As he rides his bike off the ferry in a tight, bright yellow biking outfit and cycling cleats, David Bricklin hardly looks like the poster-child for a high-profile law firm in Seattle. Nonetheless, Bricklin has argued hundreds of cases in his 30 years of practicing environmental law, one in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Bricklin has biked daily from his home on Bainbridge Island to the ferry that takes him to his office in downtown Seattle for more than 11 years. His other vehicle is a blue mini van.
"Some people went to law school because they wanted to be a lawyer and make money like Perry Mason," Bricklin said. "But I went to law school because I wanted to do good things and protect the environment."
In addition to being the president of the Washington Environmental Council, Bricklin was involved in the development of the Growth Management Act, which protects natural resource lands and forces designation of urban growth areas. He also co-authored the Model Toxics Control Act, which identifies and cleans contaminated properties that are or may become a threat to humans and the environment.
"The air, water, animals and plants can’t defend or speak for themselves," Bricklin said. "I always wanted to help the needy, and no one needs us more."
Growing up, Bricklin’s father worked as an insurance defense lawyer in Philadelphia. His older brother, Louis, continued his father’s work defending insurance companies who were trying to avoid paying what they were supposed to under their insurance policies.
Bricklin admits that from the beginning, he had no intention of following in his father and brother’s steps and doing insurance defense work.
"Law was a means of having an impact on social policy," Bricklin said.
Bricklin said his love for the environment was evident even at the young age of five.
"I remember pulling the petals back on a rhododendron that was still closed and wanting to see what was inside," he said. "But then I remember feeling sad I had destroyed it and knowing it was never going to be a flower."
As an environmental lawyer, Bricklin has focused the majority of his career in dealing with land-use laws.
Bricklin has worked with issues such as protecting forest lands, farm lands, rural areas from urban sprawl, dealing with overcrowded roads and transportation issues, stabilizing slopes and protecting aquifers from development pressures.
After graduating from Michigan State University in 1974, Bricklin studied at Harvard Law School and graduated in 1977.
Soon after moving to Seattle, Bricklin met his wife, Anne, to whom he has been married for 23 years. He adopted her daughter, Jennifer, 31, from a previous marriage when she was 9 years old. Anne and he then had triplets: Jacob, Alex and Laura, 15, who Bricklin describes as athletic and smart.
"All of the pictures in my office are of threes," Bricklin said with a smile.
Thirty-one years after law school, and 33 floors above the ground in the Safeco Plaza building, Bricklin’s office exudes his profession. A desk is barely visible beneath the stacks of legal documents. A well-used phone and computer peek out through the paper towers. Pictures of children and family cover almost every wall.
The view of the ocean and the city below is breathtaking. Change the biking outfit into a sweater vest and khakis, and Bricklin appears to fit the description of a lawyer.
On average, Bricklin said he works about 50 hours a week.
"There’s a room on the ferry that’s quiet, it’s like a library," he said. "It’s my best working time of my day. It’s quiet, no phone calls, no interruptions."
Bricklin said it’s difficult to categorize a case as a win or a loss because the verdict may simply reduce the environmental impact. He said he has never really thought about his win-loss record or what he calls his "batting average."
"When you’re challenging positions made by the government, it’s an uphill climb because the laws are written in a way that gives deference to them," he said. "You start off with the cards stacked against you and so winning any of these cases is a long shot. If I win one out of three cases, I think I’m doing great."
On the other hand, there are clear victories, like a case Bricklin worked on for two years which brought him to the Supreme Court.
In 1987, Bricklin was asked to represent a group of people who lived in the Methow Valley in the North Central Cascades near Twisp and Winthrop. The Methow citizens were fighting corporations that proposed to develop a ski area similar to Whistler.
"It would have changed the whole fabric of the valley and to the environment," Bricklin said. "It would have changed what it was like to live there. It’s a very rural, beautiful spot in the mountains; the wildlife is rich and abundant and the water is clear."
A new ski resort would not only have affected the small-town community, but also the wildlife and their habitat. The citizens believed the new resort would spur development of the surrounding area, turning wild lands into lots for new homes.
Most elected officials and even the governor were speaking out in support of the new ski resort. Tensions increased when it was discovered that a member of Congress had added a sentence on a committee report that was in favor of the ski resort.
The committee reports summarize the bill and testimonies that are given for and against it. The sentence went unnoticed until it was cited in legal briefs filed in court as indicative of "congressional will."
"In reality," Bricklin said. "it was indicative of the ability of one member of Congress to add a sentence to a committee report that no one was paying attention to at the time."
Despite the messy trial, on May 1, 1989, in the case of Robertson vs. Methow Valley Citizens Council, the judge ruled in favor of the Methow citizens. Plans for a large-scale ski resort became only a distant nightmare to the local citizens.
"When we won that case I said, ‘if I never do anything else in my career as an environmental lawyer, I can feel satisfied I saved a whole valley,’" Bricklin said. "It was a really loaded case and so for us to prevail on that was really neat."
Bricklin said he attributes his win to preparation and the confidence it gives.
"When I found out the case for the ski resort in Methow Valley was going to be heard in the Supreme Court, I went back my office and threw up," Bricklin said with a laugh. "I could not have prepared any more thoroughly for that case and as a result, on the day when I walked into the court room, I was actually much more relaxed."
Bricklin said there is a limited amount of money to support the work of a public interest environmental lawyer.
"Public interest environmental lawyers are people who are attempting to advance the cause of environmentalism," said Richard Smith, an environmental lawyer and acquaintance of Bricklin. "The jobs are very hard to get. It’s really unfortunate that it’s hard to make a living doing this work and there are so few opportunities to do it."
Even Bricklin’s opponents seem to be charmed by his easy-going demeanor and impressed by his persuasiveness in the court room. Land use lawyer, Jack McCullough has represented controversial clients such as Wal-Mart and has worked about 20 cases against Bricklin and his firm.
"He’s very bright. He’s very articulate and he’s very persuasive," McCullough said. "I can always count on him to find a new angle or wrinkle in a case that I hadn’t thought of before, so I look forward to these cases that we work on because I know he’ll be challenging in unexpected ways. He’s about as tough an advocate as there is right now."