Portland and Vancouver,
One River, Two State Court Systems

The practice file places 14 matters across the Portland and Vancouver area: seven on the Oregon side and seven on the Washington side. Four of them are published below with the outcome on the record.

The two halves of the file look different because the work that crosses the river is different. The Oregon matters are mostly criminal defense: homicide prosecutions in which the accused claims self-defense, brought in Clackamas County and Multnomah County, together with a civil claim against the City of Portland. The Washington matters are mostly civil: claims against the City of Vancouver and Clark County for use of force, police misconduct and wrongful death, along with a criminal case from Clark County Superior Court.

The state line runs through the record as well as the map. An Oregon matter and a Washington matter a few miles apart answer to different state law and different state courts, and their records come from agencies whose officers trained under different state standards and work under different agency policies. The measure applied to either is the same: the agency's own policy and training, read against generally accepted police practice.

On the Portland side the retention usually comes from the defense in a homicide prosecution, and two questions run through it. One is the police investigation that produced the charge, read as police work from the first call to the final report. The other is the force question, put for the accused rather than for an officer, because the claim is self-defense. The legal standard for that claim is Oregon's own and stays with counsel; what the analysis contributes is set out on the page for self-defense casework.

How an Oregon homicide defense file is read, document by document, is on the Oregon casework page, together with the rest of the state's criminal and civil record.

Retaining from Portland runs exactly as retaining from anywhere else, and the Oregon page and the Washington page set out the engagement in full. In short: it opens with a conflict check, a first inquiry holds the case type and posture, the court and case number, the deadlines and the parties, and nothing privileged travels with it.

After retention the record travels on physical media by mail or courier, depositions are taken by Zoom or a similar platform, and trial testimony runs on the published travel terms. The fee schedule is on the For Counsel page, and the Library note on what to send with a first inquiry covers the first step.