saying, did they do this? I can't sleep at night. I can't go on vacation.

I can't move forward knowing my child is behind bars. And so sometimes I felt like, you know what? Maybe it's my job to release them of this burden. And I get chills thinking about it because there were some times when those were the most impactful. Those families have probably loved us more than the families.

We've said, we're gonna help and we're gonna help free. It's the families that we gave their lives back. There's a daughter in one who, she always stayed in touch with us all these years and has said Thank you. I could never see it, but I am now free. A mother as well who got to move on, and that was for me, I think the biggest part of the show that I just loved.

[00:16:29] Louis Goodman: I wanna stay with the show biz thing for another minute here and talk about you tried out for Hamilton and you got a callback. What was that like? 

[00:16:39] Fatima Silva: Okay. Okay, so I gotta be honest, it was the travel show of Hamilton. It was here in San Francisco. And it was a lot of fun. I wanna say it was like 2015.

Hamilton had just gone to Broadway, and I had seen the original cast on Broadway as soon as they went, and it was a musical that I fell in love with, and there's not many musicals growing up as a child who loves theater, some of my favorite musicals were Les Mis, miss Saigon. But nobody looks like me in those musicals.

And I always felt like, what's a musical that I could be in other than playing Morales in a Chorus Line? Anybody knows theater will pick that. But, and then In The Heights came out and because he did in The Heights, Lin Manuel Miranda did In The Heights, and he also did Hamilton. So when Hamilton came out and I saw it, I was like, this, I need to be a part of this.

This is the most amazing show. And I remember they came and they were doing trials here in San Francisco and it was open call auditions. 'cause that's what Lin Manuel Miranda wanted everybody to try out. So I remember telling Jim McGrail, Hey, I can't go to, back then it was Pleasanton Court and he is, like I said, it's a Monday I think, or a Sunday at first.

And so I went to the tryouts on a Sunday. And I got a call back. And so I had to tell Jim the next day, Hey, you're gonna have to put on your suit and go to court. And he hadn't been in court in so long. And he is, you remember Jim? He's of I gotta, I got more enough in court and I'm like, to Jim. He said, what are you doing?

I said, I got a call back for the theater and he got so mad. You're leaving my office, you're gonna leave the legal career to go be in a musical. And I said, yeah, if I can. But needless to say, Lou, they made me rap. And I'm not the best rapper. I didn't get a call back after that one, but it was pretty exciting.

There weren't many, there was like 500 people out there who auditioned and not many got called back. So that alone I'm excited about. But to this day, I'll never forget the rap. But when I had to audition within 24 hours and learned that song, it was pretty pitiful. 

[00:18:37] Louis Goodman: Let me come back to the law for a moment. When did you first know you were a lawyer? 

[00:18:44] Fatima Silva: I'm one of those that, probably five years old. It was, it's in me. I think I naturally tend to be somebody who comes to the defense of others. I speak up for others. I've always had a big voice. I'm the baby girl in the family in a big Latino family. I'm the baby girl of boys.

So my, in order to be heard, I really had to, I had to be loud and uh, and really speak up for myself and defend why I also deserve to go see Batman with the boys. It wasn't just for them, and I think it's just always come natural to me, especially advocating for others. And when I was in grade school, teachers, my parents, everybody who knew me, even people in church, I grew up in the church. All the older people would say, oh, that Fatima, she's a little fighter. And she's very opinionated. She's got a strong personality. They always made it so negative, which I'm mindful of now I have a girl and I wanna be mindful of that.

I had leadership skills, thank you, and advocacy skills, and so I just always knew there's other things I thought of being a teacher. I still love that. I think I could always do that later. Of course theater, but law was something I felt like I, I could do really well. 

[00:20:01] Louis Goodman: When did you decide, okay, I'm really gonna apply to law school. I'm going to send in the money, fill out the applications, put a postage stamp on something to New York? 

[00:20:12] Fatima Silva: Yeah, that was the plan all along. Even in undergrad, I always knew law school. I took all of the poli sci classes, which I don't advise now. You don't need to do that to go to law school. I regret that, but I did all the classes. I checked all the boxes. I knew that I wanted to do it. 

[00:20:28] Louis Goodman: Briefly, just take us through your legal career. You graduated from law school and did you go right in with McGrail or did you do some other things? 

[00:20:36] Fatima Silva: No, I, while I was in law school, I fell in love with the Immigration Justice Clinic there, and I thought that immigration was going to be my practice area, being Latina and witnessing all the injustice that happens in the system, and I just felt I should be the voice for a lot of immigrants in the community. And I had just, there was this professor there, professor Vanessa Merton, and she was just amazing. And she led the clinic and we got to, I was in law school in court arguing on behalf of immigrants who at that time, back in 2006, 2007, there were major raids going on, unlawful raids, middle of the night.

