By Gordon W. Wilcox
By January 2004 Ada Shen-Jaffe had been with Northwest, Evergreen or Columbia Legal Services for 29 years. She had struggled with budget cuts in 1981 as Evergreen’s Deputy Director, and in 1995 as Columbia’s Director. Now she faced the worst of all: cuts and expected limitations on the use of state money that required CLS to either give up its core work or the state funds that made up most of its $9,000,000 budget.

Ada did what few would--she urged the CLS Board to preserve its core program of politically vulnerable work, not reapply for state funds so the Northwest Justice Project could, and lay off 45 members of a superb staff based on client, not staff, needs. The Board agreed. Ada personally decided who had to be laid off and, after meeting staff statewide, determined that she couldn’t ask them to sacrifice without asking the same of herself, and wrote herself out of a job.

No one who knows Ada was surprised. She is the daughter of World Bridge Champion (at 73) Katherine Wei-Sender who says “there is no place but first place” and of Shen Chang-Jui, who taught Ada that “a life that is not lived in the service of others in not worth living.” Her husband of 30 years, Ken Jaffe, director of Rehabilitation Medicine at Children’s Hospital, serves others as she does. Their 21 year old son Noah, a chip off both blocks, hugs her and says “It’s not all on you, Mom.” Ada credits a happy marriage for her ability to work endlessly. But Ada has something more: an uncanny ability to anticipate future needs and issues (she never lacked “the vision thing”).

Ada is not modest (for her work you need an id), saying of the CLS team “it is the best in the country” but credits her parents for her accomplishments. She is demanding and relentless -- her master’s is in community organization. A colleague described her approach in an imagined statement from her: “Nelson Mandela was in jail for 27 years and did not know if it would be 27 minutes, days or yearsÉwhat’s your problem?”

Some disagreed with her approach; during the 1995 budget cuts, she found this quotation from a biography of Gandhi on her chair: “While Gandhi was busy trying to liberate India, the people in his own village starved.” Ada remembers hard things like this that others would suppress.

She presses others as well, saying to a would-be retiree, “wait a minute, not so fast, just where do you think you’re going?” Ada revels in others’ contributions like those of John McKay, who has Republican-based deep understanding and support for legal services.

Ada’s job has been hard and always challenging, but she has “kept on keeping on.” When she learned that the suit against IOLTA had been filed in 1996 she wept for 20 minutes, and then got up saying “that’s all the time I have for that.”

She has limited time for anything but legal services, yet she and Ken saw Noah’s sports events rain or shine, and enjoy a movie and dinner at Hing Loon in the I. D. (Ada threatens retirement there to run a noodle shop to the horror of those who want her as a planner for both grim realities and the future that a CLS Phoenix might bring.)

Ada has inspired, tormented and driven Washington’s bar presidents and Chief Justices, dreaming up Law Fund, the Access to Justice Community and more in the face of doubts from friends. Barbara Clark wondered if legislative efforts for state funding (accomplished) weren’t a fool’s errand; Greg Dallaire questioned whether the Access to Jus-tice mechanism (now a base of strength) would be an unsustainable burden; and I poured cold water on the idea for Law Fund. Each time she did far more than

we thought possible. That has been typical of an untypical person, as her colleagues attest:

Justice Gerry L. Alexander: “Ada Shen-Jaffe is a remarkable woman who has worked tirelessly and energetically during her entire career as a lawyer to help the economically disadvantaged in our state. She is entirely selfless and I have nothing but admiration for her and all that she has done to better our society.”

Justice Richard Guy, Ret.: “Ada was the spark for my support of legal services at the Court, and elsewhere. She inspired everyone one she met to work so legal services for the poor were not destroyed.”

Barbara Clark: “Ada is our access to justice visionary. She sees the big picture, forecasts issues and engages the community to find solutions. She advocates for the inclusion of all and models the right thing to do by Ôdoing’ it herself.”

Mac McIntyre: “There are few among us with such a clear vision of what can and should be. But even rarer and more special are those who have obviously decided that the highest and best use of vision is in using it to look out for the welfare of others.”

Jim Bamberger: “Ada not only understands what is right, but has the conviction to act accordingly, regardless of the personal cost.”

Dick Byington: “Ada has a passion to assure CLS’ quality and continuity, was excited by CLS’s talent and wanted them to have the chance to become leaders she had when her potential was discovered long ago. She saw this as her legacy.”

Greg Dallaire: “Ada has a remarkable facility to analyze complex problems, convince others of the right approach and inspire them to work with her to address the problems.”

Judge Michael Fox: “Legal services is the only law practice where good work can cost you your job, as Evergreen’s and CLS’ histories show. Ada maintained the programs’ integrity by taking the burden of the attacks on the programs on herself.”