"Lessons Learned in 2004"

In December 2003 Kamala D. Harris was elected as the first woman District Attorney in San Francisco's history and the first African American woman in California to hold the office. A successful prosecutor in Alameda County and San Francisco, DA Harris served in the San Francisco District Attorney's Office as the Managing Attorney of the Career Criminal Unit from 1998-2000. She then served as the head of the San Francisco City Attorney's Division on Families and Children. DA Harris was raised in Berkeley. Her parents, both professors, were active in the civil rights movement and instilled in Harris a strong commitment to justice and public service. That commitment led Harris to Howard University, America's oldest black university, and then to Hastings College of Law.