About Darrell Salomon

 
Darrell Salomon is a retired antitrust, libel, and employment law trial attorney. He is a fourth generation Californian who traces his ancestry on his mother Rosalie Pool's side to H.J. Pool, who came to California in a covered wagon in 1848, established a ranch near Santa Rosa, and became one of Sonoma County's first County Commissioners. Salomon's grandfather on his mother's side was the longtime elected county auditor of Sonoma County. Salomon's great grandfather on his father's side was the owner of a state-wide newspaper printing company. His father Joe Solomon was an independent motion picture producer in Hollywood. Born in San Francisco, Darrell was raised in Hollywood by his mother as a Catholic and educated in Catholic schools. In his junior year at Bellarmine College Preparatory, a Jesuit day and boarding school in San Jose, he won first place in extemporaneous speech in the National Speech and Debate Association's 1956 national speech finals. In his senior year he won the D'Alton Power Academic Scholarship to Georgetown University, given once each four years to a student from the State of California. At Georgetown he was an inter-collegiate debater and News Editor of the Hoya, the student newspaper. He earned his law degree from the University of San Francisco School of Law. Upon graduation he applied for employment to only one firm, the Law Offices of Joseph. L. Alioto, was hired, and spent the next decade as an associate and personal attorney of Mr. Alioto, a noted antitrust attorney and mayor of San Francisco.

During his time at the Alioto firm Salomon represented antitrust and employment law plaintiffs before federal courts throughout the nation and in the Supreme Court of the United States. He successfully twice argued and defended in the U.S. Supreme Court Ostrofe v. H.S. Crocker, 670 F.2d 1378, a landmark plaintiff's employment law/antitrust case in which the Ninth Circuit held that an employee terminated for refusing to engage in a nationwide price fixing conspiracy was entitled to treble damages and a mandatory award of attorneys' fees under the federal antitrust laws.

In 1986 Salomon joined the Am law 100 national law firm of Arter & Hadden (resident in its Los Angeles office) as an equity partner, where he remained until 1994, trying antitrust and employment cases statewide. He then returned to San Francisco by way of accepting a partnership in Keck, Mahin, and Cate, a Chicago based Am Law 100 national firm, becoming its senior west coast trial attorney. In 1996 he opened up his own firm, Salomon Law Group, PC, practicing antitrust and employment law statewide.

During his career Salomon was lead counsel in the national Industrial Labels antitrust class action. He was lead counsel in Fremont Unified School District v. Sun Microscopes, a nationwide school equipment price fixing class action. He argued for the co-conspirator antitrust jurisdiction rule before the Ninth Circuit in Sun Garden Piedmont Label Co. v. Sun Garden Packing Co. He represented the world's largest Honda motorcycle dealer in Tennessee in an antitrust jury case against American Honda. He represented Farr Company, an international filter company, in Los Angeles litigation challenging the then largest KKR leveraged buyout in history. He was lead counsel in numerous motion picture distribution cases in the west and a federal jury trial in Las Vegas on behalf of an interstate film exhibition chain. He defended The Diet Center, a national franchiser, in an antitrust trial in San Francisco. In a three month trial in San Francisco Superior Court he tried the "newspaper trial of the century" on behalf of the Independent Newspaper Group on unfair trade practice grounds against the San Francisco Examiner and the San Francisco Chronicle, resulting in a three million dollar verdict, settled post appeal, after enhanced fees had been awarded by the court for "the outstanding performance of counsel." In 2008 he litigated one of the few pregnancy discrimination jury cases to that time. In 2009 in Oakland he was lead counsel in one of the few individual wage and hour jury cases actually tried to conclusion before a jury, a case successfully settled after favorable verdict. His clients have ranged from individual clients on the plaintiff side to corporations on the defense side. Nationally experienced in the field of public official libel law, he has represented a number of political figures including Senator Dianne Feinstein, Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia, California Senator S.I. Hayakawa, California Senator Alan Cranston, California Assembly Speaker Leo McCarthy, and San Francisco Mayor Joseph L. Alioto.

Salomon is the former two term President of the San Francisco Civil Service Commission, and a former member of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission. He negotiated the settlement of the Officers For Justice litigation integrating all ranks of the San Francisco Police Department, previously an 85% white male institution, and wrote the City's first Affirmative Action Plan. He negotiated and passed rule changes to first provide for the entrance of women into the San Francisco Fire Department.

