After more than 40 years of service, our friend and colleague, Diane Brychta retired on May 31, 2024. A native San Franciscan who grew up in the Castro District, Diane originally joined the firm as the legal assistant to Mike Kelly, for whom she had worked while he was an associate attorney at Sutton, Needham and Hull in the late 1970s. While at Walkup, she had a dizzying array of responsibilities including keeping Mike organized and pointed in the right direction, connecting with and comforting clients in the toughest times of their lives, assisting with the firm’s adaptation to changing technology, and contributing in innumerable ways to the firm’s growth and success. To say she has seen it all would be an understatement: from carbon paper and fax machines to everything on a memory stick, from walls lined with law books to digital libraries on each lawyer’s cell phone, from electric typewriters and Dictaphone transcription to voice recognition and Chat GPT, Diane has literally done it all. In addition to working as a legal assistant for over 30 years, she also served as the firm’s third office manager for a decade before transitioning into a position where she coordinated firm events, organized and ran focus groups, assisted with case intake and marketing, helped publish the firm’s Focus on Torts newsletter, and served as a reservoir of firm knowledge and traditions. Her free time now is well earned. Her presence at 650 California Street will be greatly missed.
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