Law Seminar

Learn the many directions a career in law can take at our next “Careers in Law” seminar in January 2021 (date TBA). To request information for the virtual seminar, click here.

Featured speakers at our October 2020 seminar were alumni Carla Hernandez Castillo and Richard Horrell.

Carla Hernandez Castillo, Esq.

Family law attorney and mediator, Carla Hernandez Castillo is a Certified Family Law Specialist by the California State Bar Board of Legal Specialization. Ms. Hernandez Castillo graduated from Empire College School of Law in 2011. Ms. Hernandez Castillo was the President of Sonoma County Women in Law (2016) and has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Sonoma County Bar Association since 2015. She received her Bachelor of Science degree in Sociology with an emphasis in law and society, from the University of California, Davis. During her first year of law school Ms. Hernandez Castillo interned at the Alameda County Family Law Facilitator’s Office. During her third year in law school, Ms. Hernandez Castillo participated as a student in the Self Help Access Center, which provides free services to Sonoma County residents. Ms. Hernandez Castillo was also a law clerk for the Honorable Shelly Averill in 2010, prior to Judge Averill’s appointment to the bench. Ms. Hernandez Castillo started at Terre Family Law as a Legal Assistant in 2010 and was promoted to Associate Attorney in 2013 when Ms. Hernandez Castillo became licensed to practice law.

Richard M. Horrell, J.D.

After dropping out of high school, obtaining his G.E.D. and having spent several years in the United States Army and California and Kansas National Guards, Richard became, of all things, a teacher. He received his undergraduate degrees in history and political science at MidAmerica Nazarene University, graduating Magna Cum Laude. Richard received his graduate education in Special Education and a teaching credential in Deaf Education at San Jose State University, and he obtained his J.D. and M.L.S. from Empire College School of Law in 2019 and 2018 respectively. For more than a decade Richard has taught at various programs including California State University Sacramento, California School for the Deaf, Solano County Office of Education and he is currently the principal of New Directions School, a trauma informed special education school in Sonoma County.  When not busy raising his children or running his school program, Richard is also co-owner of a local coffee roasting business.