Our Team
Our Santa Rosa Law Firm has several teams of experts with decades of experience to provide specialized and responsive service to you. A partner with substantial experience supervises every matter and is always available for consultation. Our associates and paralegals are well trained in their specialties and work together with our outstanding staff to meet your needs. This team approach results in excellent service and greater client satisfaction.
We are loyal to our clients and all problems are handled with professional competence, efficiency, candor, confidentiality, honesty and integrity. We will never compromise these core principles.
Attorneys
Michael G. Watters
Managing Partner, Founding Partner
Michael G. Watters is a trial attorney (since 1974) with extensive trial as well as significant appellate experience. As the head of the firm’s Litigation Department, Mr. Watters specializes in all aspects of trial work, with emphases on complex civil litigation, business litigation, employment litigation, family law (divorce, child custody), elder financial abuse and insurance. He also defends professional licensees and handles appeals as well as is available at a litigation consultant and an expert witness.
Rated AV® Preeminent™ by Martindale-Hubbell for over 25 years
Daniel E. Davis
Founding Partner
Daniel E. Davis is a both an attorney and a Certified Public Accountant (inactive). Mr. Davis is a California State Bar Certified Tax Specialist with his practice emphasizing business law, tax and estate planning, and he has handled significant business transactions including $100+ million mergers and acquisitions.
Rated AV® Preeminent™ by Martindale-Hubbell
Deborah G. Corlett
Partner
Deborah G. Corlett is a Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust and Probate Law by The State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization (since 2003). She emphasizes estate planning, trust administration, and probate and trust litigation in her law practice.
Rated BV® Distinguished™ by Martindale-Hubbell
Gary Nelson
Partner
Gary C. Nelson is a business attorney focusing on business law and tax law. Mr. Nelson has received several CALI Excellence for the Future Awards for his academic achievements in Constitutional Law, Entertainment Law and Remedies, and a Witkin Award for Academic Excellence in Real Estate Transactions.
George J. Keller
Senior Counsel
George Keller is a highly experienced trial attorney with over 30 years of litigation experience. Mr. Keller has considerable experience in complex insurance coverage dispute matters, toxic torts, aviation law, and products liability cases. While the bulk of Mr. Keller’s practice has been devoted to defending businesses and individuals in civil litigation matters, Mr. Keller has represented plaintiffs, both corporations and individuals, in civil cases and trials involving products liability and negligence claims.
Graden Tapley
Senior Litigation Associate
Graden Tapley is a litigation attorney with his practice focused on the areas of probate, real estate, and construction litigation. In addition to family law matters and trust and estate litigation, he has also worked with debtors during the housing crisis, handling claims for wrongful foreclosure, workout agreements, and bankruptcies. Mr. Tapley has successfully tried court trials, jury trials, and has represented clients in arbitrations and mediations.
April S. Evans
Associate
April S. Evans is an attorney focused on estate planning. Ms. Evans also has experience in family law and dependency law, and she had the opportunity to work with several legal aid organizations as a certified law student, allowing her to advocate for clients in domestic violence prevention, and human trafficking recovery, and special education rights.
Legal Staff
Carol Notaro
Senior Litigation Paralegal
Carol has been a legal secretary and paralegal since 1983. Carol has vast experience in many areas of the law with emphasis in Civil Litigation, Trust & Estate Litigation, and Family Law. She graduated from Heald Business College with honors and a Legal Secretarial Diploma. She became a paralegal by declaration under Business & Professions Code 6450(c)(4) in 2003. Carol is a member of the Paralegal and Legal Support Section of the Sonoma County Bar Association as well as the National Association of Paralegals.
Ginger Orosco
Estate Planning Paralegal
Ginger has been with the firm since August 2001. She graduated with highest honors from Santa Rosa Junior College with an AA in Liberal Arts. She earned a paralegal certificate from City College of San Francisco in 2004. She works as an estate planning and business paralegal and is a Notary Public.
Kathy Wilder
Probate Paralegal
Kathy holds an AA degree (with Honors) from Napa Valley College, and a paralegal certificate from Sonoma State University’s Attorney Assistant Program. She has been a litigation, trust administration, and probate paralegal since 1990. She worked eight years for Coombs & Dunlap in Napa before joining the firm in 2000. She is a member of the Redwood Empire Association of Paralegals, and is a notary public. She is a San Francisco Bay Area native, and enjoys hiking, camping, yoga, and doing home improvement projects.
Staff
Ginger Brinlee
Receptionist
Ginger Brinlee is a newcomer to the firm, joining after a career that includes program and records management in the environmental industry and teaching history and English at the high school and college levels. Ginger worked her way through college as a reader and tutor and working in an answering service where she learned her considerable telephone skills. Inside or outside the office, Ginger uses her voice to make music and she leads or is involved with several musical groups.