By Karen Sutherland
It’s hard to believe that the days are getting shorter already, and that we are on the downhill side of summer. I guess having discernible seasons instead of year-round summer or year-round winter like other parts of the country is a good thing in that one never takes blooming flowers for granted, nor does one take for granted the ability to sit in one’s living room in shorts and a tank top without developing frostbite.
Partner Promotions
Andrew Zuccotti has become a partner at Preston Gates & Ellis. Zuccotti was previously with Stoel Rives for 27 years. He has more than 30 years of tax law experience in federal income tax, mergers and acquisitions, and real estate syndications.
Associate Additions
Christopher Lee has joined Rohde & Van Kampen PLLC as an associate. Lee is a 1996 graduate of the University of Minnesota Law School and a 1993 cum laude graduate of the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a member of the Washington and California Bar Associations. He will be working in the areas of intellectual property, securities and business litigation.
Mingzhu Yin has joined the Seattle office of Stoel Rives LLP as an associate in the firm’s corporate practice group. Yin’s areas of experience include corporate governance and SEC regulatory compliance, mergers and acquisitions, private placement of equity and debt securities, and other corporate law stuff. She graduated from the U-Dub Law School and obtained a B.A., summe cum laude from Laioning University in 1994. Yin was formerly an associate at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP.
Craig Aird has joined Keller Rohrback LLP as an associate. Aird focuses his practice on estate and gift tax planning with an emphasis on the use of family business entities such as limited partnerships and limited liability companies. He also helps clients with estate planning and charitable goals. Aird, who received his B.A. from the University of Oregon, his J.D., cum laude, from Seattle University, and his LLM in taxation from the U-Dub, was formerly with the Seattle office of Dorsey & Whitney.
Cindy Johnson Acebedo is joining the environmental, land use and natural resources practice section of Short Cressman & Burgess PLLC as an associate. Her practice focuses on environmental and land use law, and she is admitted to practice in Washington and California. She earned her J.D. from the New England School of Law in Boston in 1999 and a B.A. in political science from the U-Dub in 1995.
Gordon Thomas Honeywell Malanca Peterson & Daheim, LLP has added Timothy Warzecha as an associate in its Seattle office.
Of Counsel and Other Lateral Moves
Holland & Knight has added Mary Jo Newhouse as senior counsel.
Ater Wynne has added Paul Brain and Roger Dunaway. Brain’s practice focuses on real estate development and commercial litigation. Dunaway’s practice focuses on purchase and sale transactions, commercial leasing, foreclosures, and landlord/tenant matters. Both were previously with Mikkelborg, Broz, Wells & Fryer.
Mary William-son has joined Lee & Hayes to lead its technology transactions and intellectual property licensing practice.
Firm Moves
Rohde & Van Kampen PLLC has moved its Seattle office to the 1001 Fourth Avenue Building. The firm’s telephone and fax numbers remain the same.
Gordon Murray Tilden LLP has also moved to the 1001 Fourth Avenue Building.
Outside of Private Practice
Laura Buckner has become senior corporate counsel for Aventail Corporation. She was formerly with Davis Wright Tremaine.
Aaron Rocke has left Lee Smart Cook Martin & Patterson to become an assistant attorney general with the Office of the Attorney General Torts Division in Seattle.
John McNamara has joined the U-Dub School of Law as assistant dean for development and external relations. His role is to direct and implement all aspects of the law school’s advancement program, including annual, corporate and major gifts, donor recognition and stewardship, alumni services and programs, advancement communications and publications, as well as general external relations activities.
Other Law News
The WSBA Indian Law Section and Northwest Indian Bar Association are seeking to have federal Indian common law jurisdictional issues included in the Washington State bar examination. The Board of Governors will consider the resolution at its September meeting in Seattle. There are 29 federally recognized tribes in Washington State, which increasingly interact with non-Indian entities and individuals, giving rise to an array of business transactions, regulatory issues and litigation matters between tribal and non-tribal parties.
Honors, Awards and Achievements
The Kanoon South Asian Bar Association has elected Shankar Narayan as president, Zahraa Wilkinson as vice president for pro bono and educational outreach, Sun-geeta Jain as vice president for membership, and K. M. Das as treasurer. Immediate past president Sandip Soli remains on board as secretary. Narayan is an associate in the intellectual property department at Preston Gates & Ellis, LLP; Wilkinson is an associate in the labor and employment department at Stoel Rives LLP; Jain practices labor
and employment litigation as an associate at Perkins Coie, LLP; Das practices patent litigation as an associate at Davis Wright Tremaine, LLP; Soli practices commercial litigation as an associate at Carney Badley Spellman, P.S. The Association also has four directors-at-large, Shaun Gill, Venkat Balasubra-mani, Uphar Dhaliwal and Sumeer Singla. Balasubramani is an attorney with Newman & Newman, LLP, an intellectual property firm; Gill practices real estate and general business law as an associate at Cairncross & Hempelman; Dhaliwal is an associate at Manger PLLC, practicing international trade and finance law; and Singla is a litigation associate at Preston Gates & Ellis, LLP.
John Tirpak received the Commun-ity Justice Award for Leadership, Dedication, and Mentoring from the Access to Justice Institute at Seattle University School of Law. Tirpak is the supervising attorney at the Unemploy-ment Law Project.
