Capitol Weekly’s Top 100: Karen Getman

87. Karen Getman

Attorney Karen Getman is the founding partner of the powerhouse political and governmental law firm Olson Remcho, based in Oakland. She is also a major player in education funding through her work for the California Teachers Association. That was on full display this year as the organization had a near knife fight with Gov. Newsom over education dollars in the woefully hurting state budget. The CTA ultimately won out. Getman got her start in the legendary attorney Joe Remcho’s law firm. In 1999, Gov. Gray Davis named her the first woman to chair the Fair Political Practices Commission. When her four-year term ended, she returned to Remcho’s firm around the time when he died in a helicopter accident in 2003. Seventeen years later, the Remcho law firm merged with another Democratic political law firm, forming Olson Remcho, with Getman named its first managing partner. She got her bachelor’s from Yale and her law degree from Harvard.

Updated Aug. 7, 2024