Oregon State Bar Bulletin — NOVEMBER 2012
Bar People
Chrys Martin, a partner in the employment practice group at David Wright Tremaine was recently honored by the Defense Research Institute with the Louis B. Potter Lifetime Professional Service Award. She was presented with the award at DRI’s recent annual meeting in New Orleans. Martin’s involvement with DRI has included serving as chair of both the employee benefits and employment law committees, each of which has hundreds of members, and being a member of the strategic planning committee. Martin was also elected to the board of the 700-member Oregon Association of Defense Counsel, which is a state affiliate of DRI, and was its first female chair.
Joshua Husbands, a partner in the Portland office of Holland & Knight, has been elected as the newest fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, a national organization of approximately 2,600 lawyers recognized for integrity, commitment to the profession, competence and experience as trust and estate counselors. A member of the firm’s private wealth services group, he represents clients in an array of business, tax, business succession and estate planning matters, including business reorganizations, acquisitions and divestitures.
Stoll Berne founder and former shareholder Robert Stoll has been appointed to the newly formed Consumer Advisory Board of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The new board includes experts in consumer protection, financial services, community development, fair lending, civil rights and consumer financial products or services. They also represent depository institutions that primarily serve underserved communities, and they represent communities that have been significantly impacted by higher-priced mortgage loans.
At the 32nd annual state tax judges’ national conference held in September, Oregon Tax Court Judge Henry Breithaupt was awarded the Lawrence L. Lasser Tax Judge of the Year Award. Breithaupt was recognized for his well-reasoned decisions in complex state tax matters and for mentoring young lawyers. In addition to deciding tax matters, Breithaupt serves one day a week in either Multnomah or Clackamas county handling civil summary judgment motions. He was presented the award by his colleague, the Hon. Jill Tanner, the first woman in 30 years to serve as conference chair.
Miller Nash has again been named one of Oregon’s most philanthropic companies by the Portland Business Journal. The publication annually celebrates community service and corporate giving among the state’s businesses. The winners were announced in the newspaper’s Sept. 14 issue and recognized at a luncheon hosted at the Hilton Hotel in Portland.
John R. Bachofner, shareholder at Jordan Ramis, has been appointed to a two-year term on the Camas Washougal Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors for 2012-2014. The board meets throughout the year to discuss various business issues in the Camas-Washougal region. Bachhofner is also a member of the Oregon Council on Court Procedures, a delegate with the OSB House of Delegates, a member of the Diving Equipment and Marketing Association and the Multnomah County and Clark County bar associations.
Portland attorney Hala Gores is the new president of the Oregon Trial Lawyers Association. Gores, a longtime Portland personal injury attorney, was chosen at the association’s convention in August. Gores founded her own firm in 1989. She concentrates on catastrophic injury and wrongful death cases, and dedicates her practice to the idea that safety can be improved through accountability.
Michele McKinley, associate professor at the University of Oregon School of Law, recently was awarded a $50,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for her research project, “Legal Mobilization of Enslaved Litigants: Ecclesiastical versus Civil Lawsuits.” The project is a comprehensive survey, indexing and analyzing archived lawsuits brought by enslaved men and women in Lima, Peru, between 1543 and 1700. The project’s central hypothesis is that slave litigants’ claims were often more successful in ecclesiastical courts than they were in secular courts, because they were brought within a religious and legal context that was deeply ambivalent about the status of slaves as humans versus their status as property. McKinley is the former managing director of Cultural Survival, an advocacy and research organization dedicated to indigenous peoples. She is also the founder and former director of the Amazonian Peoples’ Resources Initiative, a community based reproductive rights organization in Peru, where she worked for nine years as an advocate for global health and human rights.
The Metro Council has appointed water and environmental lawyer Peter Mohr of Tonkon Torp to the Natural Areas Program Oversight Committee, which monitors bond funds made available for property acquisitions under Metro’s Natural Areas Program. Committee members help to ensure that bond measure expenditures are effective and efficient. Mohr is a member of Tonkon Torp’s Water Law, Energy and Environmental & NaturalResources practice groups. Much of his legal practice focuses on assisting public and private sector clients with matters involving water supply and management permitting, compliance, protection and transactions.
The National Academy of Distinguished Neutrals has inducted four Oregon attorney-mediators to the association’s new Oregon chapter. They are: Hon. Sid Brockley (http://www.nadn.org/sid-brockley), Susan Hammer (http://www.nadn.org/susan-hammer), James Hutchinson (http://www.nadn.org/james-hutchinson) and Richard Spier (http://www.nadn.org/richard-spier). Read more at http://www.nadn.org/oregon
Robert Rocklin has accepted a position as a visiting instructor of legal research and writing at the Willamette University College of Law for the 2012-2013 academic year.
