because it’s a place where so many new ideas are born. “For me, it’s always about learning and discovering new things,” she says. When she first arrived, she visited a friend who lived in Marin County, and the more she saw, the more attractive the area became. Much of the appeal was its proximity to a world-class city, while also providing habitat for animals. She grew up on a farm and missed nature and the tranquility of rural life when she lived in Chicago. But in Marin, she could have both a big-city experience and the natural environment and slower pace that comes with open space and small-town life. At first, she lived at Larkspur Landing and took the ferry to her job in the city. In 2010, she moved to Tiburon, where she now lives with her partner Richard Grossman, two cats and a parrot in a hillside home overlooking San Francisco Bay. Fog obscured the view on her first visit, and “I had no idea you could see San Francisco,” she says. She is now the principal attorney at Defever Law, a sole proprietorship in Tiburon, specializing in insurance law and acting as an advocate for policyholders. For the past couple of years, she’s also spent time in Belgium, where she is working on a PhD in insurance law at the University of Ghent. “There are no PhDs in insurance laws in the United States. You’re hard-pressed to find an insurance course in a law school in the U.S.,” she says, pointing out that insurance gets more attention as a discipline in Europe. Insurance is a huge industry in this country, but it’s an overlooked field in American law, so she views becoming an expert in insurance law as a professional opportunity and a chance to learn something new. She already advises law firms, and adding to her repertoire will allow her to create a new sub- specialty and offer further expertise. The deeper knowledge she is acquiring will help her to write amicus briefs, and she’d like to serve as an expert witness and believes that having schooling and education that nobody else in the country has will allow her to accomplish that goal. “I’m creating a new niche in the insurance field,” she says. Her free time is fleeting, but she devotes much of it to giving back to her community. She’s served as
Kathleen Defever is president of the Rotary Club of Tiburon-Belvedere, where she and like-minded Rotarians can ‘work together to make the world a better place.’
a member of the Tiburon Planning Commission since 2018 (and even ran unsuccessfully for town council in 2020) and believes the work is important, because town meetings are opportunities for any local resident to be heard on any issue. “I love listening, learning from townspeople and then analyzing the issue before me and crafting the best solution that we can,” she says. She acknowledges that the results aren’t always perfect, but she likes putting together something that has the
potential to bring happiness and make the world better. She’s also president of the Rotary Club of Tiburon- Belvedere, and finds that with Rotary, she’s with like-minded people, whether it’s here or abroad. “We work together to make the world a better place. That is the best thing you can do in this life. It was instilled in me by my family. Never take your fortune in life for granted. “It’s your responsibility to give back to your fellow humans.” g
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June 2025
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