Tamara Rowles joins Keffrey Law as Of Counsel with a focus on catastrophic personal injury, product liability, financial services, real estate, and general commercial matters.  She has extensive experience in all aspects of litigation from investigation and complaint, complex class action discovery, dispositive motions, depositions, trials, and post-trial appeals, representing both plaintiffs and defendants in state and federal court. 

Ms. Rowles has two decades of legal experience, primarily on the defense side.  She is also a certified mediator and a licensed real estate sales agent with Berkshire Hathaway California HomeServices California Properties, which allows her to draw on a broad wealth of experience when representing clients whose cases have complex issues and fact patterns.  She utilizes all aspects of her experience to find creative and innovative ways to resolve disputes efficiently and expediently.

Out of law school, Tamara joined Nixon Peabody LLP where she focused on aviation products liability.  She spent the majority of her law firm career at Reed Smith LLP (a top-30 global law firm) in the financial services and products liability groups where she represented several Fortune 500 companies.  While at Reed Smith, Tamara supervised large teams of associates in document reviews for complex class action litigation.  She also served as the senior associate on two notable trial teams.  The first obtained a multi-million-dollar punitive damages award after a six-week trial, and the second lost after an eight-week trial but the team later obtained a directed verdict win for the client on appeal in a class action financial services case.  At Reed Smith, Tamara successfully wrote and argued dispositive motions and she was especially sought after for expert and percipient witness depositions and pre-trial preparation including motions in limine, mock trial, and jury selection.

In 2012, Tamara left the law firm after becoming a certified mediator. She founded Constructive Counsel, PC, a boutique mediation practice specializing in real estate, partnership, and neighbor disputes, where she achieved over an 85% settlement rate on the day of mediation.  In 2015 she moved from Los Angeles to the Santa Ynez Valley (wine country), where she served as in-house counsel for Thompson Vineyard LLC and Dovecote LLC, handling a variety of matters from real estate disputes, winery licensing, and the occasional employment matter.

Tamara was valedictorian of her high school, attended University of California, Berkeley as an Alumni Scholar, and graduated from University of California, Los Angeles.  After college she spent a year teaching English in Beijing, P.R.C.  She attended law school at University of California, Davis where she served as Senior Articles Editor of Law Review.   

In addition to her legal career, Tamara has served as a Court Appointed Special Advocate (guardian ad litem) for children who were victims of abuse.  Appointed in 2020 by the Board of Supervisors, she currently serves as Commissioner on the Santa Barbara County Civil Service Commission where she oversees investigations and hearings for Santa Barbara County civil service employees.

Community

• Commissioner, Santa Barbara Civil Service Commission, since 2020
• Past service for CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate)
• CADre mediator panel member, Santa Barbara County
• Creator of SYV Stories, a podcast highlighting important community stories in the Central Coast of California

Education

Ms. Rowles earned her J.D. at King Hall School of Law, University of California, Davis, and her B.A. from University of California, Los Angeles

Ms. Rowles is also a mediator certified by the Loyola Center for Conflict Resolution and has extensive training through the prestigious Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution at Pepperdine Law School