In January 2000 Salomon accepted a temporary assignment as Chief Assistant District Attorney of San Francisco by District Attorney Terence Hallinan, a progressive prosecutor, who retained him "to improve the performance of the office and its conviction rate," then the lowest of any major DA office in California. Upon arrival in the office Salomon launched a comprehensive trial training program for all prosecutors, trained and promoted winning trial lawyers, supplied each deputy for the first time with a personal computer to enhance their legal research, hired experienced trial lawyers from other DA offices (80% of his new hires and promotions went to minorities and women), strengthened office enforcement protocols against hard drug dealers, strengthened the criminal street gang unit by linking it to a statewide data base aiding identification of gang leaders, and expanded the use of "Drug Court," a program to help addicted drug dealers control their addiction through close court supervision in exchange for non prosecution. He initiated a non judicial program called "Community Courts" to deal with quality of life violations on the streets of San Francisco. His work improved the performance of the office from top to bottom without his being the subject of any filed discrimination or other complaint and without his having demoted of any of its felony managers.

While in the District Attorney office Salomon launched an Innocence Project aimed at freeing any erroneously convicted defendants, the first of its kind for a DA office in Northern California.

In late 2000 Salomon accepted appointment as General Counsel of the San Francisco Examiner and affiliated newspapers. There he litigated and negotiated the settlement of numerous executive employment cases and tried and won a federal antitrust lawsuit challenging the continued existence of the newspaper. In 2003 he returned to his law firm and resumed his statewide antitrust and employment law practice until his retirement in 2022.

Salomon has served as Adjunct Professor of the University of Santa Clara School of Law, and as Adjunct Professor of Legal Remedies at Golden Gate School of Law. He is a former elected member of the Board of Governors of the Consumer Attorneys of California. From 2016 to 2019 he was the appointed member of the California State Bar Committee on the Administration of Justice. He is a former weekly columnist for the San Francisco Independent and the San Francisco Examiner. A supporter of the performing arts, he has served as a member of the boards of the Los Angeles Symphony Chorale, the Marin Symphony Association and as a Trustee of the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center. Over the years he has substantially supported the United Negro College Fund. He is a recipient of the Fund's Distinguished Service Citation.

Salomon is a member of The Family Club of San Francisco, The University Club of San Francisco and the Society of California Pioneers. He has been married to his wife Christine since 1992. She is a graduate of the University of Arizona and a recently retired hospital registered nurse.

At the conclusion of his service as a city commissioner the San Francisco Board of Supervisors awarded Salomon a Certificate of Honor citing him as a "distinguished fourth generation San Franciscan, who has served his native City as a member of the Human Rights Commission, Civil Service Commission, War Memorial Board of Trustees and as a confidant to Mayors and Supervisors; known for his brilliant advocacy of just causes and as a trial attorney practicing in the courts throughout California." For over 40 years he has received the Martindale Hubble AV Preeminent standard, its highest rating, given to attorneys who are "ranked at the highest level of professional excellence for their legal expertise, communication skills, and ethical standards by their peers."
  "Salomon is a virtuoso in the courtroom."
--San Francisco Independent.

"Salomon is a high-profile attorney with plenty of political savvy."
--Matier & Ross, San Francisco Chronicle.

"He's been my attorney for years. I've seen Darrell Salomon in action, and I think he's a smart attorney."
--Publisher Ted Fang, quoted in the San Francisco Recorder.

"Salomon is a no-nonsense, plain spoken person. He is a hard ball litigator."
--Former San Francisco Public Defender Geoff Brown, quoted in the San Francisco Daily Journal.

"Salomon is a very aggressive and able litigator."
--Litigation partner Gary Halling of Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton, quoted in the San Francisco Daily Journal.

"Salomon has gone against some of the best lawyers in the country."
--Anti-trust attorney Joseph M. Alioto, quoted in the San Francisco Examiner.

"Darrell moves through a lot of circles. He knows people from the establishment, he knows people from the law world, and he knows Bohemian types--writers and journalists."
--Former California State Librarian and California historian Dr. Kevin Starr, quoted in the San Francisco Examiner.

"Salomon has a brilliant mind."
--Former San Francisco District Attorney Terence Hallinan, quoted in the San Francisco Recorder.
  "The Use of Video Tape Depositions in Complex Commercial Litigation", 51 California State Bar Journal, No. 1.

"The Use of Video tape Depositions", 83 Case & Comment, No. 2.

"The Cartwright Act: California's Little Used Antitrust Law", 16 C.T.L.A. Law Journal, No. 2.

"The Robinson-Patman Antitrust Commerce Requirement," 8 University of San Francisco Law Review, No. 3.