Our People
The lineup
Good counsel is a team sport. Ours is built from lawyers and professionals who know the difference between a set wave and a close-out — in the water and in a deal.
Name Partners
The founders
Our name partners declined, in the firm tradition, to be photographed. They sent their boards. We are advised this is the more accurate likeness anyway.
John E. Utah
John leads the firm’s litigation practice. A former college quarterback with a brief and rarely discussed career in federal service, he brought to the law a habit of total commitment — to the client, to the case, and occasionally to leaping before looking. Two knee surgeries later, he now limits the leaping to closing arguments.
Beau D. Bodhi
Beau reads a regulatory landscape the way he reads the ocean: patiently, from a respectful distance, and with total conviction that the right moment rewards those who wait. He chairs the coastal practice, chairs the annual beach cleanup, and maintains a quiet estate-planning practice for clients who live like there is no tomorrow.
Kira Riptide
Kira built the firm’s incident-response practice on a simple theory: panic is optional; currents are not. Clients caught in a fast-moving problem learn what every lifeguard teaches — don’t fight it head-on. Swim parallel with Kira until you’re clear of the rip, then come in with the set.
Attorneys
Counsel in the water
Marina Trestles
Marina advises property owners, municipalities, and marine businesses on shoreline access, easements, and coastal-development disputes. Colleagues trust her to remain calm when a routine permitting matter becomes a fifty-year storm.
Elliot Cardiff
Elliot handles contract disputes, emergency injunctions, and other matters requiring meticulous preparation and quick judgment. His case binders are immaculate. His meatball-sub orders are considerably less restrained.
Naomi Rincon
Naomi protects board shapes, fin systems, marine sensors, and the occasional suspiciously familiar wave logo. Before law school she worked in product design, where she learned that “inspired by” can become a surprisingly expensive phrase.
Graham Mavericks
Graham brings three decades of experience in vessel casualties, marine insurance, charter agreements, and cargo claims. He has navigated rough jurisdictional waters on four continents and maintains, gently but firmly, that not every negotiation needs to happen at dawn.
Priya Solimar
Priya counsels clients on incident response, privacy obligations, and vendor risk. She believes a good breach response resembles a good paddle-out: practiced beforehand, coordinated carefully, and never attempted alone against unknown attachments.
Theo Breakwater
Theo represents employers in workplace investigations, wage-and-hour matters, and employment litigation. His advice is direct, practical, and usually delivered before anyone has a chance to say “vaya con dios” to the employee handbook.
Camille Windansea
Camille works on acquisitions, leases, entitlements, and development projects up and down the coast. She is particularly good at translating planning-commission language into advice ordinary humans can act on.
Ronan Haleiwa
Ronan assists across the firm with research, diligence, and the ceremonial transportation of banker’s boxes. He lists “aviation law” as an interest, though the partners have clarified that this does not include unsupervised skydiving during business hours.
Professionals
The ones who actually run the place
Lucia Moonstone
Lucia manages complex filings, discovery productions, and trial logistics with near-tidal precision. She can locate a missing exhibit faster than most attorneys can admit they misplaced it.
Darius Swell
Darius supports the firm’s commercial and maritime matters with chronologies that make even chaotic disputes look navigable. His standing rule: every deadline deserves two reminders, and every team meeting deserves adequate sandwiches.
Celeste Ventura
Celeste oversees facilities, vendors, scheduling, and the thousand quiet details that keep the firm upright. She has survived two office moves, countless bar renewals, and one partner retreat mistakenly booked beside a competitive skydiving center.
Milo Sandbar
Milo manages the firm’s secure systems, business continuity, and its protected email environment. He distrusts mystery links, exposed passwords, and anyone who describes cybersecurity as “just an IT thing.”
Inés Pelican
Inés handles intake, event logistics, and client communications with unfailing discretion. She knows who is calling, which conference room is free, and why nobody should promise a same-day filing at 4:57 p.m.
Calder Zuma
Calder maintains matter files, retention schedules, and the firm’s institutional memory. He treats version control as a professional duty and labels drafts clearly enough to keep FINAL_v7_REALFINAL out of the record.
Utah, Bodhi & Riptide is an equal-opportunity employer. Surfing ability is not a hiring criterion. It is, however, noticed.