Contact:
1116 W Riverside Avenue
Spokane, WA 99201-1194
E-mail
The Spokane Division is comprised of 34 attorneys plus 63 professional staff including legal assistants, investigators, paralegals, law clerks, and a professional support group. The division provides a wide range of legal services to many agencies of state government and state institutions of higher education in eastern Washington. Additionally, nearly all consumer protection enforcement functions for the eastern half of the state are located in the Spokane Division.
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Spokane attorneys are assigned to one of four sections: Social & Health Services, Labor & Industries, the Spokane Interdivisional Section, or Torts. We anticipate adding a Transportation and Public Construction Assistant Attorney General this calendar year.
Social & Health Services: Some of the state agencies served by our Social & Health Services Section are the Division of Children & Family Services, Division of Developmental Disabilities, Aging and Adult Services, Division of Child Support, Community Services Offices, and Eastern State Hospital. Juvenile matters are handled in Spokane and five other eastern Washington counties. They also handle various licensing matters including day care, foster care, boarding home, and adult family home facilities.
Labor & Industries: This Section mediates and litigates industrial insurance appeals, cases involving the Washington Industrial Safety and Health Act, and fraud cases before the Board of Industrial Insurance Appeals and in the trial courts in Spokane County and several other eastern Washington counties, as well as Building Trade hearings before the Office of Administrative Hearings. This Section also provides counsel to the Worker's Benefits program, and other various L&I specialty compliance boards administered by L&I.
Spokane Interdivisional Section: This Section handles consumer protection matters, representation of institutions of higher education including Eastern Washington University, Big Bend Community College, the three schools comprising Community Colleges of Spokane, as well as Educational Service District 101. This Section also handles Labor and Personnel matters for state agencies in eastern Washington as well as driver's licensing revocation and unemployment benefits appeals. The Criminal Justice/Medicaid Fraud Control Section is also a part of this Section. They represent the Department of Corrections in eastern Washington in matters involving civil rights and other legal issues relating to prisons and prisoners. This unit supports major crime investigations with two senior criminal investigators who work directly with local law enforcement agencies in eastern Washington. In addition, the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit investigates and prosecutes Medicaid fraud in eastern Washington.
Torts: This Section represents state agencies, boards and commissions and state officials who are sued where the case arises in eastern Washington. In addition, two attorneys specialize in employment related suits. Typical tort clients include the Department of Social and Health Services, Department of Corrections, Department of Transportation, Washington State Patrol, and various institutions of higher education.
The Spokane Division also represents the Spokane Intercollegiate Research and Technology Institute involving technology transfer and economic development helping companies take science to the market place and the Eastern Washington State Historical Society.
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The Spokane Division continues to see significant increases in both dependency and termination of parental rights cases with levels exceeding anything in the Division's past. In addition, a Spokane juvenile court improvement project is attempting to move children’s cases through the system more quickly in order to resolve these cases faster.
Attorney General McKenna has added a new Assistant Attorney General to the Spokane Division covering eastern Washington consumer protection cases that will, in effect, double the Division’s enforcement capacity. Fraud perpetrated on seniors continues to be a focus of our efforts.
Tort claims assigned to Spokane remain high including several "priority" cases where the prayer for relief can be over $1 million and/or contain an issue of state-wide significance. The trial calendar for eastern Washington for the foreseeable future is higher than in past years.
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Spokane prevailed in the case of Ingram and DeLong upholding the admissibility of the state toxicologist’s declaration in drivers licensing revocation administrative proceedings positively impacting hundreds of cases statewide.
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