Mark Johnson

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Mark represents plaintiffs in cases involving medical and legal malpractice, serious personal injury, product, drug product, and insurance bad faith and has done so in the states of Washington, Alaska, Nevada, Minnesota, Oregon, and California. He is AV rated by Martindale Hubbell—the highest peer review rating—and he has been listed in every edition of the Best Lawyers in America since 1995.  Mark is the Immediate Past President of the Washington State Bar Association.

Areas of practice

• Medical and legal malpractice
• Serious personal injury
• Plaintiffs negligence law
• Insurance bad faith

Education

• Drake University, B.A., 1975
• Drake University, Juris Doctorate, 1978

Admitted to practice

• Washington, 1978
• U.S. District Court, 1978
• Western District of Washington, 1978;
• Minnesota, 1979;
• U.S. District Court, 1980
• District of Minnesota, 1980
• U.S. District Court, 1983
• Eastern District of Washington, 1983
• U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit

Professional and community memberships

Mark is a member of the American Association for Justice (formerly ATLA) and Trial Lawyers for Public Justice in addition to his involvement in the Washington State Bar Association and the Washington State Trial Lawyers Association.

Washington State Bar Association

Mark Johnson became 2009 president of the Washington State Bar Association (WSBA) in September 2008 after earning progressively higher profile offices in the organization. Mark has:

• Served three years on the WSBA Board of Governors and chairman of the WSBA Character and Fitness Committee.
• Chaired or co-chaired the first five WSBA Conferences on the Law of Layering presented annually beginning in 2003 and will co-chair the sixth conference in December 2008.
• Chaired a taskforce charged with resolving the issue of the trust account treatment of advanced fees received by attorneys. The rules drafted by the taskforce are currently under review by the Supreme Court.
• Chaired the task force that drafted the first comprehensive set of Character and Fitness rules for the WSBA that were adopted—without change—in 2006 by the Washington Supreme Court.

 Mark is a frequent speaker on trial practice, legal ethics, malpractice, and risk management. He is the author of a host of articles on lawyer liability, medical negligence, and other issues important to the practice of law and the justice system, including:

• Flat Fee RPC Amendments under Consideration by the Supreme Court, WSBA Bar News, Vol.62 No.2, February 2008
• Procedural Perfection Required, WSBA Bar News, Vol.61 No.12, December 2007
• The WSBA Appropriately May, and Should, Support Marriage Equality Legislation, co-authored with Tereza Simonyan, WSBA Bar News, Vol. 61 No.9, September 2007
• The Law of Lawyering, WSBA Bar News, November, 2004)
• Washington Law of Lawyer Liability, WSBA Bar News, April 2000

Washington State Trial Lawyers Association [http://www.wstla.org]

A member of the Washington State Trial Lawyers Association (WSTLA), Mark is a WSTLA Eagle and past chair of WSTLA's Professional Liability Section. He has authored numerous articles for the organization’s publication, such as:

• Mishandled Medical Malpractice Case Leads to Legal Malpractice Verdict, co-authored with Donovan Flora, WSTLA Trial News, October 2001
• Washington Law of Lawyer Liability, WSTLA Trial News, January 2000
• Medical Malpractice, Medical Records and the Uniform Business Records as Evidence Act, WSTLA Trial News, June 1999
• Washington Supreme Court Declares Medical Negligence Statute of Repose Unconstitutional, WSTLA Trial News, October 1998

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