FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE   

September 14, 2009       

Contact: Stephanie Perry
Communications Specialist/Website Editor
206-733-5932; stephaniep@wsba.org

Ernest Radillo Receives 2009 Courageous Award

(SEATTLE) — The Washington State Bar Association (WSBA) announces that Wenatchee attorney Ernest Radillo will be honored with the 2009 Courageous Award. This award is presented to a lawyer who has displayed exceptional courage in the face of adversity, thus bringing credit to the legal profession. WSBA President Mark Johnson will present the award at the WSBA Annual Awards Dinner, to be held on September 24, 2009, at the Hyatt at Olive 8 in Seattle.

The son of a migrant farm worker, Radillo saw firsthand the social and economic inequities, abuses, and discrimination that farm workers and their families face, and decided from an early age to commit his life to protecting the safety, security, and health of struggling individuals and families who have no place else to turn.

Radillo received his undergraduate degree at University of California San Diego, and his law degree at Seattle University School of Law. Since 2007, Radillo has been a staff attorney at Columbia Legal Services (Columbia), a statewide non-profit law firm that provides free legal aid in civil matters to low-income people throughout Washington. Radillo primarily focuses on representing farm workers and other low-wage workers in class-action cases involving employment discrimination and civil-rights violations.  Immediately after commencing work at Columbia, Radillo became part of the trial team litigating a complex class-action lawsuit against one of the nation's largest labor contractors and two growers from central Washington who failed to provide work to more than 600 farm workers. In 2008, Radillo worked on an intentional pesticide-exposure lawsuit that was filed against a prominent agricultural employer in the Wenatchee Valley. He played an instrumental part in litigating the case and discovered the key evidence to settle the lawsuit. Currently, he is the lead attorney in a class-action lawsuit claiming that a pilot failed to follow safety instructions and sprayed dozens of workers with a toxic herbicide.

In 2009, Radillo worked in the legislative arena as a registered lobbyist with a team of Columbia attorneys to increase protections for farm workers by proposing updates to the Farm Labor Contractor Act. The proposed changes sought to increase protections for farm workers in the area of farm labor recruitment and employment.

Radillo has given several live English- and Spanish-language radio interviews regarding employee rights and responsibilities, and his advocacy has been featured in numerous newspapers. He has also appeared on KUNS TV Univision, the leading Spanish-language media company serving the Hispanic population in the United States. 

Radillo is a former Goldmark Equal Justice Internship recipient, and has received the Access to Justice Institute Leadership and Service Award, as well as the American Red Cross Certificate of Merit Award.  He is currently president-elect of the Chelan-Douglas County Young Lawyers Division.

About the Washington State Bar Association
The WSBA is part of the judicial branch, exercising a governmental function authorized by the Washington State Supreme Court to license the state's 33,200 lawyers. The WSBA both regulates lawyers under the authority of the Court and serves its members as a professional association – all without public funding. As a regulatory agency, the WSBA administers the bar admission process, including the bar exam; provides record-keeping and licensing functions; and administers the lawyer-discipline system. As a professional association, the WSBA provides continuing legal education for attorneys, in addition to numerous other educational and member-service activities.
 
The governance of the WSBA is vested in its Board of Governors. There are three governors from the seventh congressional district; one from each of the other eight districts; and three at-large, one of whom represents the Young Lawyers Division. The president is Mark A. Johnson, of Seattle. 2008-2009 president-elect is Salvador A. Mungia, of Tacoma; 2009-2010 president-elect is Steven G. Toole, of Bellevue; and the immediate past-president is Stanley A. Bastian, of Wenatchee. The Board meets regularly (every six weeks) at various locations around the state, and its meetings are open to the public. Much of the work of the Bar is carried out through its numerous standing committees, 27 sections, and a Young Lawyers Division with its many committees.

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