J. Matthew Geyman Receives WSBA Pro Bono Award

Seattle, Washington , September 12, 2002 - Seattle lawyer J. Matthew Geyman has received the Washington State Bar Association (WSBA) Pro Bono Award, and will be recognized at a dinner tonight in Seattle . Given annually, this award is presented for outstanding efforts in providing free legal services to the poor.

Matthew Geyman has devoted more than a decade to pro bono work focused on ensuring equal justice for poor migrant and seasonal farm workers. Historically, farm workers have been deprived of basic occupational health and safety protection. Mr. Geyman worked with Columbia Legal Services (a not-for-profit organization that provides civil legal services to people who are low-income or have special legal needs) to challenge the exclusion of farm workers from the worker safety and health standards that protected all other Washington workers. As a result of his efforts, the Washington State Attorney General concluded that the farm-worker exclusion was probably unconstitutional, and the Department of Labor & Industries adopted new standards protecting farm workers. This advocacy was an important victory for Washington ’s 300,000 migrant and seasonal farm workers and the principle of equal protection under the law.

In his nomination letter, Guadalupe Gamboa, national vice president of United Farm Workers of America, wrote: “The legal victories farm workers have obtained as a consequence of Matt Geyman’s efforts are not capable of measurement. How can you place a value on a tractor driver not getting seriously injured or killed because he was saved by roll-over protections and seat belts mandated by the standards?…The farm worker community is deeply indebted to Mr. Geyman for his work on our behalf. He is truly the type of person who, by his deeds, exemplifies the highest ideals of the legal profession.”

The Washington State Bar Association is a private, nonprofit organization authorized by the Washington State Supreme Court to license the state’s 26,600 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.