Candidate for
District Attorney; County of Santa Clara

Karyn Sinunu is one of Santa Clara County's most distinguished public lawyers.

And she is a whole lot more: Teacher. Mother. Grandmother. Valedictorian. World traveler. Patient Advocate. As a woman who returned to the workforce after rearing her children and volunteering in the community, Karyn brings a wealth of real world experience to the office of the District Attorney.

A Bay Area native, Karyn worked throughout high school, after school and summers, at the law firm of Dolwig and Athearn in San Mateo. She attended Mills College where she majored in Philosophy and minored in the Psychology of early childhood development. She was active in student government and played varsity field hockey. She also worked in a variety of jobs, such as waiting tables at a Colorado resort and clerking in the Mills College development office. She was graduated with honors.

As a young mother with two children and a husband in law school, Karyn helped found the Hastings College of Law Day Care Center, enabling her to earn a living and stay with her young children. After her children were of school age, Karyn attended law school at Peninsula University, where she was Valedictorian of the class of 1985. During law school, she clerked for the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office and, upon graduation, joined the office as a Deputy District Attorney in 1986.

From the start, Karyn contributed to the high standards, efficient performance and cutting edge work of the office. After just five years and fifty jury trials, she was awarded the prestigious Napoleon Menard Trial Advocacy Award. She has written articles on disarming potentially violent criminals and developed a groundbreaking procedure for investigating child abuse crimes. She is also the author of widely used manuals on victims' rights and hate crimes persecutions, distributed to all California prosecutors.

Karyn is very proud of the accomplishments of her family. Her daughter Melissa is the chief operating officer of an educational software company and mother of five-year-old twins. Her son Alex teaches school in inner-city San Francisco. Her brother is a police sergeant and her sister is a professor of criminology at the University of Minnesota.

Karyn's innate curiosity and love of cultural diversity have taken her around the world. Recently her most memorable trips have been to Vietnam, where she toured the country on bicycle, and India, as a patient advocate with a Rotary International team of plastic surgeons. Closer to home, Karyn volunteers her spare time to Rotary, Habitat for Humanity and Special Olympics.