By Susan Craighead

Countless people across the state of Washington live in their own homes today because of the dogged efforts behind the scenes of this year’s KCBA Pro Bono attorney of the year. David Leen pioneered the field of predatory lending law in Washington and then gave his time to teach other lawyers how to do it. And he always takes their calls.

“Whenever you call, if he can he steps up to the plate,” said Melissa Huelsman, who credits Leen with helping her start her practice in fighting predatory lending by consulting with her as she attempted to unravel her first pro bono case. If he didn’t know the answer, he helped her strategize -- and still does.

“It sort of leverages my philosophy,” explained Leen. “I don’t like lenders who cheat people. They ought to be sued. If I can help a lawyer, then that’s a positive step toward enforcement of consumer protection laws.”

Predatory lending became a focus of the KCBA’s Coordinated Client Access Project when the Volunteer Legal Services program (VLS) began to see more complicated foreclosures, often involving single elderly people and a handful of the same lenders. The field itself addresses lenders who make loans above the market rate of interest and do so while breaking state and federal laws. But the cases were so complex that volunteer attorneys were leery of taking them on, recalled Merf Ehman, VLS staff attorney. So she asked Leen to train attorneys at Keller Rohrbach and a group of sole practitioners to handle these types of cases.

“David makes sure we get it right,” said Ehman. Leen has taught CLE programs all over the state for pro bono attorneys and legal services providers, made his materials available free of charge, and mentors the lawyers he trains. He is an acknowledged expert in foreclosure law, helping to rewrite the foreclosure statute, and litigating the leading case establishing the fiduciary duties for trustees foreclosing deeds of trust, Cox v. Helenius. He litigated a 7,000 member class action asserting debtor protections on behalf of veterans and later helped persuade Congress to stop the Veteran’s Administration from seeking deficiency judgments. He now serves as President of the Washington Legal Foundation, which distributes IOLTA funds to legal services programs.

Leen got his start as a Reginald Heber Smith Fellow doing legal services after receiving his J.D. from the University of Oregon in 1971. He joined Seattle Legal Services, and then went on to work for the Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Economic Development Administra-tion. In 1979, he founded Leen & Moore and then went into practice on his own in 1999.

His friend and colleague Steve Fredrickson of Columbia Legal Services has always admired Leen’s dedication and gutsiness. “It took more courage than I have to build a successful practice working with a very similar clientele to those we worked with in legal services,” said Fredrickson. “He’s a diligent and creative lawyer.”

Emblematic of Leen’s willingness to take risks was his decision in 1986 to save Seattle’s oldest home from demolition by moving it a mile away and turning it into his law offices. He sank $200,000 into the new foundation and restoration of the building and held his breath as the house was wheeled to its new address.

Leen believes he has reaped rich dividends from investing untold hours of work into what initially might appear to be chancy ventures. He almost hung up when a penniless former client called late on a Friday afternoon about a young man wrongfully convicted of rape, only to eventually convince the court to vacate his conviction and then settle a lawsuit against the boy’s public defender. The story illustrates Leen’s philosophy about pro bono work.

“Taking pro bono cases is rewarding for a number of reasons. One is that you can generally help people and solve legal problems, which makes you a better lawyer,” Leen said. “And, you feel better about yourself and your profession if you can rectify injustice.”