Randolph I. Gordon
Adjunct Professor
Gordon Edmunds Elder PLLC
E-mail: rgordon@gee-law.com
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Randolph I. Gordon
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Teaches: Products Liability, Remedies
B.A. University of Michigan, 1975 with High Honors and High Distinction, Branstrom Freshman Prize, Hopwood Committee’s Bain-Swiggett Poetry Prize, Phi Beta Kappa, seven-term James B. Angell Scholar, Delta Chi Regional Scholar; J.D., Harvard Law School, 1978. In law school, he founded the still-operating freshman orientation program, was elected to the Board of Student Advisors, and served on the Civil Rights - Civil Liberties Law Review.
Randy Gordon is a principal in the Bellevue law firm of GORDON EDMUNDS ELDER PLLC with an active practice embracing complex commercial and tort litigation, products liability, personal injury, professional liability, mediation, arbitration, and special master services. Gordon has represented clients before a United States Senate subcommittee and, over the years, has represented clients in litigation and mediation in federal and state trial and appellate courts including the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the Washington State Supreme Court, the Board of Industrial Insurance Appeals, and other judicial and administrative bodies.
A trial lawyer with expertise in complex litigation, Randy Gordon completed a three week trial in Thurston County in mid-2005 which resulted in an $8.2 million dollar verdict in favor of his client who suffered damages from breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty.
Randy Gordon has been practicing law in Washington State since 1978 and currently serves on the Board of Governors as Governor, Eighth District for the Washington State Bar Association, which, among other things oversees discipline and ethical standards for Washington’s 28,000 lawyers and oversees numerous sections and committees including the Lawyers Fund for Client Protection. He is on the Budget and Audit Committee of the State Bar, which has maintained a balanced budget and adequate reserves during his tenure; WSBA employs a staff of 125 and has an annual budget of $15 million budget and is directly accountable to the Washington State Supreme Court. Randy served on the Rules of Professional Conduct Committee of the State Bar (1993-94), as special district counsel for disciplinary matters (1994-2000) and served as a hearing officer for disciplinary matters for the State Bar (1999-2003).
Randy Gordon has long been active in matters concerning the profession including service with the East King County Bar as Trustee (two 3-year terms), Vice President (1994), and President (1995), founding editor of the East King County Bar Newsletter and King County Bar Association (Trustee 1996-1999). He has been thrice appointed to terms as a special district counsel for disciplinary matters for the Washington State Bar Association, served on the Rules of Professional Conduct Committee, served as a Hearing Officer for disciplinary matters (2000-2003); he has also served on WSBA President’s Initiative Team. Prof. Gordon has served as arbitrator under the King County mandatory arbitration program in dozens of cases. He has served as Presiding Officer for the National Board of Review of the USA-National Karate-do Federation, the USOC-recognized national governing body for the sport of karate, and currently serves as its General Counsel.
In 1998, Randy Gordon was awarded the Washington State Trial Lawyers Association (WSTLA) Public Justice Award for his work on Birklid v. Boeing, a 1995 en banc (9-0) decision of the state Supreme Court that changed Washington State law regarding employer liability for “deliberate” injury by allowing, for the first time in 73 years, a disputed claim of deliberate injury to proceed against the state’s largest employer. In 2001, he was twice honored: with the President’s Award from the Washington State Bar Association and with the Professionalism Award from the Washington State Trial Lawyers Association. Professor Gordon was honored to be invited to deliver the Winter Term Commencement Address to the graduating law students at Seattle University in 2000, 2001, and 2003, and was awarded the Outstanding Faculty Award in at the December 2003 Commencement and served as class marshal for the Winter 2004 and Spring 2005 graduation classes. Randy Gordon was selected as “Washington Super Lawyer for 2003,” and again in 2004 and 2005 by Washington Law and Politics. This is a peer selection process by his fellow lawyers and a 188 member blue ribbon panel; only 5% of practicing lawyers are so honored.
Randy Gordon has been a regular contributor to the Washington State Bar News and a columnist in the King County Bar Bulletin. As the product of an independent study project with Seattle University law student Amy Cook, Gordon and Cook co-authored “The Deliberate Intention Exception to the Industrial Insurance Act Since Birklid v. Boeing: A Guidebook for Bench and Bar,” which was featured as the cover article in the November 2000 Washington State Bar News. Some recent high-profile cases, in addition to the representation of 16 injured workers in Birklid v. Boeing, include representation of 26 Alaska Airlines flight attendants in claims against Alaska Airlines, McDonnell-Douglas, and Allied Signal; representation of school bus drivers in claims against the bus manufacturer, representation of the Cle-Elum School District; teachers in a mold-contamination case; and service as a mediator and special master in complex, multiparty construction-defect litigation.
Randy is currently involved in efforts to assure that our elections are conducted openly and fairly. He is currently working on a pro bono (no fee) basis in the case of Lehto, et al. vs. Snohomish County and Sequoia Election Systems, Inc. seeking to prevent Snohomish County from “outsourcing” our election process to electronic voting machine companies which provide unverifiable vote counting.
Randy has been involved in his local community including work for the Parent-Child Programs at the Eastside YMCA, Lake Bellevue Water Quality Association, the Governor’s Site Selection Task Force for an Eastside Regional Justice Center, and as a volunteer providing legal services at the Eastside Legal Assistance Program, which he helped found while serving on the East King County Bar Association Board of Trustees. Randy teaches martial arts to youth on weekends and, after several terms as Chair of the National Board of Review for the USA-National Karate-do Federation, the USOC-appointed National Governing Body for the sport of karate in the United States and for our Pan American Team, was appointed as General Counsel for the USA-NKF. Randy is a member of the Bellevue Kiwanis.
In addition, Gordon has served as Adjunct Professor at Seattle University School of Law since spring term 1999. He was a finalist in the Washington’s Funniest Lawyer competition held at Swannie’s Comedy Underground.