Volume XIII, Issue II
March/April 1999

Dear Editor:

I've been a Deputy Prosecuting Attorney in Pierce County for three and a half years and was an intern for the same office for two years before that. I'd like to say "thank you" to Kurt Bennett for his advice to attorneys on how to deal with prosecutors in their criminal cases. Thank you also to the many opposing counsel who have been professional in their cases against me while still fulfilling their duties to their clients. While not limited to young lawyers or to defense attorneys, those who yell, who refuse to attempt negotiations and who make personal attacks are fairly transparent. They are unprepared, insecure and unskilled. Those of us who have a high volume of cases recognize it, talk about it and worst of all, remember it.

Sarah Richardson

Dear Editor,

I am a 1L at Gonzaga and I just finished reading the November/December issue of De Novo (I'm kind of running behind). I was troubled by the "Taking A Stand" article by Patrick Palace.

The general theme of the article is that lawyers are not pond scum, but rather active contributors to their respective communities. However, the article blindly leads itself from jury pay into a blurb on I-200. The lack of information as to how the WYLD came to this "agreement" appears to be a simple endorsement of a political agenda and not based on any real analysis or statistics.

It confuses me that Mr. Palace can speak highly of the unrecognized community contributions that lawyers make and then come out of nowhere and tell us that minorities and women are not smart enough to pass an I-200 filter. I hope I am wrong on that point, but I cannot understand how women and minorities will be negatively impacted if race and gender are not considered in the admissions process.

I-200 is not "detrimental" to the practice of law. In my opinion, I-200 raises the bar to the practice of law in Washington by requiring our schools to select students based on academics ... and nothing else.

I hope De Novo will be able to further address this in a future issue by giving us specific analysis and statistics that support their "position."

Sincerely,

Eric R. Sloan

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