Episode 43: Larisa Dinsmoor
Public Defender for the Orange County Public Defender’s Office and Past President of the Orange County Bar Association
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M.C. Sungaila sits down with Larisa Dinsmoor, a Public Defender for the Orange County Public Defender’s Office and Past President of the Orange County Bar Association, one of California's largest bar organizations. Larisa shares her path to bar leadership, her role as a public defender, and her experience with international human rights work.
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Larisa Dinsmoor
Larisa Maria Dinsmoor has been an Orange County Public Defender for over fifteen years. She has tried misdemeanor and complex felony cases. Larisa was the 2021 Orange County Bar Association (OCBA) President, an organization with over 7,000 members. Currently, she is the OCBA Charitable Fund President with the responsibility of raising money for law-related organizations. She has over twenty years of experience in public service.
Larisa spearheaded several efforts to raise awareness and assist vulnerable populations through the OCBA. She has chaired the Pro Bono Committee, Homeless Task Force, International Law Section and OC Lawyer Editorial Advisory Committee. She taught Criminal Procedure at Whittier Law School, and has published articles in the Orange County Lawyer.
In her free time, Larisa volunteers with international organizations to enhance the rule of law in developing countries. She has trained lawyers and judges in Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia. Her prior experience includes working at the United States Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Office and for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Welcome to the show, where we chronicle women's journeys to the bench bar and beyond and we seek to inspire the next generation of women law students and lawyers. In this episode, I'm pleased to have as a guest on the show, Larisa Dinsmoor, who is a deputy public defender with the Orange County Public Defender's office. She is also the immediate past president of the Orange County Bar Association. Welcome, Larisa.
Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here.
I’m glad for you to be here as well, speaking both in terms of leadership in the community and the bar, and also in your role at the Public Defender's Office. Beyond that, your commitment to human rights work and your interest in international work as well. I’m happy to cover all of those things with you today. I wanted to start with what motivated you or caused you to want to go to law school and become a lawyer, to begin with?
My father and grandfather were lawyers and they told me that being a lawyer or at least going to law school is a great education. That was not the selling point for me. The selling point was after college. I was volunteering with a lot of organizations in Washington, DC, where I saw people who were poor, struggling, and did not have the same rights or were able to exercise the same rights as other people. In seeing that injustice, I thought there was not much I could do just to volunteer at the Section 8 housing or in a soup kitchen. What better way to effect true change is by becoming a lawyer because lawyers do have influence, they can change laws and they can change people's lives. Ultimately, that’s why I went to law school to effect change.
Were you thinking in a specific area for change when you first went to law school or was it, “Being a lawyer gives me additional tools to make a difference for people?”
Initially, it was very focused on international development. One of my passions is to travel around the world. I have spent time in Africa and Asia so having those cultural experiences and getting to know people spoke to me. I initially wanted to become a lawyer, go back into the international field, and do rule of law work in developing countries. Rule of law work is working with legal institutions in other countries to help make laws, help implement laws, and enforce laws that would benefit communities that are normally disenfranchised.
In many cases, it can mean setting up the fundamental framework of the law and the structure for that in countries and environments where that does not exist.
There is so much corruption and people can be bought off in different countries. The court access to justice and access to the courts is not realistic or it's daunting. Being a lawyer and having someone to guide you through that process and advocate for you is important here and important in other countries because of the lack of public defenders.
There are not a lot of lawyers in the countries that I have traveled to where you have well-funded systems that people can have an attorney free of charge and help advocate for them. People are on their own. It struck me coming from the United States, where we are so lucky that if you can't afford a lawyer, you can get one anyway. In most other countries, that's not the situation.
That is interesting to think about it. It helps with the asymmetry that exists in certain cases. That is unique to our system to have that provided to people. It’s a nice reminder of things where we are at least working to get right in our own system.
As you mentioned, I can't say that every state in the United States has public defender offices. There are several states that don't. It’s that injustice or lack of access to justice is not only international, but it's unfortunately also here in some of our states.
You went to law school looking for that additional tool to make a difference. Did you go straight to the Public Defender’s Office or did you choose some other path first?
I chose to become a law clerk for a judge in DC Superior Court. That was a very interesting experience. I had a lot of expectations about, “This is going to be great. I'm going to learn all this information. I'm going to practice like I'm an attorney.” Unfortunately, that was not my experience. The judge that I worked for mainly had me writing up basic forms. I was not asked to be in the courtroom regularly. I was relegated to what I would call grunt work. That was disillusioning at that point.
Speak up more and be an advocate for yourself.
