DONALD K. TAMAKI
Senior Counsel
[email protected] | 415-788-9000
Donald K. Tamaki is a Senior Counsel at Minami Tamaki LLP. Prior to January 1, 2021, he was the firm's Managing Partner.
For over 40 years, Mr. Tamaki has specialized in providing value-driven legal counsel to entrepreneurs, privately-held companies, and nonprofit corporations, with special focus on commercial leasing, personnel and employment law, corporate governance and other internal practices, licensing, acquisition, and other business transactions.
For 22 years straight (2004-2025), Mr. Tamaki has been selected to Northern California Super Lawyers, and has received the highest rating for competency and ethics, AV® Preeminent™, from the Martindale-Hubble attorney directory. He is the recipient of the ABA Spirit of Excellence Award (2020), the National Asian Pacific Bar Association Trailblazer Award (2003), and the State Bar of California Loren Miller Award (1987).
In keeping with the firm's tradition of community service, Mr. Tamaki served on the pro bono team that reopened the landmark Supreme Court case of Korematsu v. the United States, overturning Fred Korematsu's conviction for refusing as an American citizen to be incarcerated on account of his racial ancestry. Mr. Tamaki is past member of the board of Glide Foundation and is the board president of the San Francisco Japantown Foundation.
In 2021, he was appointed by California Governor Gavin Newsom to serve on the nine-member California Reparations Task Force that produced the groundbreaking Final Report comprehensively documenting the cumulative impact of 246 years of enslavement, another 100 years of Jim Crow oppression, and decades more of segregation, and to recommend to the Legislature what California should do to address the resulting compounding and cascading harms.
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Education
J.D., University of California, Berkeley School of Law, 1976
B. A., University of California, Berkeley, Phi Beta Kappa, 1973
Admissions
California, 1976
U.S. District Court, Northern District of California
U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Professional & Bar Association Memberships
Bar Association of San Francisco
Asian American Bar Association
Community
Equal Justice Society, Board Member
San Francisco Japantown Foundation, Board Member and Former President
Achievements
ABA Spirit of Excellence Award (2020)
National Asian Pacific Bar Association Trailblazer Award (2003)
State Bar of California Loren Miller Award (1987)