Since I am writing this column during the first week of August, I have no idea whether the Mariners will be in a pennant race by the time this column gets published. I certainly hope they are, despite the fact that if they win their division, I will owe Mariners vice president, baseball counsel and associate general counsel Bart Waldman lunch. If not, there’s always the Sounders.
New Shareholders
Tom Kilbane has joined the environmental law practice section of Short Cressman & Burgess as a shareholder. Much of his practice involves handling complex issues associated with environmental contamination and pollution.
Douglas Davies has become a member in Foster Pepper PLLC’s litigation and dispute resolution and financial institutions practice groups. Davies was formerly a shareholder at Lane Powell. He has extensive experience representing national and regional businesses in litigation and business matters.
New Associates
Kellie Gronski, Emanuel Jacobowitz, Colm Nelson and Allison Schwartzman have joined Foster Pepper PLLC as associates. Gronski was formerly with a firm in Boulder, Colorado, and will be part of Foster Pepper’s real estate practice group. She has extensive experience in managing and assisting with real estate matters. Jacobowitz joins the firm’s litigation practice group. He was previously an associate at Steptoe & Johnson, LLP in Washington, D.C., where he represented clients in complex litigation, including toxic tort, investment fraud, employment, shareholder-derivative, white-collar and telecommunications law. Nelson, formerly with Oles Morrison Rinker & Baker, has joined Foster Pepper’s litigation and dispute resolution practice group. Nelson’s experience is in construction defect litigation. Schwartzman has become an associate in the firm’s municipal government and public finance practice groups.
Schwartzman was previously an associate at a firm in Philadelphia where she assisted in financings by a variety of issuers.
Devra Featheringill has become an associate at Rohde & Van Kampen PLLC. Featheringill, who was previously with Bush Strout & Kornfeld and Stoel Rives LLP, will focus on securities arbitration, intellectual property and business litigation.
Lori Benavides has become an associate at Hendricks & Lewis. Her practice emphasizes civil litigation, appeals and intellectual property.
Philip Hunt and Melanie Haindfield have become associates in the Seattle office of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP. Hunt comes to the firm from a law office in Beaverton, Oregon. Haindfield was formerly with Seed Intellectual Property Law Group. Both associates are now practicing in DWT’s national intellectual property/patent law practice. Hunt is licensed to practice in Oregon only.
Jeffrey Odom has joined Lane Powell as an associate in the firm’s litigation practice group. Odom was previously an associate with Williams, Kastner & Gibbs, and with a firm in Georgia. His practice has included complex medical malpractice, toxic torts, asbestos litigation and product liability.
Of Counsel and Other Attorney Additions
Ron Whitener, an assistant professor of law and the assistant director of the Native American Law Center at the University of Washington, has joined Foster Pepper as of counsel in its Native American industry group. His practice will focus on assisting tribes with bond finance, real estate and construction law, labor and employment law, and Indian law. He is a member of the Squaxin Island Tribe and formerly worked as its tribal attorney.
F. Ross Boundy recently joined Davis Wright Tremaine LLP’s Seattle office as a member of its national intellectual property/patent law practice. Boundy will be a senior patent litigator with the firm. He was formerly partner in charge of litigation at Christensen O’Connor Johnson Kindness.
Outside of Private Practice
Stuart Kastner, formerly a member of Montgomery, Purdue, Blankinship & Austin, has become an associate broker with Windermere Real Estate in Ballard. He represents buyers and sellers of residential and commercial property and formerly played guitar with the Deadbeats (bankruptcy bar) band at the CENTS event and also cooked for the Bite of Bankruptcy three years in a row.
Honors and Awards
The Washington State Bar Association Board of Governors has elected Brenda Williams as a governor at-large. Since joining the bar in 1998, Williams has been a public defender in King County Superior Court and Seattle Municipal Court.
Burien attorney David Heller has been elected to the WSBA Board of Governors as the new governor representing the 9th District. His practice emphasizes litigation of personal injury and insurance cases and criminal defense.
Lori Haskell has been elected by the WSBA Board of Governors as the new governor representing the 7th Central District. Since entering private practice, she has concentrated solely in the area of tort litigation, with an emphasis on personal injury and employment law.
The new governors begin their terms this month. The WSBA is governed by a 14-person Board of Governors, with three governors from the 7th Congressional District, one from each of the other eight districts and three at-large members.
Rita Herrera Irvin, a partner at McKinley Irvin, a Seattle-based family law firm, was recently appointed to the Tacoma Art Museum Board of Trustees. She is one of five new board members and will serve a renewable three-year term.
Washington Defense Trial Lawyers recently elected Rick Roberts as president and Ted Buck as president-elect. Roberts is a staff attorney at The Hartford. His litigation defense practice focuses on personal injury tort-auto and premises liability. Buck is a partner at Stafford Frey Cooper. WDTL also elected Emilia Sweeney of Lane Powell PC to be its treasurer and Jillian Barron of Sebris Busto as secretary. Its new board members are Edward Bruya of Keefe, King & Bowman, P.S.; Jennifer Campbell of Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt; Linda Gallagher of the King County Prosecutor’s Office; and Dan Johnson of the Law Offices of Shahin Karim.
The King County Regional Justice Center in Kent has been renamed the Norm Maleng Regional Justice Center. The measure for the adoption of the name was co-sponsored by all nine King County Council members as a memorial to the long-time King County Prosecuting Attorney.
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Karen Sutherland is the chair of the Employment and Labor Law Practice Group at Ogden Murphy Wallace, P.L.L.C., and chair of the King County Bar Association Bar Bulletin Committee. Her practice focuses on employment and labor law and complex litigation. She can be reached at 1601 Fifth Ave., Suite 2100, Seattle, WA 98101, by fax at 206-447-0215 or by email at ksutherland@omwlaw.com.