It's basically a lot of what's happening now. We would get to court and I was, we were getting cases dismissed, left and right. It felt wonderful. So I left there feeling like I was ready to practice immigration and I did. When I came to California, my start was immigration and I also did a little bit of family law 'cause I thought I was getting a lot of calls on that.

And so I thought well do family law. I wasn't with a firm or anything. I was on my own. And then. I went to have a glass of wine with my parents on Valentine's Day in Livermore, California. I don't live in Livermore. My parents had moved there and they said, come with us. We're gonna try this winery. We ended up at McGrail and I saw a young girl, Heather McGrail.

I went to college with her and she goes, my dad's a lawyer. You wanna meet him? And I said, I'm looking for office space. Let me meet him. So I met Jim and he goes, come to my office next week. We'll get you signed up. You can rent space for me and do your thing. Jim knew and he said, I knew right away I wanted you on my team.

And he goes, why don't you, this is actually how I ended up in criminal. He said, Hey kid, what do you think about criminal? I was like, I don't, I don't really wanna do it. I feel like my family's gonna ask me for a lot of free help, and I just didn't think I wanted to dabble in criminal. The truth was doing immigration, it crosses so much with criminal.

Yeah, there's CRI immigration so much. So he told me, look it, follow me just one week. Come with me to the different courts. It was Hayward. It was Pleasanton. He goes, just watch what I do and instead of renting from me, you can just do appearances for me. And at first I felt like that's not what I want. Let me tell you, Lou, one week of that I was hooked.

Uh, it was so fun. It was just a great time in criminal court and I said, oh no, you know what? I think I wanna do this. And so all the rest just faded out. 

[00:23:07] Louis Goodman: Let's get a little specific here. What is it that you really like about practicing law? You've told us about other things that you've done. You have other kinds of skills and capabilities, and you have skills and capabilities that could be put towards other careers. What is it about practicing law that keeps you as a lawyer?

[00:23:30] Fatima Silva: I ask myself that every day when I'm really tired. What keeps me, I'm good at it and I'm good at it. I don't know what else I'm good at. I do, there's other things and television was fun and I'd love to continue to do something like that again, but integrating criminal law and criminal justice, of course, I think that to be a criminal lawyer, a defense attorney it's, it takes a special kind of breed. We are not, when people are like, oh yeah, I don't like lawyers. I'm like, you're not talking about criminal defense lawyers and not to say we're all amazing, right? We know some who fall short and we all make mistakes, but it a criminal defense attorney, it takes a lot of heart.

We, we hear no all the time. We hear you lost all the time. Absolutely not. And I think that it means that we're not, we don't have great egos. I think that it means that we're willing to, we're willing to take the dagger for our client to stand in front of somebody else. And oftentimes I tell this to my clients when I know that it's a tough case and the judge is probably gonna get upset with me based on what I'm asking, and I'm gonna piss somebody.

I say, look it when the judge, if the judge gets upset by what I'm saying or doing or asking, or the da, this isn't about you, don't, it's, they're not getting upset at you. They're getting upset at me. I am proud to stand in front of you, and I have no problem taking that on your behalf. Now what's funny is if somebody was mad at me and I'm arguing my own case, for myself, I'd probably cry, right?

Like that I wouldn't feel comfortable with. But knowing it's on behalf of somebody else, I have really thick skin. And to me, when people say I've been through so much in life, life has not, life is life for me. The amount of loss. I've endured and trauma and just hard, difficult times. I'm an extremely resilient person, and so for me, it takes resilience to be a defense attorney and to say, you know what?

We lost that one. We're gonna get up. We're gonna go back, we're gonna try again. We're gonna try this, we're gonna try that. And I think that's just why I like it. And I've had the privilege of practicing in the Bay Area. I can tell you now, after traveling the whole country and being probably to every state in, in, in all those seasons on reasonable doubt, I think maybe one or two cases were California and we had 10 cases a season.

So I've seen the criminal justice system across the country. It is frightening. It is devastating. And I come back, especially Alameda County, which is my home, right? I practice all over the bay, but Alameda County, woo. It's my favorite. 

[00:26:14] Louis Goodman: What about the business of practicing law? For those of us who are in private practice, we run a business in addition to a law practice, and I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about the business of practicing law, how that's gone for you, what you've learned along the way.

