Each year, the New Lawyers Division has the opportunity to select an Outstanding New Lawyer to be honored. Looking at the list of past winners is nothing short of a “Who’s Who” in the King County Bar. This year, like every other, we had an incredible slate of nominees, each of whom deserves recognition in their own right. In that regard, we extend our sincere congratulations to Marcia Cho, Raymond Delos Reyes, Chris Ryder, Emma Healey, Diego Rondon Ichikawa, Jackson Marchant, and Aaron Paker on their nominations. While we can only have one winner, we are fortunate to be practicing in a jurisdiction where there are so many outstanding lawyers.
Having done the hard part of winnowing down our list to our awardee, let’s turn to the easy part — awarding Aaron Paker this year’s Outstanding New Lawyer award.
Two years ago, the “Young Lawyers Division” became the “New Lawyers Division.” There were important motivations driving the name change and membership shift. NLD adjusted its membership qualifications, moving from anyone in their first five years of practice or under 36 years of age to include all practitioners in their first ten years of practice.
This change emphasized the inclusion of an important group of practitioners — those who were coming to the practice after other careers, or life challenges, and broadened the experience range within the body. This year’s Outstanding New Lawyer, Aaron Paker, embodies the significance of this shift.
For those of you who are regular readers of this Bar Bulletin, you will already be familiar with Aaron. Aaron is regularly featured as a contributing author both in this publication and the Washington State Bar Association’s Bar News. In his writings, Aaron offers not only his expertise in elder law, Medicaid, and estate planning, but also openly shares his own experience with mental illness.
If you’ve read his pieces, you’ll already know — Aaron is also not a young lawyer. Rather, Aaron is a new lawyer, who came to the law after fourteen years in early childhood education, where he worked with special education communities. Transitioning out of teaching, Aaron elected to become a paralegal. He found work with an elder law firm, Life Point Law, but quickly realized he could outperform many of the attorneys he was assigned to assist. He turned to his Managing Partner, Rajiv Nagaich, to encourage him to hire better staff — Rajiv responded by instructing Aaron to go to law school. Aaron passed the bar in 2020 after completing his J.D. at Seattle University, and was named a partner within three years starting as an attorney at Life Point.
This is not surprising. Aaron is fully dedicated to his role. He regularly logs more than 500 miles of driving a week to visit his clients in their homes. He works exclusively in fixed fee arrangements to guarantee his clients predictable costs and allow himself to provide stellar service without breaking their banks. He frequently publishes articles in professional publications, appears on the radio to answer elder care and estate planning questions, and has published a free Medicaid guide, of which he has distributed almost one thousand copies, with a goal of distributing another one thousand over the coming year.
Elder law necessarily touches on two subjects which are an anathema to many — money and death. Aaron’s life experience has equipped him to have the hard conversations that are a necessary part of the practice, in a manner that educates and illuminates rather than dictating. It may be best said by those close to him — as one of his nominators explained, “Aaron is one of the few attorneys who sees his mission to help his clients in any way he can. Frequently he is working on the weekends and evenings making house calls to help clients who are unable to travel, or unable to afford legal work, or both.” Another noted, “He has helped countless people transition from taking care of a loved one or spouse who needs full-time care into the full-time care and expertly navigates the Medicaid process to prevent a transitioning spouse from losing all of their assets as a result of the transition.”
Were Aaron merely an exceptional practitioner, it would be enough to deserve the Outstanding New Lawyer honor. But Aaron is more. The same willingness to address taboo subjects in his practice is present in how he tackles other challenges he has faced. Aaron regularly shares his experiences with mental illness. While acknowledging that the stigma of sharing his own experiences may carry negative impacts on his own success, he refuses to be silent. As he says, this is for three reasons. First, because sharing his own struggles may empower others to share their challenges, and seek the help they may need. Second, because these struggles have been an integral part of what has made Aaron the exceptional attorney he is today. And third, because no one should be ashamed to discuss what they have overcome to get where they are today. Aaron’s openness about his own mental health struggles has led to Aaron’s interacting with dozens of attorneys battling their own demons, and is credited with preventing at least one suicide.
We cannot agree more with one of his nominators, who told us Aaron is an “even better person than he is an attorney. King County is well served by talented people like Aaron.” We are honored to be able to name Aaron Paker this year’s Outstanding New Lawyer, and thrilled to have him as a colleague.
