Location and Hours
Community Building
35 West Main, Suite 300
Spokane, Washington 99201
(509) 835-5211
The Center for Justice is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., except during the noon hour and on court holidays.
Board
Denise Attwood, Secretary-Treasurer
Denise Attwood, the Center for Justice’s board Secretary-Treasurer, grew up in Spokane and has served on the board for four years. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from Western Washington University’s Huxley College of Environmental Studies in 1984, and earned her law degree from the University of Washington School of Law in 1988. Four years earlier, Denise and her husband, Ric Conner, started the for-profit, fair-trade import company, Ganesh Himal, The company imports directly from handcraft producers in Nepal, creating long term partnerships with low-income, refugee, and fair trade artisan groups there. Denise is currently also on the board of the Fair Trade Resource Network, a fair trade information gateway endeavoring to improve lives by promoting alternatives to economic exploitation and provide consumers with alternatives to irresponsible commerce. She is a former board member of Global Folk Art, a fair trade store in Spokane.
Jim Bamberger
Jim Bamberger joined the Center for Justice’s board in 2004. He graduated first in his class at Gonzaga University School of Law in 1980 and has spent his subsequent career working in civil legal aid as an attorney, program director, and state and national legal aid consultant. From 1996 until recently, Jim was the statewide coordinator for Columbia Legal Services, which provides legal assistance to low-income and special-needs people and organizations in Washington. He was appointed by the Washington State Supreme Court to serve as director of the state’s newly created Office of Civil Legal Aid in 2005. Jim also currently serves on the Gonzaga University School of Law Board of Advisors and on the board of Washington Attorneys Assisting Community Organizations (WAACO). He co-authored the Washington State Plan for Civil Legal Services; the plan is recognized as a national model.
Charlene Hunt
Charlene Hunt was Boise Cascade Corporation’s head of technology for 12 years shortly before her introduction to the Center for Justice. Born in South Burnaby, British Columbia, she was an active volunteer in Christian youth work as a young person, taking teenagers to Mexico to paint orphanages and creating programs for Alaskan youth. Charlene graduated Summa Cum Laude from Eastern Washington University with a bachelor’s degree in sociology before she began working in the world of sales. Now a top sales person at Pitney Bowes, Inc. in Spokane, Charlene is very involved in her daughter’s local school district and engaged in outreach to various community support groups for struggling addicts. Charlene says her life is epitomized by the words framed in the Center’s entryway: “When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”
Michael J. Myers
Michael J. Myers has been a Center for Justice board director since 2004. He earned a bachelor’s degree in economics in 1969 from the University of San Francisco and a law degree in 1973 from the University of New Mexico. During his career, Michael has been a member of the Washington State and Idaho State Bar Associations, and a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and the Best Lawyers in America (2001-2004). He served on the American Board of Trial Advocates (president 1996, secretary-treasurer, 1995 Washington Chapter; Trial Lawyer of the Year, 2004), the Washington Defense Trial Lawyers (trustee 1986-90), and the Federal Bar Association, Eastern District of Washington. Michael’s areas of legal expertise include product liability law, personal injury, and medical and other professional malpractice. He lives in Spokane with his wife and practices law at Randall & Danskin, P.S.
Lewis Russell “Rusty” Nelson, Vice President
Rusty Nelson, whose greatest fulfillment has come through working for social change, is the Center for Justice board’s Vice President. He grew up in Georgia, Florida, and Arkansas, and got a degree in English and an ROTC commission in the Army at Presbyterian College in South Carolina. While serving in Vietnam, Rusty earned citations that included the Bronze Star with Oak Leaf Cluster and V Device for valor. As a civilian, Rusty taught high school English before launching a career in radio. He worked as a disc jockey, news reporter, sports play-by-play announcer, operations manager, and commercial producer for stations in Georgia, Minnesota, and Washington. Rusty has received human rights awards from the mayor of Spokane, the Spokane County Democratic Central Committee, and the Pacific District Conference of the Mennonite Church.
