Mr. Prather has established himself as “go-to” criminal defense lawyer with substantial experience representing individuals and companies in both state and federal criminal matters. He has been involved in a wide array of cases from simple assault and battery and driving under the influence matters to manslaughter, and to the most complex securities, biotech, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and financial fraud matters. Mr. Prather has handled cases locally, nationally and internationally. Mr. Prather has also represented clients in high-stakes complex civil litigations involving the False Claims Act. Mr. Prather has represented and counseled individuals and corporations in compliance procedures, internal investigations and investigations coordinated by the U.S. Department of Justice, the California Attorney General, local district attorneys offices, as well as other regulatory agencies such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administrative, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Commerce, Securities and Exchange Commission, California Department of Insurance and California OSHA.

Background

Prior to joining Clarence & Dyer, Mr. Prather was a key member of Rogers, Joseph, O’Donnell and Phillips' White Collar Criminal Defense Practice Group.  He represented dozens of individuals and corporations in a range of federal and state investigations and prosecutions.  Mr. Prather was also a trial attorney at the San Francisco Public Defender's Office where he represented criminal defendants charged with various crimes from petty misdemeanors to serious felonies and tried dozens of cases to verdict.  Mr. Prather was also an attorney at the Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco where he worked on a number of the organization’s more publicized anti-Asian violence cases including, United States v. Dr. Wen Ho Lee, Kuan Chung Kao v. Rohnert Park, and Truong v. San Francisco Housing Authority, a class action suit resulting in the SFHA’s overhaul and a consent degree that it provide housing with improved racial integration.

After receiving his undergraduate degree from the University of California at Santa Barbara and his law degree from Pepperdine University School of Law, Mr. Prather served as the judicial law clerk to the Honorable Robert M. Takasugi in the Central District of California and as the first judicial law clerk to the Honorable Edward M. Chen in the Northern District of California.

Fluent in Japanese, Mr. Prather also studied in Tokyo, Japan at Sophia University [Jochi Daigaku] and worked extensively in Tokyo prior to attending law school.

Teaching And Advising

Mr. Prather has been an invited speaker on a variety of topics including general and white-collar criminal defense, internal investigations, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, diversity in the legal profession, hate crimes and anti-Asian violence by the California State Bar, the Bar Association of San Francisco, and many academic institutions including, U.C. Berkeley, Davis, and Hastings and the University of San Francisco. He also was a panelist at both the 2005 and 2006 Bay Area Asian Pacific American Law Student Conferences at Santa Clara and Golden Gate Universities and the 2005 National Asian Pacific American Conference on Law and Public Policy at Harvard University.

Community And Professional Service

Recently, in October 2007, Mr. Prather was awarded the prestigious Unity Award by the Bar Association of San Francisco (BASF).  In 2005, the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA) named Mr. Prather one of the 21 “Best Lawyers Under 40” in the nation.  He has also been honored and recognized by a number of organizations, including the Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area (AABA) and the Japanese American Citizens' League.  Mr. Prather received AABA’s Joe Morozumi Award for Exceptional Legal Advocacy in 2005, the 2005 Pro Bono Award from the Asian Law Caucus and AABA’s Outstanding Service Award in 2004. 

Mr. Prather is the immediate past President of AABA for the 2007-2008 term having served as an officer and director to that organization for over seven years.  Mr. Prather is also a former member of the Board of Directors for BASF.  He is also the Chair of the Judicial Endorsement Committee for the Asian Bar of California and the Chair of the Robert M. Takasugi Public Interest Fellowship, providing monetary awards through the NAPABA Law Foundation to public interest minded law students.

Mr. Prather presently serves the Asian Law Caucus, Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach, and other legal organizations as an advisor on anti-Asian violence and hate crimes, work he began a decade ago at the Asian Law Caucus. Notably, Mr. Prather served as pro bono counsel in high-profile hate crime cases including, the Taraval Hate Crime Case in 2004, the first anti-Asian hate crime trial in San Francisco in several years, and the hate-motivated arson of a South-Asian family's home in Concord, California.  Mr. Prather also serves as pro bono counsel to the family of May Zhao, the Stanford University graduate student found dead in the trunk of her car and currently investigated by law enforcement authorities.

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In 2005, Mr. Prather was named one of the 21 “Best Lawyers Under 40” in the nation by NAPABA