FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE       
September 11, 2006      
        
Contact Judith Berrett
Director of Member and Community Relations
206-727-8212; judithb@wsba.org

Seattle Attorney Patrick H. McIntyre Receives 2006 WSBA Lifetime Service Award

Seattle, Washington, September 11, 2006 — The Washington State Bar Association (WSBA) announces that Seattle attorney Patrick H. “Mac” McIntyre will receive the WSBA Lifetime Service Award. This is a special award given for a lifetime of service to the WSBA and the public and it is given only when there is someone especially deserving of this recognition. 2005-2006 WSBA President S. Brooke Taylor will present the award to McIntyre at the WSBA Annual Awards Dinner, to be held on September 14, 2006, at the Madison Renaissance Hotel in Seattle.

McIntyre, a former deputy director and general counsel for Evergreen Legal Services, is retiring after more than a decade as the executive director of the Northwest Justice Project (NJP), a not-for-profit statewide organization that provides free civil legal services to low-income people throughout Washington state. Under his leadership, the NJP has grown from a fledgling legal-services provider to a multi-million dollar statewide organization with a national reputation that has helped countless Washington residents access equal justice.

His leadership was essential in the creation of the Legal Aid for Washington (LAW) Fund, which provides private support for civil legal-aid programs in Washington state, and the Access to Justice Board, established by the Washington State Supreme Court to address the need for equal access to justice for those facing economic and other barriers. For much of his professional career, McIntyre has led numerous bipartisan WSBA delegations to Washington, D.C., to help educate our congressional leaders about the need for adequate equal-justice funding that helps our poorest and most vulnerable people.

McIntyre’s lifetime of service embodies the highest values of the WSBA and the legal profession. Whether providing volunteer leadership through WSBA sections and committees, or through service as an access-to-justice leader, McIntyre has led by example with intelligence, wit, humility, and the ability to build community in furtherance of the equal-justice mission and its core values.

In nominating McIntyre for this award, Christine E. Crowell, chair of the Access to Justice Board, wrote: “In the leadership book Flight of the Geese, the ‘lead goose’ has the toughest and most exhausting job in the flock, ‘riding point’ and facing the strongest resistance from the wind.... Mac has shouldered this toughest of all burdens for nearly 30 years. It is fitting, as he drops back to take his well-deserved change in role, that we acknowledge and honor his lifetime of leadership with the recognition from our profession’s leadership organization, the WSBA, as its highest level of achievement.”

About the WSBA
 
The WSBA is part of the judicial branch, exercising a governmental function authorized by the Washington State Supreme Court to license the state’s 29,800 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 admission process, including the bar exam; provides record-keeping and licensing functions; and administers the lawyer-discipline system. 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 2006-2007 president is Ellen Conedera Dial, of Seattle, and the 2006-2007 president-elect is Stanley A. Bastian, of Wenatchee.
 
The Board meets regularly (every six weeks) at various locations around the state, and its meetings are open to the public. Much of the work of the Bar is carried out through 23 standing committees; 26 sections; and a Young Lawyers Division, with its many committees.

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