FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE    
June 7, 2006

Contact: Alfredo Tryferis
Communications Specialist
206-733-5932; alfredot@wsba.org

WSBA and Access to Justice Board to Host 11th Annual Access to Justice and WSBA Bar Leaders Joint Conference June 9-11 in Yakima

ABA President Michael S. Greco to Give Keynote Address

Seattle, Washington, June 7, 2006 —  The Washington State Bar Association (WSBA) and the Access to Justice (ATJ) Board will host the 11th-annual ATJ Conference in conjunction with the WSBA Bar Leaders Conference June 9-11 at the Yakima Convention Center and Red Lion Yakima Center Hotel.

The joint conference will bring together representatives from virtually every sector of the legal community to discuss equal-justice issues as they relate to the delivery of legal services to low-income people, including the Washington State Alliance for Equal Justice — a network of legal-services programs providing legal aid to those with nowhere else to turn — and supporters of the Alliance, which include members of the private bar and the judiciary, court clerks and facilitators, law librarians, paralegals, law school administrators, legal-services programs, pro bono programs, specialized legal services, community services, and the alternative-dispute-resolution community.
 
The conference will begin on Friday with several preliminary meetings throughout the day, culminating in an evening welcoming reception featuring an address by Washington State Supreme Court Chief Justice Gerry L. Alexander, followed by the annual Access to Justice Board Awards. This year's honorees are Washington State Court of Appeals Judge Anne Ellington, who will receive the Judicial Leadership Award, and Northwest Justice Project Executive Director Patrick H. McIntyre, who will receive the Access to Justice Leadership Award.

The conference gets into full swing on Saturday with a variety of ATJ workshops focusing on improving equal access to the civil-justice system for low-income people, featuring several especially notable sessions, such as "Ensuring Court Access to Persons with Limited English Proficiency," a discussion of the changes in federal and state laws governing court access for persons with limited English proficiency; "Improving Educational Outcomes for Youth in Dependencies," highlighting Washington's efforts in tackling the problem of children involved in the child-welfare and juvenile-justice systems; and "Balancing the Scales of Justice: Criminal and Civil Partnerships," a report on how civil legal aid and public defense have joined forces to improve the quality of legal services to low-income people in Washington state.

A highlight of Saturday's events will be the much-anticipated luncheon keynote address by American Bar Association (ABA) President Michael S. Greco. Greco has a long and storied career championing justice for the poor. A partner in the Boston office of Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham, LLP, Greco chaired the first-in-the-nation Massachusetts Legal Needs for the Poor Assessment and Plan for Action, and was a cofounder of Bar Leaders for Preservation of Legal Services for the Poor, a national grassroots organization that helped preserve the Legal Services Corporation in the 1980s.

Since becoming president in August 2005, Greco has spearheaded the ABA Task Force on Access to Civil Justice and made it one of the priorities of his term. This task force will, among other things, lead the effort to establish a defined right to counsel in certain serious civil matters. This topic is also the subject of the Access to Justice/Bar Leaders Conference plenary session immediately preceding the luncheon.

Saturday's Bar Leaders Conference includes a roundtable discussion with the Washington State Supreme Court justices and the WSBA Board of Governors, who will discuss how partisan attacks on a judge's decisions, the skyrocketing costs of judicial campaigns, and pressure from special interests affect judicial independence.

Sunday features "The WSBA Disciplinary System: Protecting Ethical Lawyers and the Public From Those Few Bad Apples," a primer on Washington state's lawyer discipline system presented by WSBA Disciplinary Counsel Sachia Stonefeld Powell and Nancy Bickford Miller.

As in past years, the ATJ and Bar Leaders conferences provide attendees a unique and unforgettable opportunity to learn, share experiences, and help improve the justice system for all Washington residents.

About the Access to Justice Board
The ATJ Board was established by the Washington State Supreme Court in 1994 at the request of the WSBA Board of Governors, in response to a growing need to coordinate the access-to-justice efforts throughout the state and ensure continuity and focus. Its mandate is to ensure access to the civil-justice system for low- and moderate-income Washington residents. The board consists of nine members nominated by the WSBA Board of Governors and appointed by the Washington State Supreme Court. Everett attorney Christine Crowell is the current chair. Click here to learn more about the ATJ Board.

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 2005-2006 president is S. Brooke Taylor, of Port Angeles, and the 2005-2006 president-elect is Ellen Conedera Dial, of Seattle.
 
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; 25 sections; and a Young Lawyers Division, with its many committees.