Seattle Times Reporter Justin Mayo Receives Washington State Bar Association’s Excellence in Legal Journalism Award

Seattle Washington, September 22, 2004 — The Washington State Bar Association (WSBA) announces that Seattle Times reporter Justin Mayo 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 Mr. Mayo September 16 at the WSBA Annual Awards Dinner at the Seattle Marriott Waterfront Hotel.

Mr. Mayo received a B.A. in International Studies from the University of Washington in 1992 and an M.A. in journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 1998. From 1996 to 1998 he worked for the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting. For the past five years, he has been a reporter with The Seattle Times’ investigative team, specializing in database and spatial analysis of a variety of issues, including criminal justice, demographics, elections, and education. Prior to The Seattle Times, he worked for the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting in Columbia, MO.

On April 5, 6, and 7 of this year, The Seattle Times published a three-part report pointing out serious problems in Washington’s indigent-defense system, titled “The Empty Promise of an Equal Defense,” that Mr. Mayo and fellow Seattle Times reporters Ken Armstrong and Florangela Davila co-wrote. 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.”

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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