Professional Employment Opportunities

A lot has been written recently in the national legal publications about the importance of “firm culture.”  At the risk of sounding too trendy, we do work hard on defining our firm culture.  We think that it is important to articulate our firm culture in professional recruiting.  Here are some statements that describe us:

• We are one of the larger law firms in Northwest Washington.
• We do not have any particular political bent. Some of us would describe ourselves as “liberals” and others would describe themselves as “conservatives.” Other than lively lunch conversation, we do not focus on causes or politics, but, rather, we focus on the law and our clients' needs.
• Our lawyers tend to specialize more than our colleagues in other firms here in Bellingham, but less than our colleagues in Seattle.
• Our firm is privileged to represent many of the largest businesses and governments in this area of the state – we take that responsibility seriously.
• We know that Northwest Washington is one of the nations “best” places to live, raise a family, and work. We understand that our lawyers could and have worked at large big city firms for significantly more money, but have chosen, instead, to live here. Therefore, we work on balancing work with enjoyment of Northwest Washington.
• We encourage our lawyers to develop a practice plan to identify the areas of law that they want to develop.
• Most of us are raising children and we need to continually balance those responsibilities with work.
• We strive to treat each other fairly and with respect and to value the important contributions of our support staff.
• We support and encourage our attorneys and staff to involve themselves in our community.

Over the past decade, our firm has, by design, grown at a steady and continual rate.  We anticipate the same steady and continued growth over the next five years.  We have hired lawyers fresh out of law school and have hired lateral transfers from large firms.  We look for lawyers who, in no particular order, (i) are well educated, (ii) if they are a lateral transfer, have very good experience and references, (iii) would be a good fit in our firm culture, and (iv) want to live in Northwest Washington.  For professional employment opportunities please contact Rich Davis at rdavis@chmelik.com.