[00:26:34] Fatima Silva: That's a loaded question. It's, it's been a lot of difficulty, A lot of difficult times. A lot of good times too. But that's the side where I say I went to St. Mary's and chose all these poli sci classes and I, if I could give anybody advice, it would be too business, too business. If you can do that, because.

Then you just have the basics. I never thought I'd have my own office and sadly I was doing the show and still working with Jim and he passed away in 2017. I'm sorry, 2018 is when he passed. And it was very unexpected and it was devastating for me. He was just a wonderful mentor. He was like a second dad at times.

I didn't ask for it, but he didn't care. And so when he passed away, he had always said, I want you to be my partner. I want you to be my partner and I just felt like I, I wasn't ready to have my name, have that responsibility. I was really scared. I was really scared on the business side of things. And so when he passed, I was, I never became partner and the firm just had to disassemble.

I couldn't afford to keep everybody on. He had a staff it when, and he had the building and thankfully his wife said, Jim would want you to have the number, the phone number. And I tell to this day, I mean that since 2018. I had a call today, somebody asking for Jim McGrail and looking for help, legal help, and I said, no, Jim's actually, he passed away, but we're, I'm still here to help you.

So it's been nice to continue to have the phone number. It's not as busy as when Jim was around, and a lot of that is because I just don't, he never advertised, right? He was just well known. And he always told me advertising for suckers and that suits me so long. Advertisements for people, just a reputation, can't speak for itself.

But he was so old school and I realized a few years into my own practice, I think advertising's probably a good idea, right? People gotta know you're there. Also, people that it was off in Hollywood, they kept calling going, Hey Ms. Silva, you've handled my case before and I know you have that show now and I know you're off in.

LA and I'm like, la, I wi, no, I'm here. I'm ready to take your case. So it's been tough. I will say that I opened my own firm right after Jim passed away, and I also found out I was pregnant with my first child then in 2018. And, and then we know COVID hit within about a year and a half. And so those were some trying times, but I maintained the practice while doing a show.

And I got to support my family that way. And I, I still do. I still do, and I'm grateful for that. But a few years ago when I decided to rent space from Seth Morris, I had always been friends with Seth Morris, would see him in court, just loved watching him, thought he was a brilliant attorney. We became good friends and he said, why don't you just come and rent office space with me?

We could collaborate. And he said. Fatima, John, I need you, I need your help. A couple days a week. And we got he, we got hooked and it's been great. It's been a lot of fun. And so I still have my practice and that is still going, but at the same time, I have many days of the week with Seth and, and so I'm getting the best of both worlds and I'm learning a lot in watching him run a business 'cause a man knows how to run a business.

But it's been tough. I I didn't have any examples, really. 

[00:30:00] Louis Goodman: Two part question. What do you think is the best advice you've ever received, and what advice would you give to a young attorney just starting out? 

[00:30:11] Fatima Silva: I'd say the best advice somebody once told me, especially in practice, was nobody knows your case better than you.

Nobody. So not the judge, not the DA. They've got a lot going on. So be confident and stand your ground. And the other piece of advice somebody told me that I guess is the same piece of advice that I would pass on to somebody who's about to start their practice is don't be afraid to just be you. You're gonna see a lot of brilliant different attorneys and it's great to emulate them and want to learn from them, but you have to, whatever your spark is, whatever it is that makes you, you've come this far, you've gone through college, you've gone through law school, you passed the bar, you've got a client. There's something about you that people are confident in you and you're gonna, and you're smart and you're gonna be able to do it.

[00:31:06] Louis Goodman: What sort of recreational pursuits do you have? What do you like to do when you're not practicing law? 

[00:31:11] Fatima Silva: They've changed Lou, 'cause I have kids, little ones. I have a 6-year-old and a 1-year-old now. So I don't get to do much of what I like to do. What I miss. Yoga I, the practice of yoga has been a big part of grounding me in this kind of practice and this kind of job.

This job can be, what's exhausting some days mentally draining. We're not just counselors of law, we're really just playing counselors all day long. We're listening to, I love my clients. I love people coming to me and needing help, but it can be tiring to take on somebody's problems and to feel like I have to save you.

I have to save you. Sometimes I have to be reminded that I didn't commit the crime, but that's my thought process. So I take it on so much that for me, it's, I was always hiking. We live in, we're in the Bay Area. I'm in Oakland. I'm right down the street from Joaquin Miller Park. Hiking was a big thing.

We're trying to get back to Intuit as a family. Another thing my husband and I used to always do when we were dating and before kids is go to a lot of the reggae shows. Just good vibes in the Bay Area, any kind of concert really, because we're in the middle of all of it, and I don't get to do much of that anymore. Nowadays my singing career is singing wheels on the bus and playing Pictionary with my kids. 

