Darrell Salomon is a fourth generation Californian who traces his ancestry on his mother's side to H.J. Pool, a Scots-Irishman who came with his family from Kentucky to California in a covered wagon in 1848, becoming one of Sonoma County's first County Commissioners. His son, Charles Pool, was many times elected Auditor of Sonoma County.

Darrell's great grandfather, on his father's side, was a rabbi in Bucharest, Romania. His grandfather, Morris Salomon, was the owner of a printing company with plants in Oakland and Los Angeles. His father, Joe Solomon, was an independent film producer in Hollywood.

Darrell attended Bellarmine Prep in San Jose, Georgetown University in Washington D.C., and U.S.F. School of Law in San Francisco. He is a civil litigation trial attorney, of counsel to Brayton Purcell LLP, and a former member of the Board of Governors of the Consumer Attorneys of California. Darrell has served as Lecturer in Law at the University of Santa Clara, as Adjunct Professor at Golden Gate School of Law, and as a member of the faculty of the College of Advocacy, Hastings College of Law. He has written and lectured widely on the subject of civil litigation trials. He has served as a consultant for Matthew Bender & Company's publication "California Business Litigation Jury Instructions." He currently serves on the Editorial Board of the Council on Education in Management publication "Preventing Employment Law Problems in the California Workplace."

Darrell is member of the Society of California Pioneers, a former Chief Assistant District Attorney of San Francisco, a former member of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission, a former two-term member and President of the San Francisco Civil Service Commission, and a former trustee of the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center. From 1999 to 2003 he wrote a weekly political column for the San Francisco Independent. From 2005 to 2007 he was a contributing political columnist for the San Francisco Examiner.