When it comes to starting on the ground floor, nobody has it over Steve Fredrickson. As a “starving” law school student in the early 1970s, Fredrickson worked as a janitor at Seattle Legal Services Center, a local legal aid program serving Seattle and King County. He obviously picked up more than garbage — a sense of service.
Today, Fredrickson is the statewide advocacy coordinator for Northwest Justice Project. On February 26, to honor him for his years of dedication to helping those less fortunate, the Legal Foundation of Washington will bestow upon him its highest honor — the 2010 Charles Goldmark Distinguished Service Award — at the 24th Annual Goldmark Award Luncheon.
This year marks Fredrickson’s 40th year as a tireless advocate for low-income tenants and homeowners. His colleagues in the legal services community describe Fredrickson as a valuable resource and inspiration to do the highest quality work. Eric Dunn, a colleague at the Northwest Justice Project in Seattle put it this way: “The work being done by the latest generation of legal services lawyers is building on a foundation that Steve largely built. And it is certainly not insignificant that Steve’s been getting it done in Washington for four decades.”
Those four decades of legal aid practice have covered all areas of poverty law, but have emphasized landlord-tenant and real estate law. Fredrickson has authored or co-authored a number of publications on residential landlord-tenant law and is a frequent speaker on the topic at continuing legal education programs. Anyone researching this area of law will find many articles and important court opinions defining the rights of tenants and homeowners that were inspired by Fredrickson’s cases.
Very early in his career, Fredrickson argued in the Washington Supreme Court the seminal case of Foisey v. Wyman [83 Wn.2d 22 (1973)], which established a new implied warranty of habitability for residential rental properties. Later, he represented a public housing tenant in Housing Authority v. Saylors [19 Wn. App. 871 (1978)], which established due process rights for public housing tenants. Fredrickson also has brought a number of cases in federal court and argued several important Ninth Circuit cases establishing rights for tenants displaced by redevelopment, and rights under the Fair Housing Act.
Fredrickson was born in West Seattle and later moved to Bremerton, graduating from East Bremerton High School. He graduated from the University of Chicago in 1968 with a B.A. in political science. Returning to Seattle, he entered the University of Washington School of Law in 1969.
After completing his first year in law school, Fredrickson began working as a law clerk and, literally, on the ground floor at Seattle Legal Services Center. He continued working there during the school year and summers until his graduation in 1972. Although described as a “better-than-average janitor,” his legal skills and commitment to justice quickly eclipsed his janitorial skills with a mop and bucket.
But something rubbed off besides the dirt. Upon graduation, Fredrickson was awarded a Reginald Heber Smith Community Lawyer Fellowship, a nationwide program that funded promising new attorneys who demonstrated a commitment to representing low-income clients. As a “Reggie,” Fredrickson remained at Seattle Legal Services until 1974.
From there, he moved up to staff attorney at the Center and at its successor organizations, Evergreen Legal Services and Columbia Legal Services, until 2004, when he joined Northwest Justice Project as a statewide advocacy coordinator. In that capacity, he coordinates NJP’s work on housing, consumer, community economic development, and low-wage-worker issues.
Although Fredrickson’s work has been limited to Washington, he has inspired countless attorneys across the country to work for access to justice. Fredrickson is in the vanguard of dedicated legal services attorneys who have chosen to make this work a career instead of a temporary stepping stone to more lucrative opportunities in the general legal arena. He and other prior Goldmark Award recipients, such as Pat McIntyre, Ada Shen-Jaffe, Tony Lee, Mike Taylor and Peter Greenfield, all career legal services attorneys, are making a legal aid career not only highly respected, but an inspiration for law students and new attorneys seeking their career path.
Patrick McIntyre, NJP’s past executive director, fellow Reggie and former Goldmark Award recipient (2007), sums up how Fredrickson works with his fellow attorneys and staff: “The essence of Steve Fredrickson as a selfless mentor can be well illustrated by the simple act of making the word MENTOR into an apt acronym: My Ego Never Threatens Our Relationship. That — in a nutshell — personifies Steve Fredrickson.”
