THE FRIEND OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION AWARD
recognizes distinguished and meritorious service to the legal profession and the justice system.
Dean Kellye Y. Testy, Seattle University School of Law
The legal profession has no better friend than Kellye Y. Testy. She has dedicated her entire professional life
to ensuring that the legal profession and justice system will be populated by outstandingly well-educated
and public-spirited lawyers who will serve our communities as leaders for a just and humane world.
Under her leadership, the Seattle University School of Law is strengthening and diversifying the legal profession,
combining academic excellence with education for justice. She is determined that graduates of the law
school are superbly prepared to enter the legal and justice community in ways that incorporate service to
the public good, to social justice and to the profession through leadership and service to the King County
Bar Association, WSBA, Minority Bar Associations and the justice community no matter where their professional
careers and life journeys take them.
Under Dean Testy’s leadership, the law school has made tremendous strides — hiring outstanding faculty,
strengthening diversity, and expanding opportunities — including international study — for students and
alumni to live out the academic and justice values of the law school — opportunities such as externships at
Catholic Community Services Legal Action Center, scholarly and service learning at the Ronald A. Peterson
Law Clinic providing representation to poor and disadvantaged people who would otherwise go unrepresented,
summer internships with the equal justice community through Public Interest Law Foundation grants,
and activities and initiatives offered through the Access to Justice Institute in concert with the KCBA Community
Legal Services Programs.
Dean Testy serves on the Committee on the Recruitment and Retention of Minority Law Teachers of the Association
of American Law Schools. To encourage women and minorities to pursue deanships, she hosted
a two-day workshop to increase the ability of non-traditional dean candidates to break through the glass
ceiling that is keeping these groups underrepresented in decanal ranks.
Testy joined the SU faculty in 1992 and was an effective and popular teacher. An expert in corporate
governance who lectures internationally, her experience ranges from consulting with mom and pop shops
before going to law school to being an expert witness in a groundbreaking suit by Myanmar villagers who
sued oil giant Unocal over human rights violations.
Before becoming dean, she was instrumental in founding the law school’s Access to Justice Institute, the
Seattle Journal for Social Justice and the Center on Corporations, Law & Society. As dean, she implemented
the Scholars for Justice Awards, which provide two full scholarships each year to students committed to
working in the public interest.