Davis Wright Tremaine LLP recently reelected Normal Page as chairman of its executive committee and appointed Henry Farber and Ben Wolff to its executive committee. Page practices out of the firm’s Seattle office, where he focuses on finance, commercial and international business transactions. Farber has an employment and labor law practice in the firm’s Bellevue office. Wolff maintains offices part-time in both Seattle and Portland and focuses his practice on corporate finance matters. They appointed some other people, too, but they are not in King County, so you will have to read about them elsewhere.
Norm Maleng, King County Prosecutor, was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Northwest Graduate School of the Ministry at its commencement ceremony.
Emelie East, a Seattle native and out-of-state member of the King County Bar Association, was elected to the Trinity College Board of Trustees.
Davis Wright Tremaine has founded a diversity scholarship called the John M. Davis Diversity Scholarship after the firm’s founder, who earlier this year celebrated 60 years of law practice and his 90th birthday.
Randall Beighle was named one of the top 100 franchise lawyers by the readers of Franchise Times magazine. Beighle chairs the complex litigation and commercial disputes practice group of Lane Powell Spears Lubersky LLP.
Carin Marney has become a member of the Board of Trustees at the Washington Defense Trial Lawyers Association. Marney is an associate at Williams Kastner & Gibbs where her practice focuses on product liability litigation.
Robert Mahon has been appointed to the Seattle Ethics & Elections Commis-sion and Wayne Barnett has become the Commission’s director. Mahon is a tax attorney at Perkins Coie. Barnett is a former staff attorney for the Massachusetts State Ethics Commis-sion.
Ema Bovary, who is partly owned by Seattle attorney Rick Beal, had her nine-race winning streak end recently. Bovary came in second in a six furlong race, the Desert Stormer Handicap, at Hollywood Park. Bovary won twice last summer at Emerald Downs. For those of you who do not follow the Sport of Kings, Bovary is a horse.
U-Dub Law School Alumni Association’s Second Annual Golf Tournament is August 27, 2004, which is far better timing than the September 11 date they selected for the first annual tournament. Proceeds benefit student scholarships, and the tournament is open to all. The school is also holding alumni reunions in August for my beloved class of Ô84. However, the reunion is not just for my class but is a simultaneously held reunion for 16 classes, which takes some of the oomph out of the event, at least in my opinion.
Judicial News
Ricardo Martinez was unanimously confirmed by the Senate as United States District Court Judge. Martinez has been a U.S. Magistrate since 1998 and was a King County Superior Court Judge from 1990 to 1998. For those of you who are a little fuzzy on the U.S. Constitution, members of the federal bench are nominated by the President and confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
King County District Court judge Eileen Kato has been elected president of the Washington State District of Municipal Court Judges’ Association. She is the first judge of color to head the organization. Kato has been a district court judge since 1994. She received her J.D. from the University of Santa Clara Law School in 1980 and a masters in business administration from San Jose State University in 1977.
King County District Court Judge Corinna Harn has been elected chief presiding judge and will oversee management, operations and personnel in seven courthouses. She will be assisted by King County District Court Judge Barbara Linde.
The King County Bar Association Annual Awards Dinner had an amazing turnout from the judiciary, including one Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals judge, six judges from the United States District Court, two Supreme Court justices (one retired), two Court of Appeals judges, over 20 King County Superior Court judges, two King County District Court judges, and a Seattle Municipal Court judge. Many judicial candidates were there pressing the flesh as well.
Obituaries
Gordon Tobin recently died at the age of 74. A Seattle native, he received both his undergraduate and law school degrees from the U-Dub.
R. R. “Bob” Greive recently died at the age of 84 or 85, depending on when his birthday was. Interestingly, he attended Cornish College of the Arts, where he studied commercial art. He served in the Coast Guard during World War II and drew illustrations for Coast Guard publications. He started out at the U-Dub law school, but was elected to the Washington State Legislature in 1946, and subsequently completed his law degree at the University of Miami in 1951. He received his Ph.D. in political science in 1991 and was a member of the Washington State Bar Association for more than 50 years. He also represented the 34th District in the State Legislature for 28 years, and was the Senate Majority Leader for 16 years.
Jerry Diskin, federal prosecutor, recently died at the age of 57 from complications of brain surgery. He was at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for almost 30 years and supervised the drug unit from 1980 to 1998. Diskin received his J.D. from Georgetown University in 1972 and was a JAG at Ft. Lewis following a clerkship.
The Honorable Walter Webster, Jr. recently died at the age of 77. He received his bachelor’s degree in business from Seattle University and his J.D. from Georgetown University School of Law. He was appointed to the Washing-ton State Court of Appeals in 1984 and retired in 2001, though he continued practicing law part time after that. n
Karen Sutherland is the Assistant Managing Member and chair of the Employment and Labor Law Practice Group at Ogden Murphy Wallace, P.L.L.C., and chair of the King County Bar Bulletin Committee. Her practice focuses on employment law and complex litigation. She can be reached at 1601 -- 5th Avenue, Suite 2100, Seattle, WA 98101, by phone at (206) 447-7000, by fax at (206) 447-0215, or by e-mail at ksutherland@omwlaw.com.
