The Defender Association

The Defender Association has 80 attorneys representing more than 11,000 cases per year in felony, misdemeanor, juvenile, family advocacy, and civil commitment cases, as well as a number of appeals at all levels of the state courts.

The Defender is a non-profit corporation founded with Model Cities funding in 1969 and has an independent Board of Directors.

Defender attorneys come from law schools throughout the United States, with 31 law schools represented. We have 14 graduates from both the University of Washington and Seattle University. Approximately one-third of our staff attorneys worked with us as interns.

54% of staff are women and 16% are minorities. Approximately 20% of staff has been with the office from 6-10 years and 34% of staff has been with the office for over ten years.

The Defender is recognized regionally and nationally as a leader in public defense, and its staff members are active in the statewide Defender organization, local and state bar association work, as well as the National Lawyers Guild and other alternative bar groups. The Director received the 1987 Reginald Heber Smith Award of the National Legal Aid and Defender Association, the 1993 William O. Douglas Award from the Washington Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and the 2000 Friend of the Legal Profession Award from the Seattle-King County Bar Association. In "Tuning Up Gideon's Trumpet"[1], New York University Law Professor Kim Taylor-Thompson recognized the Defender Association and the Public Defender Service of the District of Columbia as having "earned reputations within the defense community for innovative and client-centered representation."

[1] [71 Fordham Law Review 1461,1500 (2003)]

The Defender has a professional investigation and social work staff to assist the attorneys, as well as a modern word processing system and brief bank. We also have a clinical program with the Seattle University School of Law.

The Defender also has a Volunteer Investigation Intern Program that complements the professional staff. Intensive training and supervision are provided. New interns are accepted quarterly. A twenty hour a week commitment for a minimum of three months is required. Please call (206) 447-3900 Ext. 692 for an Information and Application packet, and application deadlines.

Students interested in working in the Defender's summer legal intern program or as externs should send a letter, resume, and list of references to Theresa Allman, Legal Intern Supervisor. The summer program begins with a one-week seminar on trial advocacy and substantive criminal law and procedures.

The Defender office was founded in 1969 as a Model Cities program and now is the largest criminal law firm in the state. We helped to form the state-wide Washington Defender Association, a defender backup and training organization, which has its office in our building. With Columbia Legal Services, we helped to found TeamChild, a nationally recognized program assisting youth charged with crime to resolve educational, health, and housing issues.

The Defender office is located about two blocks from the City Courts, three blocks from the County Courts, and about five blocks from the jail. We have a basic library in the office; the County Courthouse has a library, as does the University of Washington Law School, which is about four miles from the office. We conduct an in-house 35-hour trial advocacy workshop for new attorneys. Our office is within a ten minute walk of the waterfront, historic Pioneer Square, and the International District, and about a fifteen minute walk from the Pike Place Market.

Attorney "alumni" of the Defender Association have enjoyed successful careers in a number of areas after they have left the office. A representative sample includes:

• Ten current Superior Court Judges, five current Municipal judges, one Court of Appeals judge, and one District Court Judge
• Several administrative law judges, including the former Chief Review Judge of the Board of Industrial Insurance Appeals
• A former Seattle City Council member
• The United States Attorney for the Western District of Washington
• The former National Legal Director for the American Civil Liberties Union in New York, now a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School
• A clinical law professor at Cardozo Law School, formerly a staff attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York
• General Counsel for the Washington State Bar Association
• A former member of the Seattle School Board
• Several attorneys with Columbia Legal Services
• The Federal Defender in Pittsburgh
• Eight attorneys with the Federal Public Defender in Seattle
• Three professors at Seattle University Law School
• Two clinical professors at the University of Washington Law School
• A professor at West Virginia University School of Law
• Three attorneys with the U.S. Department of Labor in Seattle
• Several attorneys with the Washington Attorney General's Office
• An independent film maker and distributor

Several attorneys have gone into personal injury litigation and other civil work and many of the leading criminal defense private practitioners in Seattle are former Defenders. Defenders have become officers or Board members of the County Bar Association, the National Lawyers Guild, the National Conference of Black Lawyers, and the ACLU of Washington. Some staff and several alumni teach frequently at the National Institute for Trial Advocacy.

About Seattle and the Puget Sound Area

There is a myth that it rains all the time in Washington State. Not true. In Western Washington the sun shines almost 100 days in spring and summer. (That means less rainfall than New York City, Atlanta, New Orleans, Miami or Chicago.) Summers in Washington bring warm, sunny days and cool, comfortable nights. (The month of July has an average high temperature of 75 and low of 54.)

Seattle is 140 miles from Vancouver, British Columbia, and about 100 miles by car from Mt. Rainier. An extensive ferry system brings within easy reach the Olympic Peninsula and the San Juan Islands. The Seattle area was rated Best Place to Live (Large City in the West) in 1998 by Money magazine. King County has a population of 1.5 million and is the 13th largest in the nation.

Buying a home in Seattle remains more affordable than in Boston, Washington, D.C., New York, San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles, and Riverside, California. (2006 survey by Move, Inc.)