Some of the things that I learned from that were that I needed to speak up more and advocate for myself, which is ironic because I went to law school to advocate for other people. In that experience, I needed to advocate for myself and talk about my expectations and what I had to offer, which was more than he was expecting or asking for.
That is certainly a different experience. When we think about clerkships, most often, it's federal court clerkships and that's a different experience. Was that a one-year position as well or was it longer?
It was just a one-year position. The positive thing that came out of that is I realized, “I don't want to do this.” What was my passion to begin with? It was international law. I'm aspiring to do rule of law work. I took a leap of faith. I did not go to a law firm. I packed my bags, packed up my apartment, and went to Cape Town, South Africa, where I volunteered with a center there that was helping to make new laws in South Africa. Specifically, South Africa at the time did not have any nonprofit law. It was all corporations' private law. I became a part of this big group researching laws from around the world and deciding what language that law would look like in South Africa. You have to make good things come out of challenges.
That’s exciting in your wheelhouse of, as you said, the reasons you went to law school, to begin with. It takes a lot of initiative to go figure that out where you might go that could be helpful in that regard. It's not like they would come to law school recruiting people to do those initiatives. It takes gumption on your part to discover the opportunity and then to take it. That sounds pretty cool. How long were you working on that project in South Africa?
I have been working on it for six months. As you said, it does take a lot of gumption. Sometimes it's important to take charge of your future. When I resigned from the clerkship, I did my own research, found the internship, packed my bags, packed up my apartment, flew there by myself, not knowing anyone, and landed in the beautiful Cape Town, South Africa. I figured it out from there. It’s something that I would encourage a lot of women to do. Think beyond whatever constraints you have in your mind about what is possible. You would be surprised at what you can achieve if you are creative and bold enough to take some steps.
You talked about nonprofits and laws concerning nonprofits. Before you left, did you see some results or fruition of the work that you had done?
Unfortunately, no. In South Africa, as in many countries making new laws takes a while.
That’s been my experience too. Anything international, you play a role in moving it forward, but it takes a while.
I did not see the fruits of my labor immediately, but years later, I was able to see what happened as they implemented the law. It’s an honor to have been a part of that process.
It takes a village and many people to do to get to that point where you achieve a change like that. After the international work, is that when you turn to Public Defender’s Office or other work? When did you come back to being in the US as opposed to internationally?
After six months, I came back to the US and I ended up becoming a contractor for the Department of Homeland Security in Washington, DC, and their legal department, where we vetted complaints about people who felt they were discriminated against by customs border protection or the Department of Homeland Security and dealt with a number of issues. For example, one of the issues was the treatment of women who were wearing headdresses and being searched in an improper way. Our job was to investigate the complaint and respond to the complainant.
That’s continuing with you are wanting to serve and assist those who might not be the most privileged in society and trying to help them through the law. That seems like the common thread, whether it's at home in the US or internationally.
Be a part of the change you want to see in the world.
That is my motto, “Be a part of the change you want to see in the world.”
How has your work as a public defender helped you make that change that you want to see in the world? I know that, to some degree, it’s a person by person and client by client basis in that setting where you can make a difference for an individual. I was curious how that fits in with your overall approach to the law.
Becoming a public defender was the perfect fit for me because it was about legal justice, social justice empowering people, and being a public defender allowed me to do that. When I first started, it was quite easy. It was misdemeanors. I know my approach was a holistic one. Someone was here for a misdemeanor charge, but most often, there were other issues going on in that person's life. Treat them like a person or human who deserves respect. By the time they got to me through an arrest process, they were dehumanized, scared, and didn't exactly know all the time what was going on and what the process was.
To educate and be an advocate for my clients was important to me. Beyond that, holistically look at their situation and the underlying causes. Is it that they are in a domestic violence relationship? Are they unemployed? Do they have some other case in their background that is preventing them from finding a job? I always try to help empower people to make their own decisions and to look at how complicated each individual's life is. It's not always linear. It is so important to look at a holistic approach.
As we have discussed, sometimes the justice system itself may not encourage that in a particular setting. There is one in which that is encouraged and where you have worked as well, which is in the collaborative court system in Orange County. I know there are other courts like that around the country, whether they are called drug treatment courts or other kinds of courts. It’s a unique model in the criminal justice system. You wanted to talk about collaborative courts and how that works.
I am so passionate about collaborative courts. It's an alternative model to the criminal justice system to treat the person as a whole and understand how they got to where they are now in the system. To try and get them back to where they were beforehand. What I have come to understand through my experience is that it's not one thing that leads people into the system. There are a number of factors that go on. The collaborative courts take people and look at not the crime they allegedly committed, but why and what's going on in their lives that led them there.
