At Northwest Immigrant Rights Project’s Seattle Office, our front desk works to screen community members who are in dire need of immigration services. Our organization assists community members in Removal (Deportation) Proceedings, those seeking Asylum, those who wish to submit Family Petitions for their relatives, those who wish to apply for citizenship, and many who hope to apply for humanitarian forms of relief, such as U-visa, T-visa, VAWA, Special Juvenile Visa Status and DACA renewals. We also assist community members who wish to either renew or replace their permanent resident (green card) cards or employment authorization cards. All our offices across Washington state take pride in our commitment to assist as many people who are detained at the Northwest Detention Center as possible.

Listening to Barenaked Ladies “If I had a Million Dollars”, adding some extra zeros to the song, as I re-read for the third time, how 93-year-old Ruth Gottesman just donated $1 billion to a Bronx medical school, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, with instructions that the gift be used to cover tuition for all students going forward. The donation is notable not only for its staggering size, but also because it is going to a medical institution in the Bronx, the city’s poorest borough. The Bronx has a high rate of premature deaths and ranks as the unhealthiest county in New York.

Summer is the time to take to the road. So, we investigated some new options for dining on our way. This time we focused on half-way points where we might stop on our way to Portland or Spokane.

It is a few days after Juneteenth as I write this column. It is an important day, a day to commemorate the ending of slavery in the United States. Of course, it symbolizes much more than one day. On its face, it was a day in 1865 in Texas when emancipation would be enforced 900 days after emancipation was first announced. The Confederate States surrendered on April 9, 1865, two months before emancipation in Texas. And still, there were enslaved people in states that did not secede and they were not freed until the ratification of the 13th Amendment on December 6, 1865.

The following are highlights from the KCBA Board of Trustees meetings held on May 15, convened by KCBA President Karen Orehoski.

Shifting our perspectives or stepping into the other party’s shoes offers benefits to both attorneys and clients. These benefits include improved problem-solving, a better outcome, or a more thorough understanding of the situation and each party’s interests. Just a reminder that shifts in perspectives not only allow for better professional outcomes but for better personal ones, too.

Office Space

Law school was a transformative experience. Having just graduated college, I had very little exposure to adult life experiences. And my childhood was not unlike many others who had come of age in the late 1970s. Graduating law school in the mid-80s, I had very little exposure how business works beyond serving customers at hospitality and retail establishments off and on. Law School taught me how to think differently. It taught me how to identify the issue, evaluate facts that were relevant to that issue, and then apply those facts to the law.

As we all know, one of the most stressful but imperative requests an attorney or pro-se litigant can make to the court is to seek a protection order. Laura Groves and Peyton Healy are attorneys with backgrounds in both Family and Dependency law. Laura has been practicing for 19 years, and Peyton has been practicing for four years. We write this article today as we have observed both positives and negatives in practice and in court caused by the changes to Chapter 7.105 of the Revised Code of Washington that went into effect July 1, 2022.

One of the most persistent beliefs about jury trials is that cases are won in opening statement. It is a belief largely born out of primacy theory, which is the idea that what jurors hear first at trial is most influential to their final verdict. The belief in opening statements as the key decision point for jurors has been repeated in publications, television series, movies, and endless CLE presentations. Harvard University Professor of Law Ronald S. Sullivan, Jr. recently wrote, “Though Hollywood movies about courtroom dramas often glamorize the closing arguments given by lawyers, in reality the opening statement is likely the most important single event of a trial.” Last year, a retired trial judge in California presented a CLE on “how to win your case in opening statement.” We hear it regularly from some of our own clients. But this profession, as smart as its members are, routinely embraces old wives’ tales, pop psychology gimmicks, and other beliefs that give attorneys that sense of control and belief that they are inching closer to success, so we wanted to explore the research on this issue and offer insights into whether cases are won in opening statements.