Professional Experience

Karin has been an attorney and a professional mediator for more than twelve years.  She is licensed to practice law in every Texas state court, as well as the United States District Courts of the Southern, Northern and Western Districts of Texas.  She has handled a wide variety of cases, from family law and real estate to commercial and injury litigation in her career.  She has also represented children in CPS cases and served as appointed defense counsel.  She has owned her own law office for more than a decade, holds a Texas real estate license, and has served as a mediator with Lakeside Mediation since 2006.

Leadership Experience

Karin was elected and served as president of the Texas Young Lawyers Association (TYLA), representing more than 20,000 young lawyers, during 2006-2007.  While she was president, TYLA accomplished all of the following projects to serve the legal needs of Texans:

• Coordinated a series on Judicial Independence with the League of Women Voters that included an historical interview with former US Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and a PBS panel discussion.
  

• Spearheaded the creation of the Legal Guide for Cancer Patients in partnership with the Austin Chapter of the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

• Recruited more than 100 volunteer attorneys to represent unaccompanied children who had been detained at the Texas border and were in need of free legal assistance.
  

Before becoming president of TYLA, Karin also helped create several other award-winning projects, including Junior Judges:  Helping Kids Make Smart Choices, designed to teach elementary-aged students about the law; the Pro Se Divorce Handbook; Just Hang Up and Seniors and the Law: a Guide for Maturing Texans, to protect the legal rights of senior citizens; and American Juror, to educate the public about the jury system in Texas.

Click here to preview our campaign brochure!

Karin served on the State Bar of Texas Board of Directors for three years, and on its Executive Committee for two years.  She also served on the Texas Bar Journal Board of Editors and on the State Bar's Long Range Planning, Budget and Discipline Committees.  In 2005, she was appointed to the Texas Supreme Court's Task Force to Expand Legal Service Delivery.  Two years later, she was appointed as its Chair and served in that role was heavily involved in recruiting volunteer attorneys to respond to the Hurricane Ike disaster.  During Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, she contributed to the State Bar's Disaster Response Guide to respond to the extraordinary legal needs of those who had evacuated and were seeking refuge in Texas.  She is a founding fellow of the Austin Bar Foundation and previously served on the board of the Texas Bar Foundation.

Karin has been an Ethics speaker for both the University of Texas Law School's Advanced Administrative Law and University of Houston's Advanced Insurance and Tort Claims continuing legal education courses, and on the faculty of TexasBarCLE's New Lawyer and Federal Court Practice courses.  She has also served as the Moderator for the Austin Young Lawyer Association's Color of Justice program and as a family law speaker at the People's Law School in Dallas.  

University of Texas Graduate

Before heading to law school, Karin went to the University of Texas in Austin, where she was a member of the national champion UT Speech Team.  She worked her way through college waiting tables, participating in the UT work-study program and working during two legislative sessions as both a Sergeant at Arms for the Texas House of Representatives and as a legislative assistant to Texas State Representative Roberto Gutierrez.  She graduated from UT with a Bachelor of Science degree in Speech Communication and a Spanish concentration.  After these experiences, Karin decided to go to law school to see if she could make a bigger difference in her community. 

Law School Experience

While at St. Mary's University School of Law, Karin was awarded the Judge Jack D. Miller Award for Ethics in Advocacy (by faculty selection), and received the St. Mary's Award for Marianist Service to the Community, the Pro Bono Service Award, TYLA's Minority Law School Scholarship, and the Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Law School Community.  She served as a Student Senator, on the Board of Advocates, and initiated the Work-a-Day program to encourage fellow law students to give back to their community.  She was her school's American Bar Association/Law Student Division representative and served as the Lt. Governor of Public Service for three states.  She was also very active in mock trial competitions and was appointed to the National Order of Barristers by faculty selection for excellence in mock trial advocacy.  While in law school, she also spent two years working in the felony section of the Bexar County District Attorney's Office in San Antonio and a summer at Academia Hispano Americana in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico.

Recent Awards & Recognition for Legal Work and Public Service

During every year for the past five years, Law & Politics & Texas Monthly Magazine has recognized Karin as a Texas Super Lawyer-Rising Star.  In 2008, she received the Nancy Garms Award for Outstanding Contributions to Law Related Education in the State of Texas from the State Bar of Texas.  In Senate Resolution 574 (2007), the Texas Senate honored Karin for "Service to the Public and Contributions to the Legal Community."  She has also been recognized as an Austin Under Forty finalist, a "Pathfinder" by the Travis County Women Lawyer's Association for being a local trailblazer and role model for women and as St. Mary's University School of Law's first Distinguished Young Alumnus for outstanding service to the public and to the legal profession in 2007.  Before moving to Austin six years ago, her peers named her as the Outstanding Young Lawyer of Dallas and D Magazine named her as one of the Top Lawyers in Dallas Under 40.  

Personal

Karin was raised all over the world (California, Japan, England, Germany and San Antonio), where her father, Ret. U.S. Air Force Master Sergeant Lee F. Crump, was stationed with her mom, Carol Carmona Crump, and her siblings, Chris and DeAun.  Karin graduated from Tom C. Clark High School in San Antonio in 1990.

Karin has been married to Omar Samman for almost ten years.  They have lived in Northwest Austin for the past seven years.  Karin is  an active member of her community and serves as the Volunteer Coordinator and a PTA board member at Grandview Hills Elementary School.