Patent attorney Geoffrey Cooper, of the Minneapolis firm Schwegman Lundberg Woessner, will be returning to Oregon to work as a satellite attorney for the firm. Cooper, who received his chemistry Ph.D., and law degree from the University of Oregon, has spent the last seven years at the Schwegman firm’s headquarters in Minnesota. He will continue his work in patent preparation and opinion work in the organic molecular sciences while based in the Portland area.
Timothy B. Crippen has joined Black Helterline’s business practice group as an associate. His practice focuses on business organization and transactions, corporate governance and succession planning issues. He is a graduate of the University of Washington School of Law.
Stahandcyk, Kent & Hook announces the relocation of its Portland office to Duniway Plaza, 2400 S.W. Fourth Ave., Portland, OR 97201. For the past decade, SK&H’s Athena Plaza has been an iconic landmark in the Lincoln High School neighborhood. Now, the firm is moving out of Lincoln High School’s backyard and into a new location just south of Portland State University. The firm continues focus on family law and estate planning. As part of the move, the firm is continuing to focus on its efforts to go paperless by digitizing firm’s archives. Child Centered Solutions is also moving to Duniway Plaza, where the law firm will continue to provide space for the organization. The organization helps parents and professionals identify and appropriately address the needs of children during family conflicts.
Jesse Merrithew, Ethan Levi, Elizabeth Levi and Noah Horst (pictured left to right) have formed a new law firm, Levi Merrithew Horst. With more than 30 years of combined experience working for the Metropolitan Public Defenders Office in Multnomah and Washington counties, the new firm will focus on criminal defense represent clients in family law and post-conviction relief. Their website is www.lmhlegal.com.
Lawrence M. Vergunof the Vergun Law Firm has relocated his firm to the Lincoln Towers on Greenburg Road, off of Highway 217 across from the Washington Square Mall. The new address is 10260 S.W. Greenburg Road, Suite 400, Portland, OR 97223; phone: (503) 499-1225; email: LVergun@vergunlaw.com; website: www.vergunlaw.com. Vergun continues his practice in the areas of business, corporate and real estate transactions, civil litigation and estate planning. He has been practicing since 1988.
Jordan Ramis has added attorney and shareholder Amy A. Robinson to the firm’s employment and business law practice groups. She serves as general counsel to her clients on a range of business and employment matters including corporate governance, purchase and sale agreements and corporate reorganizations. Prior to her legal career, she was a human resources professional for a variety of employers. She regularly speaks and provides training for HR professionals, managers and employees, and professional organizations on employment and human resources topics.
Stephanie E.L. McCleery has joined the Portland office of K&L Gates as a litigation associate. Her practice will focus on complex commercial litigation, including class action defense, securities litigation and intellectual property matters. Previously, McCleery was corporate counsel for T-Mobile in Bellevue, Wash.
Caleb J. Mayfield has joined the Beaverton based Graphic Products Inc. as the company’s general counsel. Mayfield brings with him experience in all aspects of patent, trademark and copyright prosecution and litigation, intellectual property transactions and general corporate law. He is a graduate of Gonzaga School of Law, gives substantial time to the Boy Scouts of America Organization and is a member of its Order of the Marmot.
Wendy J. Paris and Amy J. Heverly have joined Ball Janik’s construction litigation practice. Paris joins the firm as of counsel in the Portland office. She represents individual and corporate policyholders in insurance coverage disputes specific to commercial and residential construction defect cases. An accomplished litigator with more than 23 years of experience, she has prosecuted and defended construction defect, product liability and general liability claims. Heverly is an associate in the construction litigation practice. She previously was an appellate judicial clerk for the Hon. Rebecca A. Duncan and the Hon. Walt I. Edmonds at the Oregon Court of Appeals. During law school, Heverly worked as a law clerk concentrating on construction litigation, insurance coverage, and personal injury cases, and she was the editor in chief of the Lewis & Clark Law Review.
Kyle D. Wuepper has joined Ball Janik in the firm’s Bend office as a partner. With over a decade of experience in business and real estate transactions, Wuepper advises businesses on day-to-day legal issues, and he provides counseling on mergers and acquisitions, raising capital, corporate finance, choice of entity and business formations.
Longtime Lane County Circuit Court Judge Frank Alderson died July 27, 2012, after suffering a stroke while fishing at Odell Lake. He was 86.
Alderson was born Nov. 18, 1925, near Trenton, Mo. He was a 1943 graduate of Trenton High School. He served in the Navy during World War II. He married Phyllis Egner in Portland in 1952. She passed away in 1969.
Alderson graduated from the University of Oregon School of Law in 1951. He served as district attorney for Klamath County from 1951 to 1955, gaining statewide recognition for his fight against prostitution, gambling and corruption in Klamath Falls. He was assistant district attorney for Lane County from 1955 until 1961, at which time he was appointed by Gov. Mark Hatfield as a district court judge for Lane County. Judge Alderson retired in 1992 after having served more than 31 years.
