3 Trial Lawyer • Fall 2022 read while eating their lunch. I met former child soldiers from Sierra Leone and witnessed the inception of the Save Darfur Coalition. I watched wide-eyed as Media Matters, with an efficient frenzy I’ve never seen since, monitor, analyze and correct all the misinformation that was being disseminated by conservative media. For me, D.C. was a chaotic beehive, all order, disorder, gamesmanship and jockeying for position, and I loved every moment of it. Finding the path I started at the University of Texas Law School in Austin the next fall. Everyone was gunning for the big corporate jobs and my 1L year was so competitive, to get ahead, certain students ripped necessary pages out of the legal textbooks in the library. I started a chapter for the American Association for Justice on campus but no one joined. I wondered if I had made a huge mistake. Ultimately, I started working at the Equal Justice Center, a nonprofit organization that provided free legal representation for undocumented immigrants in wage loss claims against their employers. It was hard work, there was a lot of it, particularly in Texas, and the process required a lot of tenacity and bravery from our clients. For me, it was a hybrid of the legal with the social advocacy that I had felt in my political experience and had been looking for, with limited success, in law school. I had found my path— I was going to work for nonprofits. Best laid plans. The smartest choice of my life came the day after the Texas bar exam. Exhausted and unable to function socially after months of study, my dad and I decided to visit the Pacific Northwest and lose ourselves in the mountains and rivers until I shifted back from black letter law robot to human being. Driving across the Morrison Bridge, before even setting foot in Portland, I fell in love and told my dad I was moving to Portland (confirmed a few days later when I walked through Powell’s Books). It was August — I obviously did not read the brochure about the rain. I moved here a month later and learned I had passed the Texas bar exam. Three minutes later, I found out Oregon did not accept the bar exam, put down my champagne, found out I would need to take the Oregon bar exam in February, and picked up the whiskey. After the Oregon bar exam, I attended my first OTLA function, a New Lawyer social hosted by then-OTLA President Michael Wise. I introduced myself at the party, begged him to look at my resume and a few days later, met with him to discuss how to get a job (couldn’t find a nonprofit job to save my life). Four hours later, he said four words that changed my life and brought me into the OTLA family — ”Show up on Monday.” That was eleven years ago, almost to the day. Eventually, Wise & Associates became Wise &Townsend and over the course of my only job in Oregon, I learned the work we do can not only help our clients but can also make an impact on others and future cases. Plaintiff’s work is a sword and a shield that goes hand in hand with political work in protecting and advocating for ordinary folks. OTLA was essential in my journey. OTLA helped me grow and become a leader. I was able to become a member of the inaugural Leadership Academy and spent years on the OTLA board and various OTLA committees and obtained a better appreciation of the myriad ways OTLA supports us and our clients. Full circle Now, as I begin my presidential year at OTLA, I feel a sense of coming full circle. Being OTLA president is a testament to my father who passed away in 2013 and the values he fought for. I write this article on the heels of Wise & Townsend’s first trial back since Covid. I look forward to doing the work to ensure that our members weather this Covid storm and get our cases back into the courtroom. Being OTLA president also carries a sense of political urgency as we face a contentious gubernatorial race and as lawyers seem to be at the forefront more than ever in the fight to protect fundamental rights for ourselves, our profession and our clients. No matter the path we took to get here, we are in it together. I am honored to serve as your OTLA president. Here's to the eight-cent screw! Blair Townsend specializes in personal injury, wrong ful death and medical malpractice litigation as well as strategic business planning and litigation. She contributes to the OTLA Guardians at the Guardians Club level. She is a partner at Wise & Townsend PC, 385 1st St., Ste. 221, Lake Oswego, OR 97034. She can be reached at btownsend@wiseattorneys.com or 503-224-8422. Blair Townsend learned about the work of trial lawyers from her late father, Tommy Townsend, the former execcutive director of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association.
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