About Society of Counsel

Society of Counsel Representing Accused Persons is a private, non-profit public defense law firm with offices in Seattle and Kent, Washington. Bob Nickels founded Society of Counsel in 1976 to provide representation to indigent minors accused of misdemeanor and felony offenses, and to parents and minors in abuse and neglect dependency cases. Since then Society of Counsel has grown to a staff of over 90 people dedicated to providing quality legal representation to indigent residents of King County. Our staff consists of attorneys, investigators, paralegals, social workers, and clerical and administrative employees.

Today Society of Counsel provides representation to over 13,000 clients per year. The agency is divided into the following practice areas: adult felonies; adult misdemeanors; dependencies; family law contempt of court; and juvenile offender.  Our largest unit is adult felonies, which employs approximately 35% of our staff, followed by dependencies, juvenile offender, adult misdemeanor and contempt of court.

Society of Counsel views its mission as more than just providing quality legal representation to our clients. We believe part of our role is to try to address our clients’ broader problems and help them avoid future entanglements with the system.

To help further that part of our mission, Society of Counsel is involved in a unique partnership with local human service agencies and neighborhood groups to provide mentoring and legal representation to youth of color who are at risk of detention and in high need of social service intervention. Through the ROYAL program (Raising Our Youth As Leaders) Society of Counsel works with representatives from Central Youth and Family Services, Youth Care,  and Vision Youth to attempt to address the issue of disproportionate involvement of African-American and other youth of color in the juvenile justice system. 

In 2001, we helped start another innovative program to address the unmet legal needs of indigent non-U.S. citizen children who are victims of abandonment, abuse and/or neglect. Society of Counsel partnered with the Seattle University School of Law’s Access to Justice Institute, Team Child, and the Washington Defender Association to form the Immigrant Child Advocacy Project. The Project’s goal is to provide eligible children with the legal representation and advocacy necessary to obtain lawful immigration status.  In May, 2002, after getting this program up and running, the original partner organizations stepped aside and the Northwest Immigrants Rights Project took over the program.  For further information on this project, contact Jana Heyd.