Michael Mirra, executive director of the Tacoma Housing Authority, stated in his letter nominating Fredrickson for the Goldmark Award, “Steve helped to make legal services in Washington a place where lawyers serving low-income clients can practice at the profession’s highest levels. In litigation, for example, Steve showed that we may be outspent, but we should never expect to be outworked, never overmatched in expertise, and never at any disadvantage that persistence or imagination could not overcome.”
Bruce Neas, the legislative advocate for Columbia Legal Services in Olympia, underscored the importance of Fredrickson’s advocacy. “The harder question sometimes is what does this ‘justice’ mean?” Neas asked, and not rhetorically. “Steve’s high standards for understanding the policies behind housing law, the intent, the interpretations, the case law, coupled with his unique ability to see the impact of a law or a policy on poor people, made him a giant as an advocate and a leader in the effort to secure justice for clients.”
One of the most accurate measures of a great lawyer may come from adversaries. John Gose, a creditor’s lawyer of considerable respect, describes Fredrickson as follows: “Steve worked closely with me on several revisions of the Deed & Trust Act,” Gose recalls. “His comments, criticism and suggestions in amending the act not only benefited the debtors, but had a positive impact on the whole lending-borrowing community in Washington. As a result of his arguments and reasoning, the act was made fairer and hence less likely to be the subject of endless lawsuits. This benefited everyone in the Washington debtor/creditor community.”
Joe Puckett, who has primarily represented landlords and litigated opposite Fredrickson and other legal aid attorneys, states, “Steve and I have also worked on legislation through the years to clarify or modify the provisions of the Residential Landlord Tenant Act. His intimate knowledge of the RLTA and his ability to convey to others the impact that certain provisions of that act have on not only low-income people, but all citizens of Washington who rent property, helped us in crafting legislative changes that benefited all Washington residents.”
Florence Wagman Roisman, William F. Harvey Professor of Law at Indiana University School of Law, describes how Fredrickson’s work goes beyond our borders. “Although his focus has been on Washington, Steve has been a leader in national efforts to secure housing justice,” she said. This has included working with the Housing Justice Network and serving on the Council of Advisors of the National Housing Law Project, the Board of Directors of the National Low Income Housing Coalition in Washington, D.C., and the Steering Committee of the Insight Center for Community Economic Development (formerly the National Economic Development and Law Center) in Oakland.
Fredrickson has also served on the State Housing Trust Fund Advisory Committee, the Board of Directors of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, and the Steering Committee of the National Economic Development & Law Center, and devoted countless hours to supporting these causes. He is currently a member of the Council of Advisors of the National Housing Law Project and is co-chair of the Access to Justice Board Law School Relations Committee.
For his leadership skills, Fredrickson received in 1999 the prestigious $10,000 Kutak Dodds Prize given by the National Legal Aid and Defender Association and the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defendants, perhaps the highest national honor in the legal services community.
A few of his many other awards include the King County Bar Association’s Pro Bono Award and the Washington State Housing Finance Commission’s Friends of Housing Award in 1999. He received the King County Bar Foundation’s Housing Justice Project’s Visionary Award in 2008 and just last year was inducted into the University of Washington Law School Public Interest Law Association Hall of Fame.
This lengthy, but certainly incomplete, chronology of accomplishments in the legal arena does not adequately describe Fredrickson nor do him Fredrickson-like justice. He has great wit and a wonderful sense of humor. He is a world traveler and has many hobbies and friends. He enjoys chess and is a semiprofessional pool player. And, believe it or not, he continues to hone his janitorial talents.
Steve Fredrickson simply inspires the rest of us to do better, try harder, have the utmost respect and compassion for those less fortunate, and try to make their lives better.
David A. Leen is a former Washington Legal Foundation trustee and served as president in 2004. Leen was a fellow Reggie with Fredrickson and worked with him for the first five years of his legal career, and continues to enjoy his friendship and professional inspiration.
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