He has also been a board member for Thin Air Radio and the Washington Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, and has served Shalom Church in leadership positions. In 1971, traveling in Croatia, he met Nancy who is his partner at the Peace and Justice Action League (PJALS) of Spokane and in life. They were married within four months of meeting and since 1988 have co-directed PJALS. Rusty and Nancy have two children and two grandchildren.
Fred Peck
Fred Peck joined the Center for Justice’s board in 2008. He grew up in Princeton, New Jersey and earned a bachelor’s degree from Brown University in aquatic biology, graduating with honors. During college
he served as the marine naturalist on Star Island in the Gulf of Maine. After college he served in various nonprofit management roles in Montana. In 2002 he and his wife and three sons moved to the inland
northwest. In Spokane he launched a management consulting practice, assisting a variety of local nonprofit organizations with strategic planning and board development. He taught the same at the Spokane Small Business Development Center. He especially enjoyed working with the Volunteers of America board and staff to develop their strategic plan, team teaching with Sandy Gill of Northwest Nonprofit Resources, and serving on the Philanthropy Day Consortium in 2003 and 2004. He has been a member of the Peter Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management, the National Center for Nonprofit Boards, the International Academy of Management, and the Inland Northwest Development Center and has been published in Board Member magazine. In 2004 he decided to become a certified public accountant and earned a masters degree in finance and accounting from Keller Graduate School
of Management, graduating with distinction. He became a CPA in 2006 and is now a member of the American Institute of CPAs and the Washington Society of CPAs. He has been preparing audited financial
statements for nonprofit and for profit organizations since 2005 and is currently the Assistant Controller of Sterling Mining Company. Fred enjoys camping and swimming in the summer, skiing in the winter,
coaching little league in the spring and he looks forward to helping has family learn how to SCUBA dive.
Rhosetta Rhodes
Rhosetta Rhodes is a native of Pensacola, Florida and has lived in Spokane for 17 years. She currently serves as the Director of Service-Learning and Community Engagement, and the Center for Conflict Transformation at Whitworth University. She graduated from Whitworth University in 1998 with a degree in Organizational Management. Rhosetta received her mediation certification from the Justice Center of Atlanta in 1998, and a certification in Transformative Mediation in 2000. For the past six years, she has collaborated with numerous agencies and organizations to improve the quality of life for Spokane’s citizens and to work towards sustainable communities.
Jim Sheehan, President
Jim Sheehan, Executive Director and President of the board, founded the Center for Justice in 1999. After graduating from Gonzaga Law School and spending more than 20 years as a public defender in Eastern and Western Washington, he received a windfall inheritance and wanted to put it to work for the greater good. Jim renovated the rundown Saranac Hotel, recreating it as the Community Building, a safe, welcoming, and affordable home for area nonprofit offices in Spokane’s downtown. And he founded the Center — a nonprofit law firm dedicated to protecting human rights, preserving the Earth, and holding the government accountable to the principles of democracy. Since Jim established the Center, it has served its numerous clients at low or no cost.
The son of a house painter and a housewife, Jim grew up near the University of Washington. He graduated from college in California and served two years in the army. It was during his service at Fort Brag that he witnessed overt racism for the first time. After his discharge from the army in 1969, Jim enrolled in law school where, between playing basketball and spending time with friends, he was able to squeeze in time for studying. Jim also serves on the board of the New Priorities Foundation.
Laurie Sheehan O’Neil
Loly Sheehan O’Neil, a Center for Justice board member since 1999, resides on the west side of Washington state and enjoys traveling. And that’s fortunate for the Center, because that means she is willing to make the cross-state trips necessary to attend our board meetings. Born in 1942, Loly has lived her whole life in the greater Seattle area and she graduated from Blanchet High School in 1960. A former cosmetologist, Loly has been involved with the ACLU in the past and currently serves on the board of the Tahoma Clinic Foundation, a nonprofit organization established in 1996, committed to “furthering the study and evaluation of naturally-based, ‘whole-body’ therapies.”