Oftentimes you find it's perhaps some domestic violence that is going on, a recent loss, trauma, or a loss of a job. All these contributing factors make us define our lives and how we experience our lives. These collaborative courts acknowledged that and started treating all the areas that are in deficit for that person. If they have a drug problem, we give them drug treatment and therapy. We have experts in all these regions. It’s not just me doing it. We bring in real experts to address it.
It’s a collaborative court for a reason. All the parts of the court system and the justice system are working together to help the individual become once again a functioning and productive member of their family and community. The Probation Department, the DA's office, the defender, the court, the mental health professionals, if necessary, all of those people are involved in sort of working together to figure out the best approach to help this person get up to a positive functioning level for themselves and in society.
It's unlike regular criminal courts, where you have people pitted against each other. All these partners that you spoke about, the probation, the public defender or criminal defense attorney, everyone sits around a table and discusses the plan for this person given their individual needs, challenges, etc. It's a beautiful process. It's been proven to be very sustainable. You are less likely to see someone come back into the criminal justice system after having gone through this program.
You are getting to some of the root causes or events that led to the other events down the line and resolving those so that there is no future criminal conduct. The thing that I have seen from those courts is the amazing ripple effect of the people when they graduate from the court. It’s pretty rigorous. It's a couple of years usually before they graduate and to see the change, not only in themselves but their family. Seeing their family come back together, their workplace then, and then they are able to contribute and give back to the community as well. It's amazing to see that ripple effect of one individual being made whole and how that ripples out through the community. It’s a net positive.
It’s like that village effect. That one person brings back all this to the village. Those graduation ceremonies are so moving. You even have probation officers crying because this person who came in one way is coming out a totally different person. It’s quite inspiring and I hope that other states utilize this model.
Be true to the core values that build our society.
It can be applied to a number of different settings. There are mental health courts, drug courts, a veterans court in California. There are a number of different things.
We got a court for almost everything.
It’s becoming much more expansive and it started narrowly, but I suppose that's an indication of its success in certain areas and wanting to replicate those in others. I will think of it that way in terms of people seeing the positive effects, both to the justice system and the individuals in the community from the courts in one context. They seek to apply it in other contexts where it might work as well.
It’s a great investment into our community and our justice system.
It was not something I had learned about until a few years ago. To see it in action is very gratifying. That must have been a wonderful thing for you to work in, especially given your interest in the law to treat the whole person in the context of true justice in that way for individuals and for the community.
It’s so much so that I would love to see that model even go international. That might take a while, but it is so successful statistically and otherwise.
When I first saw it in action, I thought immediately of international principles of restorative justice. It resonates with that in terms of what the human rights courts can provide for restorative justice for our community. Even some tribunals were set up with restorative ice principles in an international setting. It’s local, but it seems to draw on some of the same principles. It does not surprise me that you are thinking, “In individual countries, this would be helpful within their own systems instead of having them imposed through an international system.” It’s got similar resonating principles with that.
I wanted to talk as well about your Bar Association leadership. It’s quite an accomplishment to be the president of a major Bar Association in our state. I wanted to talk to you about that, about the process of doing that, that election process, and also what you learned from that and any leadership lessons you could share from your year as president during the continuing challenges of COVID. Let’s talk about becoming president of the Bar Association and what’s involved in that, the campaign, and what you learned from that process.
The way it works with the Orange County Bar Association is you’re campaigning for secretary, you move up to treasurer, president-elect, and then president. Afterward, president of the Charitable Fund. It’s a big process. The Orange County Bar Association is fortunate to have over 7,000 members. We have lawyers, judges and law students. It is a very robust community and very competitive to run for office. In fact, you need to be chosen to even run. How the OCBA works is they choose two candidates to run against each other.
I was chosen and my opponent was a very well-known man in the community from a very wealthy family. He was and still is adored by many. As a public defender and a female, and not having the resources monetarily or knowing as many people versus my opponent’s situation where he had he knew so many people. I felt like I was at a disadvantage.
I was told by several people that I was at a disadvantage and several times, a male judge told me, “Larisa, don't worry. You will run again.” Implying that, “When you lose because this guy is so amazing, run again.” I can't believe I did this. I looked at him and I said, “Thank you, your Honor, but I don't plan on losing.” He’s like, “Just promise me, Larisa, you will run again.” I'm like, “Your Honor, with all due respect, I don't plan on losing.” The lesson here is I did not realize I could believe in myself that much and stand up for myself in a polite way to a very well-known and respected judge who was basically saying I'm going to lose.
