Yakima Lawyer Rafael A. Gonzales Receives WSBA Affirmative Action Award

Seattle, Washington, September 13, 2001 — Yakima lawyer Rafael (Ray) A. Gonzales will receive the Washington State Bar Association (WSBA) Affirmative Action Award today in Seattle. This award is given to a lawyer or law firm in recognition of significant contribution to affirmative action in the employment of ethnic minorities, women and the disabled in the legal profession.

A member of the Nez Perce Nation, Mr. Gonzales was raised on the Lapwai and Yakama Indian Reservations. He joined the Marine Corps after high school, and then returned to Washington to attend college. After graduating from Central Washington University, he worked as a journalist for the Yakima Herald-Republic, Omak Chronicle and other Northwest newspapers. He then went into corporate communications for the Colville Confederated Tribes and Sealaska Corporation of Juneau. Mr. Gonzales received a Thomas More fellowship and entered Gonzaga University School of Law, where he was the first person of color to enter the school's public-service program. He is now a public defender in Yakima.

Mr. Gonzales has served on a number of WSBA committees, and consistently reminds his colleagues that "diversity isn't only about color." He currently co-chairs the WSBA Committee for Diversity. In her nomination letter, committee co-chair Bonnie Glenn wrote: "Ray exemplifies the committee's commitment to value human differences, and to include diversity as a vital element in the strategic focus and daily workings of the Washington judicial system."

The Washington State Bar Association is a private, nonprofit organization authorized by the Washington Supreme Court to license the state's 26,500 lawyers. The WSBA both regulates lawyers under the authority of the Court and serves its members as a professional association — all without public funding. As a regulatory agency, it administers the bar exam, provides record-keeping and licensing functions, and administers the lawyer discipline program. As a professional association, the WSBA provides continuing legal education for attorneys, in addition to numerous other educational and member service activities.