Your rights. Enforced.
Civil rights cases begin with a simple premise: government power has limits. Those limits are the concrete protections of the Constitution—the right to be free from unreasonable searches and excessive force, the right to due process and equal protection, to be free from cruel and unusual punishment, the right to speak and assemble, and the right to be secure in one’s property. This office represents clients across that spectrum: Fourth Amendment claims involving unlawful stops, searches, and seizures; Eighth Amendment claims concerning conditions of confinement and the use of force in jails and prisons; Fourteenth Amendment claims involving arbitrary or discriminatory treatment; First Amendment claims where speech, protest, or association draws retaliation; and takings and related property-rights matters, where public action effectively appropriates or devalues land or other property without just compensation. When these protections are ignored, the harm is both personal and structural: an individual is injured, and the constitutional framework meant to restrain the state is quietly weakened.
Constitutional litigation is procedurally demanding. Public entities and officials invoke qualified immunity, absolute immunity, and various statutory protections. That is why this office emphasizes careful pleading and sophisticated motion practice: framing constitutional questions cleanly, building a record that can withstand close scrutiny, and preserving issues for review. Civil rights cases here are handled with an explicit eye toward trial and appellate courts alike, including briefing and argument in qualified-immunity, post-judgment challenges, and constitutional questions of first impression, recognizing that much of modern civil-rights law is shaped on appeal.
An experienced defender brings particular value to this work. Years spent litigating suppression motions, jail and prison conditions, and due process and equal protection issues in trial and appellate courts provide a practical understanding of how doctrine operates in real life. Representation begins with a candid assessment of the facts, likely defenses, the client’s goals, and it proceeds with a dual focus on individual remedy and broader impact—whether a case will deter future misconduct, clarify the boundaries of government power, or improve how an agency or jurisdiction operates. At bottom, the work is about insisting that the Constitution means what it says.
This office can arrange confidential visits with incarcerated persons at any state or federal detention center in the State of Washington or the State of Oregon. Friends and family of incarcerated individuals are welcome to contact this office for an initial consultation.