because in ‘ 77 he’d been a summer clerk for
the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office
and loved it. He immediately got involved with
the ACLU. “It was one of the smartest things
I ever did,” he says. “Starting off when I’m—
whatever I was— 26? Going to these meetings
and listening to 15 really smart lawyers
strategize about what kind of cases to take
and how to do ‘em, what arguments to make
and where to file ‘em. I just learned more
sitting in that room, listening, than probably
doing anything else.”
STEVE RINGMAN/ THE SEAT TLE TIMES
In the mid-1980s he spent two years
with the Washington Appellate Defender
Association before he and a friend, John
Wolfe, formed Wolfe & Lobsenz. In 1989,
both attorneys joined Carney Badley.
He’s had headline-grabbing clients,
including Mary Kay Letourneau and Darrell
Cloud, and he’s participated in more than 50
cases that went before the state Supreme
Court, split fairly evenly between arguments
and amicus briefs. But when you ask him for
career highlights, he cites—along with the
Fisons case, which established more ethical
rules for civil discovery in Washington state—
two small, individual rights cases.
In the mid-1990s he represented Eve
Russell, an 11-year-old girl who wanted
to play on the boys soccer team, and,
with Lobsenz’s help, petitioned to do so.
“I thought that took some courage,” he
says. “She was adorable and athletically
gifted and wonderfully naive about all the
More recently, he represented five college
students who were forbidden entrance into a
2006 Sen. Maria Cantwell rally at a Bellevue
Community College gym because they were
wearing T-shirts touting her Republican
opponent. “I really enjoyed all of them,
kidding around with all of them,” he says of
the five students. “They are so completely at
the other end of the political spectrum from
me. In politics we don’t agree on anything
except that they should’ve been allowed to
wear their T-shirts into that gym.”
One senses a theme beyond the fact that
he won both cases.
“In my view,” Judge Hunt says, “you don’t
move the law in another direction simply by
citing existing case law. You have to have
this other skill, this passion and dedication
and vision. You have to have some true
understanding of what types of rights the
Constitution protects, what it takes to protect
those rights, where is the defect in our
current system if it deviates from protecting
those rights, and then how to articulate all
of that and put it in a compelling package
Witt, center, is flanked by Lobsenz and the ACLU’s Sarah Dunne.
his parents, “so couldn’t I go for four years?”
He’s got a reputation for smarts. “Brainiac,”
Bremner calls him. “An encyclopedic mind,”
adds Carney Badley partner Greg Miller. “Very
bright,” says Judge Hunt. “Even fresh out of
law school he was very bright.”
For a time Lobsenz considered a career
as a history teacher. This should come as no
surprise to anyone who has seen him in action.
His briefs, his arguments, even his day-to-day
encounters, are full of teachable moments
and history lessons. Miller recalls a 2009 brief
in which Lobsenz cited common law back
to the 13th century. Witt recalls what should
have been one of the worst days of her life—a
discharge hearing at Robins Air Force Base in
2006—but she made the two-hour van trip
from the Atlanta airport with Lobsenz and
another attorney, and says, “It was like going
on an historical civil rights journey with Jim
Lobsenz. He just told story after story about
civil rights in the South. It was amazing.”
In 1997, in the wake of Princess Diana’s
death, Lobsenz sent a letter to the editor of
The Seattle Times in which he observed: “Too
little attention has been paid to the fact that
the only person to have survived the accident
was also the only person wearing a seat belt.”
It recalls his reasons for getting interested
in the law in the first place: reading Ralph
Nader’s Unsafe at Any Speed at Stanford.
But asked about the letter, Lobsenz suspects
himself of ulterior motives. “What did you
say, ’97? So my oldest daughter was 12 and
my youngest daughter was 8. ... I think I was
thinking, ‘The older one is going to be driving
not too many years from now, and if there are
things we want to say, we need to find the
opportunity to say them in a way that doesn’t
sound like you’re being an annoying dad.’ I
think that’s what I was doing.”
Even this interview is full of history
lessons. Asked about running for judge in
1992—a contest he says he doesn’t mind
having lost, because his opponent, Brian
Gain, turned out to be such a good judge—in
three easy steps we land in 17th- and 18th-
century Poland:
