2024 January Hearsay

HearSay THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF THE CLARK COUNTY BAR ASSOCIATION

January 2024

December 2019

“Been there, done that.”

“Still there, still doing it.”

JESSE JACOBS

DON JACOBS

Injury law in Oregon and Washington Available for consult, association, or referral.

JESSE JACOBS Clark County, WA Bar Association President OTLA Guardian WSAJ Eagle DON JACOBS Trial Lawyer of the Year, Clark County (2015) Past President, Oregon Trial Lawyers Association

Portland 503.222.7757

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Vancouver 360.695.1624

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nwinjurylawcenter.com

The Clark County Bar Association is a professional organization that serves to support our local attorney community through providing education and networking opportunities designed to enhance and foster better relationships within the local legal community.

Andy Nygard, CFP

®

Financial Advisor

Named to the 2022 & 2023 Forbes Best-in-State Wealth Advisors (Source: Forbes Best-in-State Wealth Advisors in Washington in 2022-2023, awarded first quarter each year, research by SHOOK Research LLC. Data as of June of prior year.

Compensation provided for using, not obtaining, the rating.) https://tinyurl.com/mr2mwnh9

January Hearsay Contributors

Josh Sherman

Jean Mccoy

Judge Emily Sheldrick

Jane Clark Legal

Landerholm, P.S

Clark County Superior Court

Josh Sher ma n ded icates his practice to representing patients/ plaintiffs in medical malpractice c a ses. Josh is ad m it ted to p r a c t i c e l a w i n Wa s h i n g t o n a nd Oregon, a nd he reg ula rly lit igates cases in bot h states.

Jean McCoy’s practice focus is real estate transactions and conf lict resolution, landlord/tenant and creditors’ rights. In 2020, she was awarded the Professionalism Award, by the Washington State Bar Association’s Annual APEX Awards.

The Honorable Emily Sheldrick began serving as a judicial officer for Clark County Superior Court in 2022.

Nathan Petersen

Bryan Farrell

Jesse Jacobs

Petersen Rothermel Law Firm

Clark County District Court Administrator

NW Injury Law Center

Nathan Petersen is a partner at Petersen Rothermel Law Firm.

His practice focuses mostly on Family Law and Estate Planning.

Bryan Farrell has been ser v i ng a s t he D ist r ic t C ou r t Administrator since June of 2022.

Jesse Jacobs is a pa rtner at N W Injury Law Center. He practices in both Oregon and Washington, and has focused his career on advocating for persona l inju r y pla int if fs.

CCBA Holiday Movie Party page 11

Hi! I’m New Here: Jason Rosenbaum page 13

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Bottoms up with Jean and Jesse page 17

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Goodbye 2023, Hello 2024!

We had a great year! Our little team has grown and grown, and we really felt the love from our amazing Clark County community.

Thank you to all the attorneys that volunteered in 2023!

Anne Ajayi, Nick Alexander, Samantha Balmes, Marissa Bartolucci, Josh Bean, Alyson Beck, Rachel Brooks, Ben Brown, Chuck Buckley, Conor Buie, Chelsey Butchard, Brandon Campbell, Gideon Caron, Mark Carter, Alena Clark, Ed Dawson, Kelsey Dodds, Scott Edwards, Chelsie Elliott, Peter Fels, Philip Foster, John Francis, LeeAnn Friedman, Laurie Garber, Lindsey George, Moloy Good, Tanya Green, Marlene Hansen, Jessica Hardy, Josh Hawkins, Courtney Himes, Scott Horenstein, Evan Hull, Adin Johnson, Jennifer Joslin, Jeff Keddie, James Kemp, Robin Krane, Crystal Lambert, Juliet Laycoe, Mary-Anne Linden, Beatrice Lucas, Howard Marshack, Anjali Miller, Marisa Nelson, Jeff Peterson, Michelle Prosser, Mercedes Riggs, Alexa Ritchie, Zaida Rivera, Bill Robison, Tonya Rulli, Amber Rushbanks, Anna Russo, Shada Salameh, Eulalia SotoEsquival, Jordan Taylor, Michael Trotter, Mark Tyler, Josh Volvovic, and Anna 16 Vujovic

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Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

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Why a Certied Divorce Lending Professional Should Be on Your Team Even under the best circumstances, working through a divorce settlement is a difcult proposition.

