|
Michael D. McKay is a familiar face within the ranks of Washington state's legal and political elite. As U.S. Attorney under the first President Bush, Mr. McKay earned a national reputation for prosecuting cross burners, flag burners, violators of the Clean Water Act, and a Sudafed-tampering murderer. In the decade to follow, Mr. McKay has been involved in a variety of high-stakes commercial and criminal cases as a partner with the law firms of McKay Chadwell and Lane Powell Spears Lubersky.
Mr. McKay has worked as a trial lawyer since 1976, yet his most rewarding jobs have been some of his least publicized. Ask him about a memorable case, and he is likely to tell you about the low-income public housing tenant from the Middle East whose case he took through Volunteer Lawyer Services many years ago. She endured harassment, broken windows, and physical violence at the hands of her neighbors. When the police came to investigate, language barriers caused them to believe her attackers, and she was evicted and brought up on criminal charges. Mr. McKay took her case pro bono, the charges were ultimately dropped, and the tenant was moved into another housing-authority unit far from her attackers.
"Without legal aid and pro bono," Mr. McKay says, "women like her would be high and dry. An evicted person would be out in the street."
Mr. McKay believes so strongly in the obligation of all attorneys to contribute to equal justice efforts that he continued to take cases pro bono while U.S. Attorney. He recalls meeting with one woman who had been in a traffic accident and had no idea who her attorney was, even though they were meeting in the conference room outside the U.S. Attorney's office.
"I'm not sure where it started, probably in my home where I grew up," Mr. McKay says of his pro bono focus. "The idea of helping people wherever we could was drilled into us when we were kids. When I became a lawyer, I worked in legal clinics and met people and answered their questions. I found out pretty quickly that I was not only helping people, I was amazed at how much better I felt. It's a richly rewarding experience."
The McKay family ethic of service is unmistakable. Mike's younger brother, John, served as LSC President from 1997 to 2001. Today, the younger President Bush has tapped the younger McKay as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington. Both McKays are Republicans, and their commitment to legal services has helped garner significant bipartisan support for the issue back home.
"We've lobbied legislatures to vote the right way on funding for legal services, and I have been able to convince some of my [Republican] colleagues who were initially reluctant to do the right thing," the elder Mr. McKay says. "We have serious ills in our society, and legal aid helps us address them."
back to top ^ |