That drove me to believe in myself more than I ever have because people in the community thought I was going to lose. I had to double down on myself, believe in myself, and fight twice as hard as my opponent. That's what I did. What I found that was interesting about my campaign was that I mobilized a lot of women lawyers who were friends, colleagues, and wanted to be a part of this movement to get me elected even though I was completely the underdog and told that several times.
Some of the lessons I learned that I want to share with so many women is to believe in yourself, always, despite whatever anyone says. You can accomplish anything. It might take some time and it's going to be hard, but you can do it. It was such an upset when I won. Jaws were dropping. I had the great pleasure of winning and then going on to ascend to become OCBA President.
That was a challenging campaign. At least in the Orange County Bar Association, you can run twice in that secretary role. Very often, people will run and then run again and become president the second time. Even in that setting, you're prevailing on the first time you were put up as is remarkable, all around for our election process. I thought you had a lot of grit and focus in that campaign and probably more than you thought you had.
Let others hear your voice for the betterment of your community.
It was good to see you blossom in the course of that campaign. Having then served as a president, were there any surprises once you became president? Of course, COVID was a surprise in terms of what you had to deal with for running the association. Was there anything surprising about it or something important that you learned from the presidency itself in terms of leadership?
During my year, there were a number of social justice issues in our country. There was a lot of anti-Asian hate being promulgated. There was the Black Lives movement. There was so much going on beyond our small community that you could not help but feel, acknowledge, and want to want to address. Even though things were happening nationally and to some extent locally, I had to make hard decisions about issuing statements on behalf of the Orange County Bar Association. You would not think that that would be controversial, but it was.
I ended up making decisions to issue statements that promoted connection, community and unity that were anti-violence and anti-discrimination. I did get some unfortunate responses that disagreed vehemently. Some of those responses were not nice. I often wondered, “Would they say it if I were a male?” It was tough to take, but I knew I had done the right thing.
I learned from being a leader during these tough times to be true to yourself. Be true to what you know are the core values that our society is built upon. It's diversity, freedom of speech, and a number of things. That’s where I anchored myself. When I got those emails that were saying, “Why are you making a statement about this?” I was able to confidently respond and stand my ground, which is tough sometimes. We have over 7,000 members and a lot of lawyers who always have opinions.
I was going to say everybody has different opinions. They can be vocal about those and want to share them. That’s a challenge. On the one hand, it's good that they feel comfortable sharing these things, but there are downsides to that as well. Making decisions and things that you did not think were particularly controversial. Yet there's controversy. That can certainly be a challenge on top of everything else that you were dealing with in terms of COVID, adjusting our programming to that, and the Bar Association's efforts to maintain community, which is very hard when people can't gather together.
Being able to face that adversity and be true to myself as a leader was challenging but good. I learned a lot from that. I want to tell other women to stand their ground. We are often not socialized to make tough decisions and then defend them. Sometimes we pedal back, but with the right research, if you are convicted and you feel strongly about something, it's okay to make your voice heard, especially if it's for the betterment of your community and others.
With your term concluding as President of the Bar Association, you mentioned that you are leading the Charitable Fund. What does the Charitable Fund do?
The Charitable Fund raises money for a lot of the legal organizations that are operating in Orange County. Legal aid centers, domestic violence centers, homeless shelters, and any number of legal nonprofits that are helping people who are struggling in various facets. Again, right up my alley. I’m looking forward to raising a lot of money for these charities if I can. That’s an important aspect of the Bar Association too. Its charitable arm, it’s just not an organization that helps members, lawyers who are practicing, or law students. It helps the community at large. That's a very important aspect of the Orange County Bar Association, serving our attorneys and serving the community that we serve.
That’s in the mission statement. That’s an important implementation of the mission. Raising as much money as possible and then donating it, giving it away to different organizations that apply different grants to different legal nonprofits.
There are incorporated nonprofits operating with budgets, so they submit a request for funding and have to provide a whole bunch of information. It’s very thorough. We interview them and go through all their paperwork to identify what they are asking for their needs. The only downside is we never have as much money as we want to give to what they need. That’s the hard part, but we keep trying.
There are so many great programs that have been helped through the Orange County Bar Association Charitable Fund to continue to serve the community and their legal needs. It’s a nice reward after your presidency of the Bar Association, to be able to help fund legal nonprofits through the Charitable Fund.
It's a part of my theme and my passion. It is a nice befitting wrap-up.
It's fun for you to do that. I have a question. You would think of most of the people who become involved in bar leadership, and most often it's true. Those in private practice or whether it's in a large firm or a small firm, usually private practitioners are involved in bar leadership. How did you become interested in being on the Board of Directors and then running for and becoming President of the Bar Association?
