On any given day, the majority of King Couty Law Library’s (KCLL) pro se patrons come to us with family law questions. Fortunately, between the myriad of state and local resources online, in the courthouse, and in the library, these folks can access many required court forms and how-to materials on their own.

A big thank you to everyone who attended this year’s New Lawyers Division Spring Soirée on April 4th! It was a huge success.

As May arrives, it brings not only the flowers promised by April’s showers, but also hints of our upcoming summer. This month also brings us Law Day on May 1st, a time to educate youth and adults across the country.

We all know law school, the prerequisite for becoming a trial lawyer, is a considerable commitment of time and money. It is also a commitment to see and think about the world in a different way. 

Like nearly everyone, we at King County Law Library found ourselves particularly challenged by the COVID shutdown. A huge percentage of the legal research materials we had were literally meant to be used hands-on. Even most of the electronic subscriptions we maintained were still set up to be used from one of the library’s in-house computers.

KCBA’s housing justice work has grown exponentially over the years. What began in 1998 as a volunteer service now supports a staff of 43 dedicated to promoting housing stability and availability while aiding individuals in avoiding eviction. 

Michele Storms did not set out to become a lawyer.

Then she spent a summer during college volunteering at a shelter for unhoused women and children in Washington, D.C. The shelter’s ethos revolved around community. Everyone lived together — the people seeking housing and services and those providing them. They played with the children together. They shopped for food together. They cooked together. And they listened to each other’s stories.

I recently spoke with a lawyer who was describing the variety of personalities she has encountered during her first year as a litigator. It reminded me of a lesson compellingly modeled for me in my first years as a lawyer, for which I now have gained a 40-year perspective.1 Condensed to its essence, the lesson is “Don’t be a jerk.”

After President Karen Orehoski called the meeting to order, the Board approved the meeting minutes for the Board meeting on January 17, 2024.

A fruit fly passes through an open window into your kitchen and immediately swerves up, left, down, back up again, then veers toward another open window, disappearing into the Washington air. Another drunken fly with no depth perception and poor navigation, right? You see the seemingly aimless behavior and assume, based on the rules for how we judge our own human behavior, the fly must be rudderless, lost, sick, dying. Why else would anyone make such a maze of ups and downs, left turns and rights, just to fly in one window and out another? It could have flown a straight line. When we evaluate the behavior of the fruit fly with our own behavior as the measuring stick, could we be missing the real, predictable understanding for the fly’s behavior?