Rice, W. Brent

Emily Doringer represents individuals and businesses defending against state and federal white collar criminal investigations and prosecutions, including those involving tax fraud, health care fraud, mail and wire fraud, mortgage and bank fraud, forfeiture, and occupational regulatory violations.  She represents clients during criminal investigations, throughout the criminal discovery process, at pretrial evidentiary hearings, at trial and on post-conviction direct appeals as well as pretrial writ petitions and post-conviction habeas corpus proceedings.

Emily began her legal career as a civil litigator, handling cases on behalf of both plaintiffs and defendants in disputes involving breach of contract, construction defects, personal injury, land use, employment discrimination and environmental regulation enforcement.  A large part of her civil litigation practice included defending California physicians against professional malpractice claims. 

Since 2003, Emily has focused her legal practice exclusively on criminal trials and appeals, defending against criminal prosecutions in state and federal courts, from trial level to appellate work.  She began her career as a criminal defense attorney in 2003, when she joined the firm of Blackmon & Associates in Sacramento, working on cases ranging from misdemeanor actions to multi-million dollar fraud cases and first degree capital murder prosecutions.  Joining Segal & Kirby LLP in 2011, Emily’s primary focus is on defending individuals and businesses involved in white collar criminal investigations and prosecutions.

Emily is a fourth generation native Californian, born and raised in the Sacramento area.  She pursued a liberal arts education at California State University, Humboldt and in 1997 returned to Sacramento to attend law school at the University of California, Davis.  She lives in the area with her husband and two children.

Among her many community activities, Emily enjoys volunteer work at the U.C Davis School of Law and at her children’s schools.  Emily has also been invited as a guest lecturer within the U.C. Davis Psychology Department, the Asian-American Studies Department, and at the U.C. Davis School of Law.

Representative Matters:

          Obtained defense verdict at trial concerning a breach of contract claim involving a construction project on a community college campus.

           Successful in defending against multiple summary judgment motions involving personal injury and professional malpractice cases.

           Obtained favorable state trial court evidentiary ruling in a murder prosecution, allowing the admission of expert testimony in an emerging area of psychology involving cutting edge brain imaging technology.

           Extensive experience litigating criminal search and seizure law, including challenging the sufficiency of search warrant applications, search warrant execution by law enforcement officers, and law enforcement wiretap applications in both state and federal prosecutions. Successfully appealed a criminal conviction in a burglary and electronic eavesdropping case on complicated search and seizure grounds.  Obtained favorable settlement results in a state case against a licensed psychiatrist involving alleged Business and Professions Code violations, and in a major federal narcotics prosecution, after raising complex search and seizure issues.

           Successfully appealed the sentence imposed in an involuntary manslaughter prosecution, based upon the trial judge’s errors at the sentencing hearing.  Upon re-sentencing, the client’s original sentence was reduced by half.

           Successfully challenged the special circumstances allegations included in a grand jury indictment for first degree murder on evidentiary and legal grounds, defeating the prosecution’s attempt to seek capital punishment.

           Obtained extraordinary writ relief in a capital murder prosecution after raising highly complex factual and legal issues related to the racial composition of the indicting grand jury, and following extensive evidentiary hearings in the trial court that included several days of expert testimony regarding the field of psychology, the cultural history of racial minorities in the United States, and involving detailed demographic statistical analyses.