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Representative Matters
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Counsel local companies and individuals on their cleanups of contaminated properties. This typically involves a wide range of activities, including: analyzing environmental risk and assessing environmental liabilities; obtaining cost recovery from prior owners and operators; handling claims for insurance coverage; drafting environmental remediation agreements, access agreements, and settlement agreements; reviewing environmental reports; advising on compliance with environmental regulations and strategy for obtaining regulatory closure; and drafting contractual protections in purchase and sale agreements, lease agreements, or easements to mitigate future exposure to environmental liabilities.
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Assisted Seattle Housing Authority with initial planning and environmental review stages for its redevelopment of Yesler Terrace, a 40-acre site just east of downtown Seattle. This comprehensive planning effort will result in replacement of Yesler Terrace’s aging public housing buildings with a new, mixed-income community. This is also the first project in the City of Seattle to utilize the Planned Action approach to environmental review.
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Advise local municipality on its development of a Planned Action Ordinance for the city’s major waterfront redevelopment project. Planned Actions are a SEPA-based mechanism that allows for more streamlined, up-front environmental review.
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Counseled local company on a broad range of real estate, land use, and environmental issues related to its development of a Walgreens store in Pierce County, Washington, including drafting easements, negotiating environmental remediation agreements, guiding communications with the Department of Ecology, and coordinating land use permit approvals.
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Provide legal counsel to The Quadrant Corporation for land use and real estate issues pertaining to Phase II of its Snoqualmie Ridge Master Planned Community, including negotiating developer agreements, drafting real estate documents and easements, and obtaining necessary permits and entitlements for the mixed-use development. Snoqualmie Ridge II will add up to 2,150 new homes, as well as parks, trails and open space to the existing Snoqualmie Ridge development.
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Provided land use representation to a private developer in its development of The Landing, a 68-acre urban village featuring residential, retail, and entertainment uses in Renton, Washington. Defended project against challenges to planned action status, master plan, and site plan.
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Assisted the University of Washington to negotiate and draft easement agreements with Sound Transit, for Sound Transit’s construction of light rail facilities on the University campus.
Professional and Civic Involvement
- Historic Seattle Preservation and Development Authority, Council Member
- King County Bar Association
- Washington State Bar Association (Environmental and Land Use Sections)
- Washington Women Lawyers
- Low Income Housing Institute, Resident Services Program Coordinator, 2000-2002
- VISTA Volunteer, The Boomtown Café, 1999-2000
Articles and Presentations
- Co-author, "State Environmental Policy Act – Programmatic/Planned Actions/SEPA-GMA,"
Chapter 14, Washington Real Property Deskbook, (Fourth Edition 2012). - Speaker, "Green Leasing: An HCMP Client Seminar; Incorporating Green Concepts into New and Existing Leases," July 16, 2009.
Honors / Awards / Unique Recognition
- Repeatedly recognized as a "Rising Star" by Washington Law & Politics and Thomson Reuters' Washington Super Lawyers, most recently in 2012
Education
- J.D., University of Washington School of Law, with high honors, 2005
- Pacific Rim Law & Policy Journal, Editorial Board, 2004-2005
- Refugee Immigrant Advocacy Clinic, University of Washington, 2003-2004
- Internship, Washington State Office of the Attorney General, 2003
- B.A., Stanford University, 1999
Bar/Court Admissions
- Washington State Courts
Personal
- My daughters were born in 2007 and 2009, and my free time these days primarily consists of reading Knuffle Bunny or walking to the playground for a little time on the swings, all of which I’ve been enjoying immensely. However, I do look forward to someday soon introducing them to my other more “grown-up” hobbies, including hiking and backpacking, playing golf, traveling to other interesting parts of the world, and exploring Seattle’s eclectic neighborhoods and restaurants.