Darker’s diverse background translates into right career

The Memphis Daily News/The Memphis News

Nov. 21, 2013

Legalese is the formal language of the law that comes across as gibberish to those without a juris doctorate. For attorney Tatine Darker, though, it’s just one more etymological arrow in her quiver of languages.

Darker and Robert Amann have teamed together to open the Amann-Darker Law Firm in Midtown Memphis. Within the firm’s general practice areas of federal criminal and state criminal, immigration, divorce and personal injury cases, Darker plans to focus more on criminal and immigration law, her areas of expertise.

Born and raised in France to a French mother and American father who was a CBS correspondent, Darker moved around to places such as Russia and the Middle East as a child. Most of her time, though, was spent in the south of France and with a grandmother who had emigrated from Spain.

This multilingual upbringing has been an asset in her immigration practice and is much of the reason why she practices law in the first place. A freelance courtroom interpreter certified for French and Spanish in immigration court, Darker began to take notice of the proceedings and the players in the room.

“I thought, ‘You know what, I really want to be a lawyer. I don’t want to be just an interpreter,’” she said.

She received an undergraduate in languages and literature in France and began work as a teacher while there. A high unemployment rate among young college graduates was among the reasons she moved from the southern region of France to the southern region of the United States permanently in her early 20s. “I didn’t really like teaching that much, and I wanted to change careers and also make more money, so I came over here for the summer first to see how it went and one thing led to another and I stayed.”

She landed in Conway, Ark., her father’s hometown, teaching French at Hendrix College. After only a short time, she moved to Memphis as vice president of sales for the Hispanic newspaper La Prensa Latina.

Upon her judicial epiphany, she attended the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law. After graduating with honors in 2008, she went to work for the federal public defender’s office as an appellate writer and researcher, which, she says, “was actually great training out of law school.”

Darker was promoted to assistant federal defender and, though she enjoyed the research, stepping out from behind the books and into the courtroom was an exciting change . . . (read more)