In a thirty-year legal career highlighted by national honors and the presidency of the Washington State Bar Association, Ron’s highest privilege is to assist his clients in recovering fair, just and sizable personal injury settlements and verdicts, allowing them to continue leading comfortable lives.

The eldest of 10 children raised in a San Francisco area housing project, Ron was inspired to practice law by the example and mentorship of Willie Brown, the California legislator and later speaker of the state assembly. Ron earned his Juris Doctor degree from the University of California in 1976. He served as a Washington State assistant attorney general before entering private practice at Levinson Friedman of Seattle, where he became a partner in 1986.

Ron was elected president of the 29,000-member Washington State Bar Association in 2004, becoming the first person of color to hold the post in the WSBA’s then 114-year history. He founded the Association’s Washington Leadership Institute, which promotes leadership development in new lawyers with three to ten years of experience, with special emphasis on lawyers of color, women and other traditionally underrepresented diverse groups. The WLI received the national 2005 American Bar Association Partnership Award, and was the sole recipient in the country of the 2006 LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell Legal Fellowship.

“This is a community,” says Ron. “It includes whites, blacks, Latinos, Asians, Indians, gays, lesbians and the disabled. Our community rises and falls together… We as a community will only achieve full fruition of our possibilities when diversity as a semantic is a given and no longer of any particular moment.”

Recognition for Ron includes a Distinguished Service Award from Anheuser-Busch Companies on behalf of the National Bar Association and a Special President's Recognition Award from the Washington State Trial Lawyers Association. He has been selected by Washington Law and Politics as a “Super Lawyer” each year since 2003. In 2006 he was also honored by that publication as a member of the “Top 40 Who’s Who in Washington Plaintiff’s Personal Injury Law.” Seattle Magazine has named him as a member of its 2007 Top 40 Lawyers.

In 2006 the Loren Miller Bar Association of Washington renamed its President’s Award, the Ron R. Ward President’s Award. He was also honored with the 2006 Washington State Trial Lawyers President’s Award, and with the Washington Defense Trial Lawyers 2006 Outstanding Plaintiff Trial Lawyer Award. These organizations indicated these awards were conferred in recognition of Mr. Ward’s outstanding leadership, dedication, commitment and service to the citizens of the State of Washington, in his endeavors to preserve the constitutional right to trial by jury, to maintain the independence of the judiciary, to guarantee equal access to justice, and to enhance diversity in our society.

Ron has been appointed to Supreme Court and Washington Board of Judicial Administration task forces and committees studying and implementing solutions for court congestion and court funding. He is a past member of the National Conference of Bar Presidents and a former two-term vice-president and seven-term member of the Board of Governors of the Washington State Trial Lawyers Association.

Ron is also a member of the King County Bar Association, Washington State Bar Association, National Bar Association, Loren Miller Bar Association, American Bar Association House of Delegates, the American Board of Trial Advocates, and the Association of Trial Lawyers of America.

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