FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 17, 2007

Contact: Stephanie Perry
Communications Specialist/Website Editor
206-733-5932; stephaniep@wsba.org

Ronald R. Ward Receives 2007 Excellence in Diversity Award

Seattle, Washington, September 17, 2007 — The Washington State Bar Association (WSBA) announces that WSBA Past-president Ronald R. Ward will be honored with the 2007 Excellence in Diversity Award, presented to a lawyer, law firm, or law-related group that has made a significant contribution to diversity in the legal profession’s employment of ethnic minorities, women, and persons with disabilities. WSBA President Ellen Conedera Dial will present the award at the WSBA Annual Awards Dinner, to be held on September 20, 2007, at the Grand Hyatt Seattle Hotel.

The eldest of 10 children raised in a San Francisco area housing project, Ward was inspired to practice law by the example of his mother, who worked as a domestic and who he saw as an inspiring example of preparation for the next generation. Ward earned his law degree from the University of California in 1976. He served as a Washington state assistant attorney general before entering private practice at Levinson Friedman of Seattle, where he became a partner in 1986. He is currently a partner in the Seattle firm Jones & Ward PLLC.

Ward’s practice focuses on serious auto, maritime, and construction site personal injuries, and wrongful death. He was elected and served as 2004-2005 president of the WSBA, after serving two years on its Board of Governors, and as its president-elect. He was the first African-American person to serve as WSBA president. He is a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates, the American Bar Association House of Delegates, and a former member of the ABA Standing Committee on Pro Bono and Public Service and the President’s Commission on the Renaissance of Idealism in the Profession.

Ward is the founder of the WSBA Leadership Institute for diverse young lawyers, program winner of the national 2005 American Bar Association Partnership Award, and sole recipient in the country of the 2006 LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell Legal Fellowship.

“This is a community,” Ward has said of diversity in Washington. “It includes whites, blacks, Latinos, Asians, Indians, gays, lesbians, and individuals with disabilities. Our community rises and falls together… We as a community will only achieve full fruition of our possibilities when diversity as a semantic is a given and no longer of any particular moment.”

“Mr. Ward has started a legacy of increasing diversity in the leadership of our profession and creating opportunities to instill an awareness in the value of diversity,” said Kennewick attorney Gloria Ochoa Lawrence. “[He] exemplifies a standard of professionalism, commitment, and service to our legal profession and the community at large.”

About the Washington State Bar Association
The WSBA is part of the judicial branch, exercising a governmental function authorized by the Washington State Supreme Court to license the state’s 30,700 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, the WSBA 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. The 2006-2007 president-elect is Stanley A. Bastian, of Wenatchee, and the immediate past-president is S. Brooke Taylor, of Port Angeles. 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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