Alderson was past president of the Eugene Jaycees. He was active in scouting and joined the Eugene Downtown Lions Club in 1986. He received several awards as a member of the Lions, including the prestigious Melvin Jones Fellowship Award for humanitarian service. For several years, Alderson made personalized “walking sticks” that have been presented to worthy Lions during their yearly environmental service award ceremonies.
Alderson was a longtime member of First Christian Church in Eugene, having served as a deacon and elder. He enjoyed serving communion to shut-ins. At the time of his death, he was a member of First Baptist Church in Eugene.
Survivors include two sons, a daughter, two sisters, six grandchildren, a great-grandson and former wife and longtime friend, Jan Alderson of Eugene. He was preceded in death by his first wife, Phyllis, and a sister.
Ken Roberts, a prominent Portland lawyer and bar leader, died Aug. 18, 2012, just a few weeks short of his 90th birthday.
Kenneth Ernest Roberts was born Oct. 1, 1922, in the village of Plumstead, England, on the outskirts of London. He was raised both there and in South Africa, his father’s home. As a young man, he signed on with a Scottish shipping company, hoping to become a merchant marine officer, and sailed as a cadet at age 18 or 19.
His maritime career interrupted by World War II, Roberts promptly enlisted in the Royal Air Force and was dispatched to Canada and the RCAF to receive his pilot training. Much to his distress, he so excelled that he was promptly made an instructor pilot for the RAF and RCAF, until in late 1944, when he was finally able to wrangle operational duty. Assigned to a clandestine “special duties” squadron as a flight lieutenant, Roberts spent the balance of the war flying missions in B 24 “Liberator” bombers, inserting by parachute or resupplying guerillas (both by low altitude, usually nighttime drops) in the Burma, China, South and Southeast Asian theaters from bases in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and India. The missions were flown in stripped-down aircraft, carrying extra fuel which permitted the 20- to 23-hour flights.
In the late summer of 1946, Roberts resigned his commission (he’d been teaching young British officers to fly the legendary Spitfire) and migrated to the United States, as he developed during the war a fondness for the American sense of equality. Washing up ultimately in Portland, he enrolled in what was then the Northwestern College of Law. Earning his degree in 1951, he joined the firm which later bore his name, Schwabe, Williamson, Wyatt, Moore & Roberts, now known as Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt.
He served on the executive committee of the Maritime Law Association and as a member of the Oregon Board of Bar Examiners. He also served on the Board of Governors of the Oregon State Bar, and for many years was a member of the advisory board for the Admiralty Law Institute at Tulane University. He lectured and wrote widely on the topic of maritime law, and was proud of winning an admiralty case in the U.S. Supreme Court. He was a president of the University Club of Portland and a longtime member of the Multnomah Athletic Club.
Survivors include his wife of 54 years, Sarah (Jeffcott) Roberts, their four children and eight grandchildren.
Rodney Everhart, a Lincoln County lawyer, died in his sleep at home in Portland on Aug. 4, 2012. He was 87.
Rodney Penna Everhart grew up near Holland, Mich., and served in the Navy during World War II in the Pacific theatre, serving in Okinawa, the Philippines and China. After the war ended, he graduated from Michigan State University in engineering and then from Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago, Illinois, in 1952.
In 1957, Everhart moved to Toledo, Ore., where he became the city attorney for Toledo and began a 17-year career as the Lincoln County deputy district attorney. During these years he also served as the attorney for Toledo’s volunteer fire department, the water district, and the Lincoln County School District.
Everhart actively pursued civic improvements of Toledo and Lincoln County. He helped the Rotarians build and upgrade city parks, design and fund a roof for the Toledo swim pool, and start the “Radio Action Auction” to raise funds for a number of Rotary projects. He helped bring the Shrine Circus to Lincoln County to support the Shriners Hospitals for Children. While he was on the county parks committee, he secured the property which is popular today as “Moonshine Park,” as well as helping develop county parks in Depoe Bay and on Devil’s Lake.
He served his community with a wide variety of legal and organizational service. He was a co-founder of Toledo Products Inc., which provided part-time and full-time employment for disabled and retired workers from local wood products manufacturers. He helped form New Lincoln Hospital District and build the first hospital in Toledo. He also traveled to Washington, D.C., for the chamber of commerce to help secure a charter for a second bank in Toledo so that residents could get home loans locally.
After he left the district attorney’s office, Everhart began a full-time private law practice first in Toledo and then in Newport. In 1978, he built what may have been the first solar-heated law office building in Oregon.
At the age of 65, he earned his private pilot’s license, and he and his wife, Nancy, enjoyed flying around Oregon for many years.
Survivors include his wife, a daughter and three sons.
Correction: A notice in the October 2012 issue misstated the survivors for Harold J. Blank. His brother and nephew predeceased him. Also, Blank is survived by two nieces and several great nephews and nieces.