When real property is involved, having a Certied Divorce Lending Professional (CDLP) as a nancial neutral on your team ensures a fair settlement for your client.

As a CDLP, Theresa Springer offers a balanced, thorough nancial evaluation of the current and future mortgage nancing requirements and as well as realistic solutions to obstacles in negotiations.

4 Phases of Divorce Mortgage Planning Vetting the House

Qualifying Income

Consumer Debt Analysis

Home Equity Solutions

Examine ownership, property taxes, valuation, etc.

Analyze income sources to meet consistency and stability.

Evaluate consumer debt in accordance with the settlement agreement.

Help divorcing homeowners make a more informed decision.

A different perspective. A better solution.

Theresa Springer brings a lifetime of experience in the mortgage profession, so you can be condent that whatever Home Equity solutions your client needs, she’ll help your team navigate them and provide guidance for making the right decisions.

Call Theresa Springer today to learn more about how she can help you protect your client’s assets!

Theresa Springer, CDLP l NMLS-70667

Certied Divorce Lending Professional Senior Loan Ofcer ofce: 360.326.7527 l cell: 360.798.4161

Theresa.Springer@movement.com www.TheresaSpringer.com

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12500 SE 2nd Circle, Suite 120 Vancouver, Washington 98684 21

CA-DOC283982, OR, WA MLO-283982 | Movement Mortgage, LLC supports Equal Housing Opportunity. NMLS ID# 39179 (www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org) | 877-314-1499. Movement Mortgage, LLC is licensed by10101708“CA Department of Business Oversight under the California Residential Mortgage Lending Act” # 4131054, OR # ML-5081, WA # CL-39179, Interest rates and products are subject to change without notice and may or may not be available at the time of loan commitment or lock-in. Borrowers must qualify at closing for all benefits. “Movement Mortgage” is a registered trademark of the Movement Mortgage, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company. 8024 Calvin Hall Rd, Indian Land, SC 29707.

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Left to right: Steven Hogue, Amy Price, Erik Selden (Team Leader), Bryan Dent, Phil Czajka

When is it possible to be both new and not new?

In the case of these Vancouver locals, who are new to Washington Trust Bank and anything but new to banking.

Meet the team at: watrust.com/Vancouver

District Court launches #FairnessChallenge

by Bryan Farrell

Clark County District Court will be launching the #FairnessChallenge program on January 10th, 2024. #FairnessChallenge is designed as an avenue for the District Court to understand critical challenges facing our court and strive to improve our judicial system and public trust and confidence. We believe that by providing an opportunity for our customers to provide feedback via survey, we will be able to gauge the public’s perception of fairness and make the necessary improvements to our services.

Our goal for this program is to reduce the cost, time, and complexity of traditional dispute resolution processes, improve the trust of underrepresented and economically disadvantaged communities, grow online solutions to expand access to the court, demonstrate a commitment to fair, impartial, and accountable courts, and provide judicial leaders with additional governance skills.

The surveys will run for two to four weeks at a time and will each target a specific area of procedural fairness. Examples include: • Questions that identify the public’s perception of fairness – four weeks.

• Questions that identify the public’s perception of respect – two weeks.

• Questions that gauge the public’s understanding of District Court processes – two weeks.

• Questions that provide the public with the opportunity to be heard and identify the value of the District Court’s services– two weeks.

Each weekly question is designed with respect for the customers’ time and will only require a quick “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” response. Questions that measure the value of our services will allow for free-hand text input.

District Court will have iPad stands set up in the District Court Administration lobby and the Probation Services Division lobby, as well as have QR codes posted around all courtrooms and at our Community Restitution Center. We will be expanding

response opportunities by utilizing other avenues, such as embedded links, in the future. The District Court website will be updated with information about the Fairness Challenge project and progress, and we will share our data with the community as it becomes available.

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Local Rules Changes - Part Three

by Nathan Petersen and Judge Emily Sheldrick

In early March 2022, the Clark County Superior Court decided to undertake a significant project of reviewing our Local Rules. After receiving feedback from several different stakeholder groups within our legal community, Superior Court adopted some, but not all, of the proposed changes. These became effective on September 1, 2022. The Local Rules Committee hosted CLEs and other forums to answer questions about implementation of the Rules.

