Lawyer leaps past the bar, starts practicing in Moses Lake

MOSES LAKE — Damiano Cacchiotti found out he’d become a lawyer in a text message.

“I was having dinner with my fiancée when my buddy texted, he went to Gonzaga, and he said ‘Dude, we’re lawyers,’” Cacchiotti said.

Normally, someone finds out that they’ve become a lawyer when they receive the results of their bar exam. Cacchiotti, who graduated from McGeorge Law School in Sacramento, California, this spring, said he was preparing to take the bar in September.

“I actually came back in March,” he said. “My school went online, so I came back and did online school for the rest of the semester, did a virtual graduation, and started studying for the bar.”

But on June 12, the Washington Supreme Court granted “diploma privilege” to any graduate of an American Bar Association-accredited law school who was registered for the state’s July or September 2020 bar exams — meaning they could become lawyers in Washington without having to pass, or even take, the exam.

“You can choose to take it, but that’s up to you. I waived it,” Cacchiotti said.

Washington is one of only four states, along with Utah, Oregon and Louisiana, to give temporary diploma privilege to 2020 law school graduates in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Wendy Ferrel, a spokesperson for the Washington State Supreme Court, this year’s diploma privilege only extends to graduates of ABA-certified programs who registered for the bar exam. Everyone else still has to take the exam.

“It was limited in scope,” Ferrel said.

But it doesn’t change that they are lawyers in good standing, able to practice law just like any other attorney.

Cacchiotti said at first, he wasn’t entirely sure he believed he didn’t have to take the bar exam this year. But after a little research, and a call to the state bar association, he learned that he still had to fill out some paperwork, have it approved, and get a judge to swear him in.

“I was extremely excited; it felt too good to be real,” he said. “Usually you get sworn in at the courthouse by a judge, but we set up a Skype swearing-in with Judge David Estudillo (in late July).”

Born and raised in Moses Lake and a graduate of Moses Lake High School, Cacchiotti said that while he wanted to be a lawyer growing up, he originally started college at Washington State University to become a dentist, like his father, orthodontist Dino Cacchiotti.

“I grew up watching a large amount of ‘true crime’ and court shows and always wanted to be a lawyer,” he said. “Between the classes I was taking at WSU and a summer break spent working at my dad’s office, I quickly realized I should reverse course and follow through with my passion to become a lawyer.”

Cacchiotti, who has been clerking at Dano Law Firm in downtown Moses Lake for the last few years of law school, started full time in July, learning about contracts, probate and real estate deals.

“He’s been working for me for a long time,” said Brian Dano, the law firm’s senior partner.

He was not concerned about Cacchiotti not having to take the bar exam.

“I know his work habits and his intellect,” Dano said.

Dano, whose brother Garth is the county’s prosecuting attorney, said he does have concerns that many of the state’s other law school graduates who have not had to prove themselves by taking the bar exam may not be able to find work, especially in the big cities of the West Side.

“It will hurt, and it will have an impact,” he said. “Not here, there are so few attorneys who want to come out to rural areas. They want to be in big cities.”

Dano said his family’s law firm, which was founded by his father, Harrison, and expanded into Moses Lake in the late 1970s, specializes in transactional law — things like commercial and real estate deals, contracts, wills and probate.

“We don’t litigate,” he said.

Cacchiotti said even though he’s now a proper lawyer, he still spends his time watching how the experienced attorneys practice. Because law school doesn’t teach everything.

“I’ll put it out there that law school doesn’t really teach you how to practice. It gives you the bare minimum, the bones of what you’re actually going to do,” he said. “You know more than someone going into it with no knowledge, but on the other side of that there’s a lot to learn.”

“Much of what I’m doing right now is learning,” he added.

He also said he loves Moses Lake and couldn’t think of practicing law anywhere else.

“I came back to Moses Lake to practice law because I have always enjoyed Moses Lake while growing up and loved returning to visit while I was away at school, whether I was attending WSU or law school in California,” Cacchiotti said. “I believe Moses Lake is a great place to raise a family, and I look forward to spending the rest of my career here.”

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at [email protected].