For more than 20 years, Harry Damkar prosecuted many of San
Benito County’s most notorious criminals. Now the former District
Attorney is gambling that the grass is greener on the other side of
the fence as he opens his own practice.
For more than 20 years, Harry Damkar prosecuted many of San Benito County’s most notorious criminals. Now the former District Attorney is gambling that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence as he opens his own practice.
Damkar, 50, has set up shop in a spacious office in the historic Porter House at the corner of Monterey and Sixth streets, just a block from the county courthouse, where he once practiced his profession. And he seems to like it.
“It’s a lot of fun,” Damkar said. “I’m really enjoying the fact that I’ve been able to handle a lot of areas of law that I was not able to with the DA’s office.”
The new cases include everything from child support and personal injury to boundary disputes.
“It’s been a really interesting variation in the type of work that I’ve been able to get into since opening up,” Damkar said.
Damkar, a married father of three who served as San Benito County District Attorney from 1983 through 2002, successfully prosecuted a number of high-profile cases.
He said he has no problem working the other side of the street as a defense attorney.
“It doesn’t feel any different than being a prosecutor,” Damkar said. “I think the job that I’m going to do on the defense side is to evaluate the case and see if there are any valid defenses, and to assist my clients in the best way that I can and to help the system arrive at a just disposition and what is best for my client.”
Damkar has not tried any local criminal cases yet because having stepped down as district attorney only a little more than three weeks ago, his name still appears on a number of the criminal complaints currently filed in court. It would be a conflict of interest for him to represent a defendant in a case that he charged as district attorney.
But in a month or so, after his name stops appearing on criminal filings, Damkar will start taking on local criminal cases as a defense attorney.
That is something that I will do,” Damkar said. “(Criminal law) is where I have the most experience in.”
But that isn’t his only legal experience. Damkar, who served as the County Counsel for several years, said he is also interested in practicing land use and real-estate issues.
“Right now, of course, in Hollister and San Benito County those are hot topics,” he said. “Beyond that, I’m also enjoying personal injury law.”
Damkar seems to be reinvigorated by the challenge of starting his own practice.
“I guess I’m like a kid in the candy store now that I’ve been out, because there are a lot of things I can pick and choose from,” he said.
This is not the first time Damkar has worked in the private sector. When he began practicing law in the late 1970s, he had his own practice for several years.
“In those days, my practice was primarily real estate, probate and some criminal cases,” Damkar said.
He considers himself fortunate that he has practiced in many different areas of law because San Benito County is a smaller community. Much like a physician who works as a general practitioner, taking on patients with a wide variety of maladies, Damkar said he took on a number of different types of cases.
“I did transactional work, I did small corporations, I set up small businesses and things like that,” he said.
But that kind of storefront legal service isn’t feasible anymore because of how complicated the legal system has become, Damkar said.
“Anymore today, you really just have to focus on just one, two, or maybe three at the most, practice areas,” he said. “If you try to do everything for everybody, like the old general practitioner like you see in the medical profession, you can’t really serve your clients well because you’re not really adept in all of those areas.”
Damkar said his focus will be on primarily three types of law – criminal, real estate and personal injury.
His previous time in private practice took him into courtrooms throughout the region, including Alameda, Santa Clara, San Benito, Monterey, Santa Cruz, Merced and Orange counties.
Despite years of arguing against other local attorneys in court, Damkar has kept a good relationship among local barristers.
“I honestly think my relationship is the same or better than it was a few weeks ago,” he said. “I would have to say that most of the local bar and I have remained pretty good friends.”
