Seattle Times Reporter Florangela Davila Receives Washington State Bar Association’s Excellence in Legal Journalism Award

Seattle Washington, September 21, 2004 — The Washington State Bar Association (WSBA) announces that Seattle Times reporter Florangela Davila received its 2004 Excellence in Legal Journalism Award. The Excellence in Legal Journalism Award recognizes that describing the context, facts, and players involved in the legal system with fairness and sensitivity requires intelligence, knowledge, dedication, and skill. The award is given to the journalist and his or her organization that has set the standard for relevance, clarity, accuracy, and understanding in reporting. Former WSBA Governor Jon Ostlund presented the award to Ms. Davila September 16 at the WSBA Annual Awards Dinner at the Seattle Marriott Waterfront Hotel.

Ms. Davila, who was born and raised in Los Angeles, graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1989 with degrees in French and Political Science, and in 1992 from the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, where she focused on documentaries. For the last 10 years, she has been a reporter for The Seattle Times, where she writes primarily about race and immigration. Prior to The Seattle Times, she worked as an education reporter at The Alameda Times-Star in California. “I’m a reporter because I like writing about people who might otherwise be overlooked,” she explained.

Earlier this year, Ms. Davila co-wrote, along with fellow Seattle Times reporters Ken Armstrong and Justin Mayo, a three-part report pointing out serious problems in Washington’s indigent-defense system, titled “The Empty Promise of an Equal Defense,” which was published in The Seattle Times on April 4, 5, and 6. Former WSBA Governor Jon Ostlund, who nominated the three reporters for the award, called the report “clearly the most important and powerful piece of legal journalism published in the State of Washington this year. I think and hope that it may be one of the cornerstones in bringing about positive change in our fragmented system of providing defense to the poor in this state. It has certainly brought this issue to the forefront of public awareness and shined a spotlight on it that neither our courts, the Washington State Bar Association, nor public officials at the state and local levels can ignore.”

“I’m grateful to the people who helped us report about this issue, which needed the public’s attention,” said Ms. Davila. “I thank you for very much for this award.”

About the WSBA
The Washington State Bar Association is a private, nonprofit organization authorized by the Washington State Supreme Court to license the state’s 28,400 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.

The governance of the WSBA is vested in its 14-person Board of Governors. There are three governors from the seventh congressional district; one from each of the other eight districts; and three at-large members, one of whom represents the Young Lawyers Division. The president is Ronald R. Ward of Seattle. The board meets every six weeks at various locations around the state, and its meetings are open to the public. Much of the work of the WSBA is carried out through its 23 standing committees, 23 sections, and a Young Lawyers Division.

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