This is part three of an article that will highlight the most significant changes and offer tips on navigating the new rules. This article will also share advice to attorneys on various reminders and procedures to assist both the bench and practitioners on “best practices” when litigating in Civil and Family Law Divisions.

DISCLAIMER: This article will not address all the rules changes, so please do not rely on this article to give you a complete update on all new or revised rules. Also, this article will not address ex parte procedures. The Civil and Family Law Divisions continue to work on developing their post-pandemic ex parte process. Once these procedures have been finalized, Superior Court intends to provide comprehensive information to the bar on the ex parte process.

LOCAL CIVIL RULES: MOTIONS, ORDERS & CASE SCHEDULING - PART 3 After the consolidation of all civil cases with three judicial departments, a few procedural issues became clear almost immediately: (1) the judges need more time to read motions and responsive briefings in order to be prepared for the Civil Docket; (2) the judges still need working copies for the Civil Motion docket via hard-paper format given the staffing and technology challenges facing the Clerk’s Office and Superior Court; and (3) the parties should be ready to present orders for the court to sign and file with the Clerk.

With the consolidation of all civil cases from eight (8) judges to three (3) judges, Civil Division has a significant case load. The rotation schedule for each department consists of two weeks for trial and one week for motions. Every Friday is a Civil Motion Docket. With the higher case volume and frequency of Civil Motion Dockets, the five (5) day default motion filing date has meant that the judges have less time to prepare for the Friday docket given the other trial and docket demands for each judge.

Therefore, the judges adopted a similar time frame for civil motions as the Family Law Division.

Although this will be a significant change for local practitioners, Superior Court is hopeful this schedule will allow for fewer continuances by attorneys and more time for judges to prepare for the Docket.

There are a few other additional changes that are noted on the next page.

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Clark County Bar Association CLARK COUNTY BAR ASSOCIATION BOARD MEETING December 5, 2023

Called to order 12:11 pm. Hawke, Wechselblatt, Larson, Melnick, Petersen, Busby, Sutanto, Phelan, and Executive Director Darco November 2023 board meeting minutes: Motion to Approve (Wechselblatt/Hawke) Approved Treasurer’s Report (Melnick): Reviewed financial reports. Mixed report due to strong income but a loss this month. It’s a bit early for a loss, which usually does not occur until January or February. Will continue to monitor.

Ongoing Action Items Committee Reports: Hearsay Committee (Hawke): Lots of great content is in the works. The next issue is ready.

Social Committee (Darco): The holiday party will be December 19th at the Kiggans Theater. Elf will be on the big screen.

CLE Committee: 22 people are currently signed up for the year end ethics CLE DEI Committee (Wechselblatt): In January will be planning the CLE topic for this year. The committee is revising the model of the Street Law program. There will be 4 to 5 topics that teachers may select from.

Membership Committee (Sutanto): They have met. They did a focused outreach that was successful.

They will invite more people to join the committee and plan next steps from there.

Previous Action Items Attorney Fee Survey (Hawke): Questions are being developed. David Ridenour and Joseph Wagner are helping to develop the survey (thank you both!). It is a multi part project that includes the survey, results, judicial officer feedback, and analysis. There will be Hearsay articles and possibly a CLE. Current Action Items Membership Update (Hawke): 2023/2024: 372 members to date. Non renewed at this time: 81 New members: 24. Total membership 2022/2023: 410. January 1 2023: 385 members.

Judicial Evaluation Committee (Hawke): Discussion about having a standing Judicial Evaluation Committee that candidates/applicants could seek ratings from. This would be in addition to the Bar Poll. There is time to organize this prior to our county adding an additional Superior Court judge in 2024. More to come.

Goal Setting and tracking (Hawke): board will have roundtable discussion of board member’s CCBA goals and progress starting next month.

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General Meeting March 18th (Hawke): noon to 1:00 in person at the West Park building, brown bag lunch.

Updated Board Pics and Bios (Darco): Busby to get his turned in or Petersen will have free reign to draft one for him.

