Robert Boruchowitz
Visiting Clinical Professor, The Defender Initiative Director
Room 418, Seattle University School of Law
Phone: (206) 398-4151
E-mail: boruchor@seattleu.edu
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Robert Boruchowitz | |
Teaches Youth Advocacy Clinic and Law and the Holocaust seminar
B.A. Kenyon College, 1970; J.D. Northwestern University, 1973.
Robert C. Boruchowitz was an attorney at The Defender Association, a non-profit public defender office in King County, for 33 years. He is leading an initiative at the law school to advance efforts to improve public defense representation for thousands of people in Washington and provide models for application in other states. He has handled appeals at all levels of the state and federal courts and argued the Seling v. Young case in the U.S. Supreme Court, challenging the application of Washington’s "sexually violent predator" law. He recently argued a case in the Washington Supreme Court on a municipal court jury pool composition issue, and has a case pending in the Washington Court of Appeals on the right to counsel in truancy cases.
For 28 years, he served as The Defender Association’s Director. Founding president of the Washington Defender Association and a former member of the Executive Committee of the American Council of Chief Defenders, he has been instrumental in developing defender standards that have been endorsed by the Washington State Bar Association and the American Bar Association. Recently he has led a committee that wrote a caseload statement for the ACCD, and served on the State Bar Committee on Public Defense and as vice-chair of the Seattle Mayor's Police Accountability Review Panel. In 2003, he was a Soros Senior Fellow working on access to counsel in misdemeanor and juvenile cases. He speaks frequently at continuing legal education seminars on ethical issues relating to defender caseloads. He spoke at a Symposium on the 45th Anniversary of Gideon v. Wainwright at the Washington Supreme Court Temple of Justice on April 11, 2008.
He is leading the new Defender Initiative, aimed at providing better representation for people accused of misdemeanor crimes. The project will advance efforts to improve public defense representation for thousands of people in Washington and provide models for application in other states. The first project of the initiative is a joint effort with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers to conduct a comprehensive investigation of misdemeanor public defense in the United States. He hosted a conference at the Open Society Institute in New York in May, 2008, and will host a second conference at Seattle University July 11, 2008. See: www.law.seattleu.edu/news/archive/2008/defense.
Professor Boruchowitz completed a two-week training for law teachers at the United States Holocaust Museum in 2007.
"At 45, Gideon Right to Counsel Remains Elusive", King County Bar Bulletin, March, 2008, available at www.kcba.org/newsevents/barbulletin/archive/2008/08-03/article7.aspx.
“Right to Counsel Remains Threatened in Washington,” Washington Bar News, February, 2007, available at http://wsba.org/media/publications/barnews/feb07-boruchowitz.htm.
Op Ed, “Lawyers for juveniles not automatic”, http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/345786_divorce03.html, Seattle Post Intelligencer, January 2, 2008.
"Enough is Enough! Defenders Act on Excessive Caseloads", www.nlada.org/News/News_Pubs/Publications/Cornerstone_Issues/Cornerstone%20January-April%202008%20Issue, 29 NLADA Cornerstone, Jan-Apr 2008, at 12.
Op Ed, “State has chance to provide equal justice”, http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/256851_publicdefense25.html, January 25, 2006, with Anne Daly.
“How to Deal with the Denial of Counsel in Misdemeanor Cases Post-Shelton”, http://www.e-archives.ky.gov/pubs/Public_Adv/jan04advocate.pdf, The Advocate, January, 2004.
“The Right to Counsel: Every Accused Person's Right”, http://www.wsba.org/media/publications/barnews/2004/jan-04-boruchowitz.htm, Washington State Bar News, January, 2004.
Op-ed, “Anniversary of Gideon case spotlights right to court-appointed attorney”, http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/112406_gideon16.shtml, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, March 16, 2003.
“Soapbox”, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, October 5, 2002. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/89860_soapbox05.shtml.
Sexual Predator Law--The Nightmare in the Halls of Justice, 15 University of Puget Sound Law Review 827 (1992).
"Has the Rule of Law Changed?", Seattle-King County Bar Association Bar Bulletin, August, 1991.
Victimless Crimes, 57 JUDICATURE (1973).