BRIEFS
PRO BONO
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
WASHINGTON LAWYERS TAKE TIME TO HELP OUT BY NIKI STOJNIC
DREW HANSEN
Drew Hansen, a general litigator at
Susman Godfrey, is handling a pro bono
case for 30 Texas towns opposed to having
a petroleum coke-fired plant built in Corpus
Christi. As the author of The Dream: Martin
Luther King, Jr. and the Speech that Inspired
a Nation, he also lectures in schools and
communities. And starting last fall, he has
a new role: lawmaker in the Washington
State Legislature.
When the case involving the Texas
Clean Air Cities Coalition came to the firm,
Hansen jumped on board. At two trials, in
2009 and 2010, administrative law judges
recommended the permit to build the
plant be denied or sent back to the state
environmental agency for additional study.
Hansen’s cross-examinations of a defense
expert and an agency official were cited as
key factors in these victories. The agency
ultimately issued the permit despite the
administrative judges’ recommendation; but
in May, a Texas state court judge indicated he
would reject the permit, saying the agency
had failed to follow state and federal law.
Hansen’s newest challenge: He was
appointed to an empty 23rd District seat
in the state House of Representatives,
and will be up for election in November.
Hansen previously served as Gov. Chris
Gregoire’s appointed public representative
to Washington’s Community Economic
Revitalization Board and was policy
director for U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell’s
campaign in 2000.
Hansen has been involved in cases
ranging from securities fraud to climate
change litigation. For him, the intersection
of politics and law is natural: “You become a
lawyer because you want to get justice, and
politics is similar to that.”
KATIE MATISON
Some years ago, Lane Powell shareholder
Katie Matison’s mother went into cardiac
arrest. “It was a life-changing event,”
says Matison, who provided CPR. The
scare prompted the attorney to help
others experiencing the same trauma by
volunteering with the American Heart
Association Pacific Mountain Affiliate, which
provides grants and community education
about cardiovascular risks to adults and
support to doctors. Matison has been on the
organization’s board since 2003.
She has organized six Law Cup
Challenges, an annual walking event in
which law firms vie to raise the most money
for the heart association (her own firm has
claimed the title a few times). Matison has
also participated in Heart Walk and helped
organize the Heart Ball. Her commitment
earned her a Community Impact Award
from the American Heart Association Pacific
Mountain Affiliate in 2009.
At the office, Matison keeps busy with her
maritime/transportation practice, which brings
cases ranging from shipwrecks and groundings
to insurance issues. She also serves as chair of
Lane Powell’s London practice group.
She has served as an adult reading coach
with the United Way and helped procure an
American Bar Association grant to help fund
public awareness of adult-literacy efforts.
Matison says her early-career six-year stint
as a felony prosecutor, working with crime
victims and abused children, instilled a
desire to help those who couldn’t complete
their education. “I wanted to try to help
people who left school because of frustration
or because their socioeconomic conditions
were hopeless.”
ZACHARY HIATT
You never know what you’ll find at a
garage sale. Zachary Hiatt found three years’
worth of pro bono work—and counting. At a
Richmond Beach community garage sale, he
encountered a neighbor who had founded
Save Richmond Beach. Its current mission:
to prevent a developer from turning Point
Wells—the site of an old asphalt plant in
unincorporated Snohomish County—into an
urban center.
Ever since, Hiatt has been representing
Save Richmond Beach pro bono (with the
exception of a few fundraisers to defray legal
costs), in a complex dispute that pits Blue
Square Real Estate and Snohomish County
against Save Richmond Beach, the city of
Shoreline, and the town of Woodway.
Hiatt isn’t anti-development. “Just about
anyone can see the benefit of redeveloping
a decrepit old asphalt plant into something
more compatible with the surrounding
community,” he says. But he believes this
one is a poor fit: a dense, downtown-style
development in a low-density neighborhood
of single-family homes, accessible via a
two-lane road. Last fall, Hiatt won a ruling
against Blue Square Real Estate and
Snohomish County in King County Superior
Court. The developer and Snohomish County
have appealed.
A former biologist, Hiatt turned to law in
order to pursue his other interests: working
with people and the political process. “Being
a biologist is a great job, but it doesn’t offer
the same feeling of interacting with people
that law does,” he says.
