Former attorney on Hanford case sues state bar

SEATTLE (AP) — A former attorney for people who believe their health was harmed by radioactive releases from the Hanford nuclear reservation has sued the state bar and two lawyers she claims unfairly targeted her for removal from the case.

About 1,800 people have files lawsuits against former contractors at Hanford, claiming they have thyroid disease, cancer or other illnesses because of radioactive material released from the site when plutonium was made during World War II and the Cold War.

Attorney Nancy Oreskovich represented some of the plaintiffs until she was removed from the case in 1996. U.S. District Judge Alan McDonald ruled she had run a substandard solo practice, violated court orders, missed deadlines and overcharged her clients for work on the case.

The Washington Bar Association also investigated but dismissed all allegations against Oreskovich in October 2001.

Oreskovich, who now lives out of state and is not practicing law, filed a lawsuit this month in King County Superior Court against the state bar and two attorneys, seeking damages resulting from the loss of her legal career.

”When an attorney with a spotless record and thousands of clients is stripped of her clients and subjected to a five-year bar investigation caused by a bar president who wants her clients, then the state bar is broken and must be fixed,” Oreskovich told The Seattle Times.

In the lawsuit, Oreskovich contends that former bar president Richard Eymann and the bar's counsel, Robert Welden, lied to have her discredited and disbarred.

Eymann said Tuesday that he had no involvement in the bar's investigation into Oreskovich.

”If there was anyone who was kept away from the investigation of her, it was me,” he said. ”I had no involvement whatsoever and I respectfully disagree with the allegations and the complaint.”

A spokeswoman for the bar refused to comment on the lawsuit.

Oreskovich and others said her dismissal was the culmination of problems with the judge that began two years earlier when she refused to go along with the other plaintiff's attorneys and dismiss Westinghouse Hanford Co. as a defendant in the case.

A number of Oreskovich's clients stood by her, contending the attorney was targeted because she wanted to hold the government and contractors accountable.

After the bar dismissed the charges against Oreskovich, she petitioned the federal court to allow her to again participate in the case. A federal judge ruled that her motion, made more than nine months after the bar decision, was too late. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed.

Information from: The Seattle Times, http://www.seattletimes.com