Report from the March 2007 Meeting

The BOG met in Bellevue on March 2, 2007. A great deal of the meeting time, both in public and executive sessions, was consumed with the selection of the next executive director of the Bar Association. The Board created an Executive Search Committee last year following the announcement of then-executive director Jan Michels of her intent to retire. The committee conducted an exhaustive nationwide search, reviewed numerous résumés, conducted a series of interviews, and finally narrowed the field of potential candidates for interview by the WSBA staff, various stakeholders, and the BOG itself. After carefully considering the input of all parties and the recommendation of the committee, the Board selected Paula Littlewood, who accepted and commenced her duties as executive director on May 1. Having participated in this process, I am confident that Paula will do an excellent job and will be particularly attentive to the needs of the young lawyers of Washington.

Another issue arising at the Bellevue meeting was a proposal by the Washington State Department of Revenue (“DOR”) to extend Business and Occupation (“B&O”) tax liability to attorneys who advance litigation and other costs to clients. This tax would directly affect those attorneys who advance these costs under contingency fee agreements. The actions of DOR in this regard were prompted by the recent change in RPC 1.8(e) that no longer requires attorneys to make clients ultimately liable for these costs under a contingency fee agreement. Following a presentation by former WSBA Governor Mark Johnson on the matter, the Board voted to recommend to the Washington Supreme Court that the rule be changed back to its former state in order to avoid this wholly unanticipated tax consequence for attorneys. As of this writing, it appears the court has adopted the Bar’s recommendation and the rule change will be made.

The BOG also received a lengthy presentation by on the final report of the Committee for Public Defense and its seven subcommittees. These committees reported and made recommendations on the death penalty, education, juvenile defense and representation, mental illness and sex offender civil commitments, non-legislative fixes for enforcement of standards, and system efficiencies and legislative changes. In particular, the Death Penalty Subcommittee sought approval and adoption of its report and recommendations, as well as extension of its charter. After discussion by the Board, we determined that we should take the time to seek input from our constituents on this important topic before taking a final vote on the matter.

Finally, the Board received a report from the newly-forming Local Rules Task Force. This group is seeking to review the proliferation of local rules in Washington and make recommendations for improvement that might simplify and streamline the increasingly complex and disparate local rules among Washington’s county courts.

Death Penalty Subcommittee Report

I want to call your attention to one item that will be before the Board at its April 13–14 meeting in Kelso. The Death Penalty Subcommittee of the WSBA Committee on Public Defense has issued a final report after its extensive study and analysis of the use of the death penalty in Washington State. This report reaches a number of conclusions and makes several recommendations for further study and action, and the subcommittee is seeking endorsement by the Board of these conclusions and recommendations. I believe the report is generally uncontroversial; it does not, for example, make any judgments about the merits of the death penalty system itself one way or another. Thus, I intend to vote to endorse the report and the continuing work of the subcommittee. However, I am interested in hearing your views on this important report. You can read all of the materials at www.wsba.org/lawyers/groups/committeeonpublicdefense.htm, and you can reach me at wyld_governor@mac.com. I want to hear what you think.