Tara Dudum is a partner with Newmeyer Dillion’s Walnut Creek office. A native to the Bay Area, Tara is passionate about helping her community solve its most pressing legal issues. Surrounded by a family of self-starters and entrepreneurs, she is always mindful of the unique challenges and burdens faced by businesses, employers, and property owners and is passionate about moving them through those often uncharted waters safely.
Tara’s practice focuses primarily on business and employment law and her clients span across industries, including retail, e-commerce, real estate, manufacturing, hospitality, and beyond. She often acts as outside counsel for clients, providing day-to-day legal advice to owners, executives, supervisors, and human resource professionals.
Tara’s practice is grounded in a client-centered approach, in which she prioritizes client communication above all else. She understands that only when she is armed with critical insights gained through direct and continuous client engagement can true value be delivered to her clients’ businesses and lives. This approach allows her to craft legal solutions tailored to her clients’ specific business needs and goals, both immediate and long-term, without sacrificing efficiency. No matter the legal issue, Tara strives to provide every client with superior, innovative, and effective legal counsel.
Employment Counseling & Litigation
Tara provides day-to-day counseling to employers on a variety of human resource matters such as classification issues, wage and hour disputes, leaves of absence, accommodations, and employee hiring, discipline and termination. She seeks to mitigate her clients’ risks by staying abreast of ever-changing employment laws and advising clients on employment practices and policies before issues arise. Tara’s counseling frequently extends beyond drafting into the actual implementation of employment policies, guiding executives, human resource professionals, and supervisors throughout the process.
Her thoughtful and practical approach to employment matters has enabled clients to avoid disputes that would have otherwise resulted in litigation. When faced with litigation, Tara works efficiently, while striving to deliver superior results through mediation, arbitration, and trial, if necessary.
Tara has also successfully defended clients before numerous administrative agencies and appellate boards, including the Department of Labor Standards Enforcement, Workers Compensation Appeals Board, Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board, Department of Fair Employment and Housing, US Department of Labor, and US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Intellectual Property
Tara focuses on brand protection and works extensively with clients to help secure, maintain, and protect their intellectual property. She helps identify opportunities to strengthen the value of her clients’ intellectual property assets, including trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets, and works vigorously to enforce clients’ intellectual property rights in the global market.
Tara understands the unique challenges facing companies seeking to protect their copyrights online and has extensive experience in effectively protecting copyrights through pre-litigation claims and utilization of Digital Millennium Copyright Act notices.
Tara has prosecuted numerous trademark applications and assisted clients through trademark litigation and the negotiation of co-existence agreements.
Business Counseling & Litigation
Tara partners with her clients to bring their ideas and goals to fruition. Tara often serves as outside general counsel for businesses and works to identify potential issues and provide practical and innovative solutions.
Her business counseling practice includes business formation and compliance, corporate governance and restructuring, preparation of agreements for commercial transactions and the protection of proprietary information. She also counsels clients on various business certifications that can further serve and strengthen their long-term goals, including women and minority-owned business certifications.
Tara has represented business owners in pre-litigation and litigation involving claims of breach of fiduciary duties, unfair competition, trade secret misappropriation, breach of contract, and fraud.
Tara has also represented commercial and residential property owners in unlawful detainer proceedings and counseled clients through product recalls with the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Awards & Recognition
- Selected to the 2022 Northern California Rising Stars list by Super Lawyers
Admissions
- California, 2014
Education
- University of San Francisco School of Law (J.D., 2014)
- Certificate in Business Law
- San Francisco State University (B.A., 2009)