[00:32:27] Louis Goodman: Let's say you came into some real money, three or $4 billion. What, if anything, would you do differently in your life? 

[00:32:36] Fatima Silva: Going forward? What would I do differently? 

[00:32:39] Louis Goodman: Yeah. 

[00:32:39] Fatima Silva: My loans are about to be paid off next month, so that's a bummer the money didn't come sooner, but I've always wanted to open my own nonprofit, whether something with working with the transition out of prison to the real world coming back. 

[00:32:55] Louis Goodman: Let's say you had a magic wand, that was one thing in the world that you could change the legal world, the music world, the just the world in general. What would you wanna wave that magic wand at? 

[00:33:06] Fatima Silva: Could we actually create a system that is innocent until proven guilty? Maybe I have my views on that. I think our system is set up for failure oftentimes for, it doesn't give people the chance we're not. It is wonderful, like I said, practicing in the bay. We tend to be certain courts, and now having more community courts and things of that nature, diversion, mental health, all of that.

It's wonderful because now people are getting second chances. I think everybody always deserves some kind of second chance, right? But good people do bad things. Bad things happen to good people. So for me, it's a struggle to see and to fight for people in a system that I feel like it's just is, well, you've been arrested and sorry, we're gonna work from there, right?

We're gonna work from guilty. We're not working from innocent. But I don't know. How do you wave the wand? If I could wave a wand and change everything in the world, Lou, it would be eliminate racism, eliminate hate, bias, all of that. 

[00:34:08] Louis Goodman: If somebody wants to get in touch with you with Fatima Silva, what's the best way to do that?

[00:34:16] Fatima Silva: Google my name, Fatima Silva, attorney. I will come up. You'll get to see the show, but you can email me at Fatima at Silva Law, S-I-L-V-A law sf.com. Or you can also reach me at Silva@morrisdefense.com. I've got a few different hats with a few different firms, but it's easy to find me. 

[00:34:40] Louis Goodman: Fatima, is there anything that you wanna talk about that we haven't discussed? Anything at all that you'd like to bring up that you'd like to say, comment on? Anything at all? 

[00:34:50] Fatima Silva: I think in having this podcast, I like to think that a lot of potential attorneys, young kids out there, those looking to go into the law, listen and all our fellow attorneys, it's really great to hear everybody's career.

It's a lot of fun. But for those young people looking to have a career like this, I would just advise that. That you really do it for you and not for anybody else, because it's a really tough career and it can be a really great one if your heart is in it. And I meet, I mentor a lot of young people throughout the Bay Area, and I get the sense that some of them do it because it's an expectation their family member may have, maybe their parent was lawyer or a judge.

And I just think that you're always gonna do best when it's something that you really wanna do. I hate it when clients come and they go, I met with somebody else and it just seems like they just hate being a lawyer. They hate their job or they're, they don't even wanna represent, they were just basically telling me I'm a terrible person.

And if there are people out there who really need help and they're looking for compassion and if this isn't the kind of job for you, if you don't have a limited compassion for people, maybe try something else. That's my only piece of advice that I would leave for a lot of people looking into this career.

But I've had a great time. I love working. I love having colleagues like yourself, some pretty incredible attorneys that have helped me through this. And that's the thing too, in having your own practice, I think you gotta have your folks to call on if you go start your own practice, for sure, but have those people you call on.

For me, a lot of it has been Seth Morris, John Mcma, Daniel Vaswani, Joe Cox, Melissa Adams. I love her. Just so many folks in the community and they're willing to help you. So even if you're a lawyer, feeling a little lonely in your practice, don't be afraid to collaborate and call on other folks. Everybody wants to help everyone, and it can be a lot more fun that way.

[00:36:44] Louis Goodman: Fatima Silva, thank you so much for joining me today on the Love Thy Lawyer podcast. It's been a pleasure to talk to you. 

[00:36:51] Fatima Silva: Thanks, Lou, it's been such a pleasure. Thanks for having me. 

[00:36:54] Louis Goodman: That's it for today's episode of Love Thy Lawyer. If you enjoyed listening, please share it with a friend and follow the podcast. If you have comments or suggestions, send me an email. Take a look at our website at lovethylawyer.com, where you can find all of our episodes, transcripts, photographs and information.

Thanks to my guests, and to Joel Katz for music, Bryan Matheson for technical support, Paul Robert for social media and Tracy Harvey. I'm Louis Goodman.

[00:37:30] Fatima Silva: I think what it comes down to is the comfortability there and knowing that it's something that I'm actually decent at.