Page 20 - Los Angeles Vol 4 No 5

Parachuting behind enemy lines. Fighting the Nazis in their own soil. Taking a solo mission to destroy an enemy satellite in German territory.
ese were the rst-hand accounts Dan Kramer, founding partner of Kramer Holcomb Sheik, heard from his grandfather, a World War II paratrooper. ese experiences of battle prepared his grandfather for the North Carolina courtroom as a skilled trial lawyer, where he gathered even more stories, and the retelling of all of them instilled Kramer’s desire to ght to win.
“ e way he was animated and told colorful anecdotes, being in trial almost sounded like a sport,” Kramer says. “Being on the eld of battle, the competition, ghting for a client. Civility is number one, but you’re advocating. You’re ghting.”
As an athlete in a driven family, Kramer—who grew up until age 7 in Atlanta and then Los Gatos, California— rst took his ght to the football eld and basketball court, but Kramer was destined for a di erent type of warfare.
“Probably when I was about 12 or 13, sports dominated my whole life, but I real- ized I was not going to be a professional athlete so I needed a fallback plan,” he says, explaining that practicing law was the natu- ral place for him to channel his competitive spirit. “I knew kind of young that’s what I wanted to do.”
Six weeks a er his graduation from South- western Law School, where he studied to be a corporate transactional attorney, Kramer took a post at insurance-defense rm Gilbert Kelly, where the managing partner thought Kramer would do well in front of 12 citizens. Within his rst 11 months of practicing law, Kramer was trying a case in front of a jury as rst (and only) chair.
“I was absolutely hooked from there,” he says, adding he was fortunate to have good mentors at the rm. “Immediately a er the verdict, I went from partner to partner at the rm o ering to try any case I could get my hands on. I knew I had so much to learn and the best way to do it was actually getting in front of a jury.”
He ended up trying seven cases in three years, all as rst chair. But as much as Kram- er enjoyed the challenge, he says, there was something missing.
“I had set out in my career to ght in court for the underdog, but I didn’t feel I was doing that,” he says, explaining he was defending big corporations and insurance companies. “I asked myself, ‘Is this what I want to be do- ing?’”
KRAMER MARRIED JENNIFER IN MAY 2018.
"I knew I had so much to learn
and the best way to do it was actually getting in front of a jury.”
ATTORNEY AT LAW MAGAZINE · LOS ANGELES · VOL. 4 NO. 4 20