My decision to go into law began in the dark. That’s the first thing I remember: darkness. I was eight years old and about to see something no eight year old should. I remember realizing I wasn’t alone when I saw the circular glow of flashlights sliding across the walls of our two-bedroom apartment just […]
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In the fall of 2014, as the economy recovered from the recession and the need for distressed property attorneys diminished, I faced a career conundrum: either master a new area of law or pursue a new professional path. As you can tell from the title of this article, I pursued a new path that diverted […]
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The final weeks of the Washington state legislative session are marked by long nights on the chamber floors as legislators vote on bills from the opposite house before the April 17 cutoff and push to pass legislation by April 28, the last day of the scheduled regular session. WSBA’s request legislation—Senate Bill (SB) 5003—was a […]
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Stress is ever present in modern-day society. Individuals worry about money, time, families, relationships, careers. Some stress is beneficial and positive: the stress of a new baby, the stress of a promotion, the stress of personal growth. But more and more, stress is passing a tipping point from short-term, motivating, and positive, to long-term, chronic, […]
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In 2016, there were nearly as many people in Washington county jails awaiting trial as the population of Lincoln County. The vast majority of people in jails throughout the state have not been convicted of a crime: 77 percent of them, according to findings outlined in the recently released Pretrial Reform Task Force Final Recommendations […]
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Division III of the Washington State Court of Appeals recently, in a split decision, drew from a 1988 death penalty case to refine the determination for when a prosecutor’s client conflict might extend to the office as a whole. State v. Nickels, ___ Wn. App. 2d___, 434 P.3d 535, 2019 WL 479494 (Feb. 7, 2019) […]
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In 2018, John Kennedy and Sharon Wilcoxen met when they each attended the 2018 WSBA Practice Primer Series on Business Law. One year after that serendipitous meeting, they are now in the process of opening their own estate planning and business law firm: Kennedy Wilcoxen PLLC. At the time, Kennedy was working at a law […]
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The transition from practicing law to crafting legislation is almost as entwined with the legal profession as the yellow legal pad. Many lawyers eventually find themselves drawn to public office, but why? What drove them to take the leap? How does legal training color their approach to public policy? Most importantly, what are they going […]
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The origins of mediation and arbitration can be traced back as far as 1800 B.C. to the Mari Kingdom in Syria as a way to resolve disputes with other kingdoms, according to A History of ADR, published by the Association for Conflict Resolution (ACR). In the book “Malinche, Pocahontas, and Sacagawea: Indian Women as Cultural […]
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It was about 5 p.m. on a Friday, and I could see the jagged ridges of the Cascades clearly from my office. I took it as an unmistakable sign that it was time to head out for the day. But just as I was packing up, the phone rang. On the other end of the […]
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