Washington Lawyer Interviews

Seattle, WA: Out of a duty to the public good, two attorneys from Seattle have taken on a class-action suit aimed at ensuring that low-income and indigent persons charged with misdemeanors in Mount Vernon and Burlington are afforded all the rights afforded to US citizens. "We got interested in the idea just as conscientious attorneys," says Toby Marshall, from the firm of Terrell, Marshall, Daudt & Willie. "We started investigating about six months ago, doing public disclosure requests, getting documents and interviewing people."

New York, NY: Millions of Americans have signed up with Clearwire, an Internet subscriber service based in Washington state that promises lightning fast performance, but attorney Peter Seidman from the firm of Milberg LLP in New York says many of those subscribers are severely disappointed with what they get.

Tacoma, WA: Patients who took Levaquin and suffered Levaquin side effects might want to consider contacting an attorney, now that the time for the first lawsuit to go to court has almost arrived. Although they took the Levaquin medication to treat bacterial infections—mainly those associated with the sinuses and bronchial tubes—patients might have developed serious tendon problems after taking the medication, according to J. Benton Stewart, attorney at Stewart Law P.L.L.C.

Portland, OR: In the course of creating its super photo map of the world, Google admits that it may have inadvertently grabbed your wi-fi signals when its truck passed by your house. Exactly what information was vacuumed up is not likely to become clear until attorney Brooks Cooper meets with Google in an examination for discovery process in a potential class action suit against Google for alleged invasion of privacy and theft of data.

Washington DC: Attorney Doug Fierberg may be one of the few attorneys in the US who specializes in representing hazing victims and their families. Because of his expert understanding of the old and sometimes deadly practice of fraternity hazing, Fierberg is often called upon--sometimes by the media and/or by grieving families with wrongful death suits--when a freshman dies from too much alcohol or a sorority girl is sexually assaulted.

Seattle, WA: Hundreds of people in the state of Washington have been left with costly medical bills and no healthcare insurance, despite the fact that they thought they had purchased comprehensive coverage plans from Nationwide Insurance. Instead, they found Nationwide had collected premiums for policies that were not licensed for sale in Washington and were not approved by the state's Insurance Commission.

Bainbridge Island, WA: Attorney Chris Otorowski has built a medical malpractice law firm in Washington State on solid judgment, expert skills and from listening to the way he talks about the people he represents, a great deal of humanism. "On Friday, we visited a client in a nursing home who is in just a terrible situation, just a horrific story," says Otorowski. "She had circulation problems but the diagnosis was delayed. Her colon essentially ended up dying and she had to have her left leg amputated."

Seattle, WA: Attorney Bill Marler is on the phone—he's arranging for two families with children affected by the salmonella tainted peanut butter outbreak to appear before a Congressional hearing later this year in Washington D.C. "Call me back in 5 minutes, I'm on another line," says Marler. An attorney with 15 years experience fighting for people injured by food borne illnesses, it's no surprise he's busy with people seeking his help with what may be the most serious salmonella outbreak in US history.

Seattle, WA: Although government agencies have said that the tomato-pepper Salmonella outbreak "appears to be over," food poisoning attorney Bill Marler has months of litigation ahead. "For those cases where we definitively know where the product came from, lawsuits have been filed or we are in the process of filing," he says.

Seattle, WA: There is a document clerk who works three days a week in attorney Bill Marler's busy law office in Seattle, Washington. She is in her early twenties now, but she still has health problems because of something that happened when she was just nine years old.