Samantha W. Zutler

Samantha W. Zutler

Pronouns: she, her, hers

Samantha Zutler is the City Attorney of the cities of Healdsburg and Capitola.  Samantha serves as the Assistant City Attorney of Carmel-by-the-Sea and the Assistant Town Attorney of the Town of Tiburon.  As City Attorney, Samantha advises on a wide range of general municipal law issues, including the Brown Act, conflicts of interest, and public records requests.  She has also litigated writs challenging public records responses, constitutional challenges to land-use decisions, and contractual issues.  Samantha also advises regarding general land use matters, CEQA, and constitutional issues.

Samantha also maintains a specialty practice in labor and employment.  She regularly defends claims of discrimination and harassment, wage and hour claims, and claims of wrongful discharge.  She works with clients at all stages of the disciplinary process, from drafting and implementing new policies to defending employers in disciplinary appeals.  Samantha has represented public and private sector clients in individual, collective, and class actions, and has extensive experience in litigating employment discrimination claims.  Her clients include the City of Oakland, the City of Petaluma, the County of San Bernardino, and the County of Alameda.

Samantha is frequently called upon to conduct training for employees, managers and elected officials throughout California on a variety of topics, including ethics for public officials, Brown Act, prevention of sexual harassment, and best management practices.  Her experience ranges from conducting individual, one-on-one remedial trainings to group trainings for over two hundred employees.  Her audiences have included engineers, maintenance workers, police officers, firefighters, attorneys, mid-level and senior management employees, human resources personnel, Boards of Directors, City Councils, and the most difficult audience possible – lawyers.

Samantha lives in the bustling and vibrant city of San Francisco.  She serves as a volunteer mediator for Community Boards, a nonprofit that provides mediators to the community.

  • J.D., University of San Francisco School of Law
  • B.A., Sociology, University of Redlands
  • State Bar of California
  • Supreme Court of the United States
  • United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
  • United States District Court for the Central District of California
  • United States District Court for the Eastern District of California
  • United States District Court for the Northern District of California
  • United States District Court for the Southern District of California
  • Alameda County Bar Association, Labor & Employment Law Section
  • Bar Association of San Francisco
  • Barristers Club
  • Queen's Bench Bar Association
  • Selected to Northern California Super Lawyers, Rising Stars, 2013-2015