President’s Post – NWSidebar

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The Derek Chauvin Trial: Early Insights from WSBA President-Elect’s Judicial Perspective

Very little about the trial against former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is standard. The mere fact that there is a trial is somewhat unusual. Police-involved deaths rarely result in prosecutions, let alone convictions of the officers involved. (Despite about 1,000 police-involved deaths per year, since 2015 only 121 officers have been arrested on charges of murder or manslaughter resulting in 44 convictions, according to the New York Times.) Few police-involved deaths are as widely well-known as the summer day in 2020 and the now-infamous video showing Chauvin kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, ending in Floyd’s death. And certainly, never before has such an intensely high-profile criminal case taken place amid the unprecedented courtroom restrictions to amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

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Takeaways from WSBA’s Diversity Panel Discussion on Women, Race and Age

In September, the WSBA hosted a panel entitled “Women, Race and Age: Mitigating Misogyny and Bias in the Legal Profession.” We (Robin Haynes and Linda Fang) were panelists, along with Elaine Edralin Pascua and Onik’a Gilliam. In an effort to continue the conversation, we wanted to share our takeaways from the panel and encourage readers […]

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What’s in the October Issue of NWLawyer?

Meet your new president, president-elect, and governors in the October 2016 issue of NWLawyer! Take a look at the featured articles below or read the full issue online.

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Join us for the 2016 WSBA Listening Tour

On June 1, WSBA Executive Director Paula Littlewood and I, WSBA President Bill Hyslop, will begin the 2016 WSBA Listening Tour. We’ll spend time with members in Bellevue, Moses Lake, Tri-Cities, Walla Walla, Pullman, and Spokane. Together these stops encompass the East King, Grant, Benton-Franklin, Walla Walla, Whitman, and Spokane county bars.

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Religious Freedom Includes Right to Believe in Sanctity of Gay Marriage

I normally use my blog posts to discuss and expand on my guest writers and the topics they are discussing. However, the June article that Barb Rhoads-Weaver and I co-wrote in NWLawyer prompted a couple of letters to the editor that I would like to respond to instead.

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Inside Inclusion: Change is Necessary for Justice

In the President’s Corner of the June 2015 issue of NWLawyer, Barb Rhoades Weaver and I wrote an article on transgender awareness. Usually I post to this blog with reflections on my guest writers. Since I was a co-author for that particular article, I instead want to focus on another article in our June issue […]

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LGBT Kids: Cycles of Suspensions, Homelessness, and Criminalization

In the President’s Corner of the April/May 2015 issue of NWLawyer, Nicole McGrath discussed issues of equity in education, and how awareness of certain issues in how we handle race, poverty, and education in policy has a big impact on the lives of children.

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Models in Professionalism Are Often Cultural Competency Lessons

In the March 2015 issue of NWLawyer, there are two articles focused on cultural competency. The first is my guest writer for the President’s Corner, Francis Adewale, and the second, called “Know Thy Client,” is by Sims Weymuller.

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Cultural Competency Never Asks Us to Be Color Blind

Reviewing the recent article by Elijah Forde from the February Issue of NW Lawyer served as a good reminder that cultural competency never requires us to ignore race, color, or origin. Cultural competency saves us from the traps of treating others as if their color and origin do not exist – which at best is […]

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Cultural Competency Is Good Business for Lawyers and the Profession

The recent articles by Naoko Inoue Shatz and Qing Qing Miao from the December 2014/January 2015 issue of NWLawyer served as a good reminder that cultural competence is about more than race and country of origin. Both articles talked about cultural issues in doing business with Japan and China, but they also stressed the importance […]

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Update from WSBA President Patrick Palace

June flew by! I thought I would take a few minutes to give you an update on the highlights of the month. The month began with our Board of Governors meeting at the WSBA conference center. I am happy to report to you that we had more members watching online then we have ever had before. […]

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Weekly Words from President Palace: Week of March 31

My President’s Column for the March issue of NWLawyer asks you to sit back a moment and think about what benefits you would like the WSBA to provide. Imagine for a minute if you owned this Bar. What benefits would you like to offer and receive? Obviously none of us own the Bar, but we are […]

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Weekly Words from President Palace: Week of March 10

I thought I would take a moment to update you on highlights of events around the bar.

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Retooling your Practice for the Future – Join the conversation

The old economy is not coming back, neither is yesterday. A wise man once advised, “Give up all hope of a more perfect past.” It’s not about more protections, rebuilding the lawyer monopoly or crushing the non-lawyer legal service uprising. Let’s change the conversation. It is about creating a business model for law firms that […]

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Weekly Words from President Palace: Week of Feb. 24

Read WSBA President Patrick Palace’s Feb. 24 update. There are several recent highlights that I’d like to share. First, we had our first Future of the Profession Workgroup meeting on Feb. 20. This is such a dynamic group with great depth of expertise. It was truly an honor to sit in a room with each of […]

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Weekly Words from President Palace: Week of Jan. 30

Read WSBA President Patrick Palace’s Jan. 30 update. On Saturday, Jan. 25, the day after our Board of Governors meeting, I addressed the Washington Leadership Institute (WLI) Fellows on the topic of leadership. WLI had “Session 1” of its WLI Leadership Training on the 24th and 25th. Here is the agenda so that you could […]