Attorney Marcia Newlands Receives WSBA Courageous Award

Seattle Washington, September 21, 2005 — The Washington State Bar Association (WSBA) announces that Seattle attorney Marcia Newlands received the 2005 WSBA Courageous Award for her exceptional pro bono work on behalf of endangered Tarahumara communities and their leaders in the Sierra Madre Occidental of Mexico. The award, in recognition for exceptional display of courage in the face of adversity, thus bringing credit to the legal profession, was presented at the Olympic Fairmont Hotel, September 15, 2005 at the 2005 WSBA Annual Awards Dinner.

Ms. Newlands is an associate with the Seattle office of Heller Ehrman. Her practice focuses on environmental, energy, and natural resource law and related litigation, including hazardous and solid waste management and disposal issues, hazardous waste cleanups and related litigation (CERCLA and MTCA), environmental permitting, natural resource damage issues (NRD), water rights and water pollution issues, municipal utilities, energy and land use, including brownfields.

Ms. Newlands has a B.A. in International Relations from Pomona College, Claremont, CA, and a law degree from the University of Texas. She is a member of the WSBA, State Bar of Texas, and the American Bar Association. She currently serves as chair of the Association of Washington Business MTCA Task Force. Ms. Newlands has had articles published in the Southwestern Law Journal and in Chapter 8, Environmental Law and Practice, Vol. 23 of the Washington Practice Series published by West Group, 1997. She participated in the regulatory drafting process to revise Washington State Model Toxics Control Act.

Ms. Newlands, in addition to her practice, works with an organization called Environmental Defender Law Center on behalf of environmental activists who have been subjected to persecution in their home countries. One of her most notable works is her pro bono efforts for Tarahumara leader Isidro Baldenegro and activist Hermenegildo Rivas. Baldenegro and Rivas were imprisoned on false charges after leading efforts to halt logging by outsiders of their indigenous community's old growth pine forests. Ms. Newlands' time and efforts allowed Baledenegro and Rivas to have proper, fair representation.

In her work on this case, Ms. Newlands courageously traveled to Mexico to meet with the judge in the case; developed and used diplomatic and political contacts; raised consciousness among staff and members of the Sierra Madre Club, Amnesty International, Greenpeace, and Mexican and other Latin American nongovernmental organizations; had articles published in the Mexican media; and urged the attorney general of Mexico and other Mexican officials to meet and discuss the case. Ms. Newlands' dauntless efforts persuaded Mexican authorities to drop the charges and release Baldanegro and Rivas from prison. Additionally, the officers who arrested Baldengro and Rivas have been charged criminally for their wrongful arrest of the two activists.

"It is rare that a U.S. law firm would give pro bono services to indigenous leaders in remote and neglected regions of the world who are engaged in complicated and controversial struggles for their land, forest, and cultural survival. It is even rarer that a U.S. attorney would go far beyond strictly legal strategies in the international sphere," said Randall Gingrich, executive director of the Sierra Madre Alliance.

Ms. Newlands' courageous efforts on this case received recognition and praise not only from her colleagues, but also from the Honorable Jorge Madrazo of the Mexican Consul in Seattle and former attorney general for all of Mexico. ". . . She demonstrated to be a most dedicated, committed, understanding, hard-working person with an extraordinary sense of professionalism and vocation," said Madrazo. "I commend Ms. Marcia Newlands in her devotion to her work and especially to this case." This landmark case, which is nearing a successful conclusion, is one of only two or three cases in the history of Mexico where indigenous territory was returned to the aboriginal owners, said Gingrich.

Ms. Newlands continues her pro bono work in the Sierra Madre Occidental with a case involving another Tarahumara community, Pino Gordo, seeking to regain title to their traditional forests.

About the WSBA
The Washington State Bar Association is an instrumentality of the state exercising a governmental function authorized by the Washington State Supreme Court to license the state's 29,200 lawyers. The WSBA both regulates lawyers under the authority of the Court and serves its members as a professional association Ż 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; 24 sections; and a Young Lawyers Division, with its many committees.