Employee Bonuses: motion to ratify board vote via email approving employee bonuses (Melnick/Pe -tersen) Approved Upcoming Events Mark your calendars for Barrister’s Ball 3/2/2024 Adjourned 1:00

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Clark County Superior Court

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BENCH/BAR MEETING MINUTES December 12, 2023 PERSONS IN ATTENDANCE: Dan Lloyd (dan.lloyd@cityofvancouver.us); Judge John Fairgrieve; Judge Nancy Retsinas; LeAnn Larson (LeAnn.Larson@clark.wa.gov); Leslie Lopez (leslie.lopez@clark.wa.gov); Jeffrey Keddie (jeffreyk@nwjustice.org); Jessi Anderson (jessi@ccvlp.org) (not in attendance, but submitted information by email) If you have any matter that you would like to bring to the attention of the Bench/Bar, you are welcome to contact the above-mentioned members of the Committee.

Meeting was called to order at 12:02pm by Dan Lloyd I.

OLD BUSINESS: No old business to report.

II.

NEW BUSINESS: Judge Fairgrieve: o On 12/4/23, the Clark County Council adopted new budget, which included approving a 12th department for Superior Court. Decision was based on an internal workload analysis as well as a separate analysis by the Administrative Office of the Courts. Even though 12th judge approved at this time, there was no approval for additional staffing in terms of a judicial assistant. Assuming legislative approval, which is a prerequisite before the Governor’s Office would begin the process for recruitment and appointment, timeline is roughly six to nine months before new judge would join the bench. It is unclear at this time where the 12th judge would be assigned. The Council did not approve the requested modification of project positions to full time. o The Director of the Office of Public Defense submitted a memorandum to the Washington Supreme Court requesting a moratorium. Clark County Council approved the creation of the Office of Public Defense, which will move forward with the hiring of an OPD manager. A copy of the memorandum may be found at this link: https:// opd.wa.gov/sites/default/files/2023-12/000045-Memo%20to%20WSSC%20on%20Workload.pdf.

Judge Retsinas: o There has been a massive influx of unlawful detainer (UD) cases, with 70-80 cases per weekly docket. The Court is considering efforts to split the docket, but there are significant challenges in terms of ensuring an adequate number of attorneys to meet the statutory right to counsel. Judge Sheldrick is regularly meeting with stakeholders. o In terms of general civil cases, they are about even from last year. There was a request to increase funding to the guardianship monitoring program (GMP), but that request was rejected by the County Council. o The buildout of the family law annex is expected to be completed sometime around the Spring/Summer of 2025 o In terms of general civil cases, they are about even from last year. There was a request to increase funding to the guardianship monitoring program (GMP), but that request was rejected by the County Council. o The buildout of the family law annex is expected to be completed sometime around the Spring/Summer of 2025 Leslie Lopez: Nothing to add 30

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LeAnn Larson: o Minimum wage changes in January to $16.28/hour, which will affect child support. The Self Support Reserve will change when the federal poverty guidelines are published, likely in February.

Jeffrey Keddie: o Talia Brumfield just started as a new attorney in office; Steven Swenson will start in January.

Jessi Anderson (submitted after meeting): o Clark County Volunteer Lawyers Program is still looking to fill an open position for a staff attorney to work with the Right to Counsel Eviction Defense Team. These attorneys provide vital eviction defense for tenants in Clark County. The full job posting is available at this link: the link to CCVLP’s current job posting. If you have any questions about the position please reach out to Housing Programs Managing Attorney Ben Moody (ben@ ccvlp.org) or Legal Director Jessi Anderson (jessi@ccvlp.org). o CCVLP is pleased to announce that Rakeb Mekuria has joined the organization as Indigenous Legal Services Program Manager. She will be working to build a new program at CCVLP specifically geared towards serving members of indigenous communities. o Finally, please contact Volunteer Manager Mia Demay (mia@ccvlp.org) if you have the ability to volunteer some time in the next couple of months. As happens each year around the holiday time, CCVLP experiences a decline in the number of available volunteers and an increase in the number of individuals seeking help. At this time our heaviest needs are family law and pre-eviction housing issues. If you are an attorney who is able to give a couple volunteer hours to help out during the months of January, February, and/or March, please get in contact!

Respectfully submitted, Dan Lloyd

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