That's true that most people come from the private sector because they want to drum up business. They want to give back to the community, but primarily they want to drum up business. As a public defender, I don't need to drum up business. It's all around me, it's in the community. My first foray with the Orange County Bar Association was in the community outreach committee, which is volunteering with the community where we packed lunches, had dog adoptions, supported various clinics and domestic violence organizations, and a number of nonprofits. That was our mission and we volunteer.
When I got involved and saw that aspect of the Bar Association, I thought, “This is great. This is what we should be doing.” We want to empower our lawyers to be better and do their jobs better and affect and better the greater community. I then got involved with a number of other committees that were like the community outreach, including the pro bono committee, which I was part of starting. We have created opportunities for lawyers to do pro bono work. Unlike making sandwiches and raising money, they would use their legal skills for those who needed it and could not afford it.
Follow your heart. Do what you need to do, and you’ll figure it out.
I was a leader in the homeless task force. I know that homelessness is pervasive across our nation. We have been trying to tackle it here in Orange County as well. We had a homeless task force where we, combined with judges and other lawyers, worked with one of our main shelters downtown to try and give legal help. Not just sandwiches but also help do expungements and help direct people in the right directions where these underlying criminal issues are holding them back from becoming whole again.
That’s a different path to leadership and the Bar Association. I wanted to make sure you mentioned that because it can seem like, “I mostly see private-sector lawyers here and what aspect of the bar attracted you.” That makes a lot of sense given your background and your interests in the other things that the bar does for the community. I wanted to wrap up with the lightning-round questions that I tend to ask folks. Which talent would you most like to have but don’t?
I would like to sing. I have a horrible voice. I'd like to sing,
Who are your favorite writers?
Maya Angelou and the writer of the book, Power of One, which became the movie that inspired me. Those are the two main ones. There are too many to remember.
Who is your hero in real life?
Mother Teresa. That might not be a surprise, but her selfless work for the poor and the people who were completely discarded was so inspiring. That’s part of why I do what I do. I want to help those who are so disenfranchised and empower them because it does not seem fair that for where you are born, that's your experience. I'm lucky to have been born here, but other people in other states and cities are not. It’s so important to give back, for everyone to do that in whatever capacity that they are called to.
For what in your life do you feel most grateful?
My family, that's a pretty standard answer. It's because they allowed me to be me. I was not an easy child growing up. I was very argumentative. One might argue that I was an attorney from a young age. That was not always easy. That’s what helped me become who I am and accomplish all the things that I have been able to accomplish. They also taught me to speak up, advocate, and don't be afraid.
Those are all good, solid things to start from and to build on in your life. Given the choice of anyone in the world, who would you like to have as a dinner guest?
Aung San Suu Kyi from Myanmar. I have traveled to Myanmar. I did some rule of law work there, and as people might know, that country is going through some tough times again. The military has taken over. She is on house arrest. I would love to sit down with her and find out how she is continually inspired to do her work, despite all the obstacles and all the challenges. This is the second time she's been under house arrest, who knows for how long. How do you mentally and spiritually stay connected and be able to function and have hope?
We are all going through dark times right now with the pandemic. It's affected all of us in one way or another. Her words would be inspiring about her experience and being trapped, which a lot of us feel now. Not to diminish what's going on with her and the tragedies that are happening in Myanmar. She is such a strong female leader and has taken bold moves at the expense of her own safety and health. I would like to meet with her.
Last question. What is your motto if you have one?
This is a little cheesy and a little dated. There was a movie in the ‘80s or the ‘90s. It's called Better Off Dead with John Cusack. It’s the scene where John Cusack is trying to learn how to ski the highest and scariest mountain there is out there. His friend is there to give him this advice. As John Cusack is looking down at the steep hill and thinking, “How am I going to get down there? How am I going to do this?” His friend turns to him and he says, “Go that way very fast. If something gets in your way, turn.”
At first, it's the most ridiculous advice. It can be applied in life because so much of what you go through and what you have been through, or the scary things that you are trying to do. They are so daunting, they are terrifying, and it's so easy to be paralyzed, but sometimes you need to do it. You need to go that way and you will figure it out. That's certainly what I have learned in my career. I follow my heart. I'm running for Bar Association president despite the scary factor and what I was up against. I went that way really fast and I turned when I need to. It worked out.
I have forgotten that scene in that movie, but that's a good and fundamental description of what's required and it does apply to so many things in life. Thank you so much for sharing that and reminding me of that as well. Thank you so very much for joining us on the show. I appreciated your insights, your heart, and how you have used your heart as well as the law in your practice and in leading the Bar Association.
Thank you for the invitation. It's in my honor.