Equestrienne finds that the law requires similar grit and skillset
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Attorney Spotlight
Equestrienne finds that the law requires similar grit and skillset
By Brian Cox
Sacramento attorney Kathryne Baldwin was born a self-proclaimed “horse girl,” and was able to start living the passion of her life at the age of 9 when she first sat astride a horse in an arena.
“I had always been obsessed with horses,” says Baldwin. “Every time we went anywhere [my parents] would put me on the pony rides and I would just say again, again, again.”
Her family lived in a duplex in a suburb of Sacramento at the time, but her mother and stepfather found a stable that offered horse-riding lessons and signed young Baldwin up.
She still recalls her first lesson, how she was filled with tremendous excitement but also trepidation. Already she sensed this was an opportunity she didn’t want to miss.
“After so many years of wishing for this opportunity, they put me on a horse and I just remember thinking, ‘I can’t mess this up,’” she says.
Not sure what to do once on the horse, she did the only thing she could think of at the time.
“I tried to sit up straight and be confident and really sell it,” says Baldwin. “And that’s really how you’re supposed to ride. That’s what you’re supposed to do. I didn’t even know that going in.”
It was evident early that Baldwin did not just want to ride horses – she wanted to excel at riding horses. She was drawn to and challenged by the precision and control required in equitation, which focuses specifically on the rider’s position while mounted. In equitation classes at horse show competitions, the rider, rather than the horse, is evaluated. She began riding the training facility’s lesson horses in low-key shows on site and finished fourth in her inaugural competition. At 9 years old, she was furious with herself and critical of her performance, which only drove her to improve.
After a couple months of riding lessons once a week, the staff was impressed enough with her natural talent that they recommended to her parents that they consider getting Baldwin her own horse and pursue more intensive training, if she were willing to make the commitment.
She was.
Baldwin threw herself into the art of horsemanship and began training six or seven days a week. When Baldwin was 11, a fellow equestrian saw an opportunity to rehome a young, untrained horse. While coupling a young child and a young horse are an industry no-no, those surrounding Baldwin knew she was up to the task. By the time she was 14, the family was traveling to regional championships as far away as Reno, Nev., with a new horse, WCA Chantar. The horse had a reputation for being spooky and unreliable, but, again, those surrounding the pair saw their potential together and the handsome gelding never gave Baldwin a flick of trouble. She believed they were unstoppable as a pair.
Kathryne Baldwin and Psax at the 2018 Region III Hunt Seat Equitation Championships.
Two years later, Baldwin finished among the top 10 junior riders in the country at the national competition in Albuquerque, N.M. The following year, at the age of 17, she won it all, becoming U.S. National Reserve Champion. A few months later, she took a second national championship at the Canadian National Championships in Regina, Saskatchewan.
“It was really exciting stuff,” says Baldwin. “2003 was a big year for me.”
The skillset and effort required to excel in horse show competitions translates well into a career in law, says Baldwin. Each demands the willingness and fearlessness to ask if there is a better way to attack a problem, a different approach to a desired outcome, and then the discipline and grit to practice again and again “until you can’t get it wrong.”
Baldwin earned her law degree in 2016 from the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law after graduating from California State University, Sacramento, with a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy of Science and Logic. During law school, she was a member of the nationally ranked McGeorge Mock Trial Competition Team. She was a semi-finalist finisher in the regional competition as a second-year student in 2015 and a finalist as a third-year in 2016. She also served as a board member to the McGeorge Women’s Caucus organization during all three years of law school, her final year as president.
She is the first lawyer in her family. Her father, Frank, runs a residential and commercial house painting company that Baldwin worked for while earning her undergrad degree. Her mother, Kathryne Lee, is retired after a career as an executive assistant and financial adviser, and her stepfather, Michael Lee, is an electrician for a school district. Her brother, Franklin, is in banking.
Though when she was younger, she had toyed with the notion of becoming a veterinarian, Baldwin in law school considered being a public defender. She interned for five months with the Sacramento County Public Defender Office and later as a certified law clerk with the Eastern District of California Federal Defender Office, one of only two such intern programs in the country.
But after a summer clerking at Wilke Fleury LLP, she accepted an offer to join the firm and has been there ever since, developing a practice that focuses on business, insurance, landlord-tenant, and real estate litigation. With more than two-dozen attorneys, Wilke Fleury is one of Sacramento’s oldest and largest law firms. Founded in 1922, the firm is marking its centennial this year.
“It’s a fantastic group of very bright, intelligent lawyers,” says Baldwin, who earlier this year was promoted to senior counsel. “It was a warm place to fall when I was fresh out of law school.”
When Baldwin first joined the firm, a colleague suggested she attend a Primerus conference for young lawyers as a way to begin networking.
“The idea of being an attorney who had to market herself was just terrifying,” says Baldwin, who nonetheless describes that first conference as “amazing.”
“So much of the programming – because it was designed for young lawyers – was accessible to me,” says Baldwin. “It wasn’t intimidating and it wasn’t scary. The people weren’t scary. They were attorneys just getting started and gaining momentum — just like me.”
When she heard at the conference that the Young Lawyers Section was looking for help on the newsletter committee, Baldwin immediately raised her hand. She is now the chair of the committee that produces “Stare Decisis,” the bi-annual newsletter that promotes material written by young lawyers.
“We want people to know what the young lawyers in Primerus are doing and how great they are,” says Baldwin.
Last year, Baldwin joined the YLS Executive Committee, which planned the 2022 conference in Phoenix last March with the aim of re-engaging young lawyers after the pandemic.
Kathryne Baldwin and Concertina NNW at the 2020 US National Championships in Tulsa, Okla.
“I continue to be involved with Primerus because I can’t tell you how much I enjoy the company of the people who are on the executive committee with me,” says Baldwin. “They’re people who put the work in and make it happen.”
They’re not just colleagues, she says; they’re friends.
Baldwin said she quickly learned the best opportunities at the Primerus conferences are those that allow you to turn a stranger into a business acquaintance or referral source.
“You wouldn’t climb into an Uber with a stranger, but you would climb into an Uber with another Primerus young lawyer that’s at the same conference you are,” says Baldwin. “And it’s amazing the kind of stuff you learn about people in that kind of environment. It’s a priceless opportunity.”
Kathryne Baldwin and Psax advance to the final round at the 2020 US National Championships in Tulsa, Okla.
Baldwin and her husband, David, have been married two years and live in Lockeford, a rural community about an hour outside of Sacramento, the capital of California. David is a mechanical engineer who works for Holt of California, a Caterpillar dealership, and in his spare time is passionate about tractor pulls. He built and designed one of the first tractors in California that runs on a General Electric T-58 gas-turbine engine, originally developed for use in helicopters.
Baldwin says she and her husband share the understanding that if you have a goal, you’re going to make it happen. Being committed to something you love means you are going to have to put the time in and you’ve got to have the work ethic to see it through.
“I think that’s one of the reasons we work so well together,” she says. “We’re both passionate about these insane things. I guess we’re just crazy together.”
On their two-acre property, Baldwin raises chickens, six rescue pygmy goats, and, of course, her beloved horses. She and her horse, Psax, a 14-year-old Arabian, competed at the U.S. Nationals in Tulsa, Okla., this year and last; both trips garnered the pair multiple national titles. With horse show season running from April through October, Baldwin typically competes in a show a month. She most recently won the Sha-Heme++ Perpetual Trophy from the Golden Gate Arabian Horse Association.
In addition to Psax, Baldwin owns Concertina NNW — a mare who three months ago birthed a colt christened Psaxamillion, named after his father.
“I have an adorable nuclear horse family,” she says with a laugh.