Stokes Lawrence — Local services in Seattle

Updated to reflect additional findings and ethical concerns.)

I was involved in a legal matter where Stokes Lawrence represented the opposing party. Their initial response was a six-page letter intended to rebut my claims—but it inadvertently supported the timeline I had already documented. I referenced the letter to their client because it aligned with facts I had raised and highlighted points their internal team had avoided addressing.

The real turning point came in January 2025, when I was finally granted access to the leased space—nearly five months after I signed and almost four months after they executed the lease on their end. That’s when I uncovered a critical misrepresentation: the space I had been shown during negotiation and the structural documentation I was given did not match the actual site conditions.

The primary employee involved engaged in a cover-up. During that exchange, she altered an email chain to hide that the landlord had done this before—misrepresenting space conditions and denying access during lease negotiation. I have both the original and the altered version.

Once Stokes Lawrence stepped in, the tone shifted significantly. Financial pressure became the central tactic, and legal terms that had never been previously discussed—including a confidentiality clause—were introduced only in the final draft of the agreement. The clause had not appeared in earlier versions and was added without discussion.

A final deadline was imposed for our response—but immediately after doing so, their legal team and the landlord’s staff became unavailable, leaving no one accessible to address questions, clarify terms, or discuss the newly introduced provisions. This timing created a situation where we were expected to accept a final agreement under pressure, with no realistic opportunity to negotiate or respond meaningfully.

The firm’s letter acknowledged that their client was aware of the key issues, but carefully avoided stating when that awareness occurred, despite the existence of timestamped communications showing it happened months earlier—before any lease execution. That omission, combined with the failure to address delayed access, altered communications, or the accuracy of structural representations, reflects a strategy that prioritized containment over correction.

After I used timestamped emails to confirm the facts their letter had vaguely acknowledged, the firm attempted to walk back their original statements. What followed was not an effort to disprove my claims—but to threaten legal consequences in order to protect their client’s reputation. From my perspective, this was not about countering the evidence—it was about silencing it. Their actions suggest a strategic shift: once the facts couldn’t be denied, their role became about damage control, not resolution.

In my view, the conduct I experienced may raise concerns under the Washington Rules of Professional Conduct (RPCs), including but not limited to: • RPC 4.1 – Truthfulness in Statements to Others • RPC 8.4(c) – Misconduct (dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation) • RPC 1.2(d) – Prohibits assisting a client in fraudulent conduct

From my experience, Stokes Lawrence did not serve as a neutral legal check in this process. Instead, their involvement appears to have reinforced the concealment of material facts through strategic omission, pressure-based negotiation tactics, and procedural insulation.

If you’re entering a dispute with this firm—especially as a small business or under-resourced party—document everything, get outside counsel early, and be prepared for a process that may prioritize liability management...

I had never been in a courtroom before August 14, 2017 when I appeared as a respondent to the petition of a relative who had abused her power. I never could have believed that lawyers were hired to bend the truth--even lie out right--as long as they could not be held accountable or unmasked--to secure the outcome desired by their client until that date.

Karolyn Hicks was affable, smooth as butter, and in my opinion as shrewd and cynical a professional as anyone I could have imagined. She easily outwitted me in the courtroom. The petition she wrote did not even state the reasons for requiring me to release my relative from liability. In her reply to my response she concocted a simple but convincing argument that the judge fell for.

With a Machiavellian sleight-of-hand she transformed my wish to hold the trustee responsible for not having respected the intent and provisions of a family trust into a desire for "unfettered access" to the trust funds.

This is a perversion of the truth, and the fact that she had no compunctions trumpeting it says a lot about the firm she works for.

My parents, contrary to what she stated, did not give me a direct inheritance not because they did not want to me to decide for myself how I could find meaning and enjoyment in life but because they knew that they could not leave me a direct inheritance without endangering my public benefits.

Ms. HIcks similarly elided over the fact that the same faithless relative, whom my parents trusted, against the wishes of my parents, had been refusing disbursements with the net result that Social Security would in all likelihood recoup most of the trust funds upon my death due in part because this same relative is the residual beneficiary of a second trust.

To argue that possible Trump cutbacks to Medicaid in Washington State would mean that the trustee, who produced no budget or other quantitative tools, should refuse a disbursement worth 3% of the principal from a trust which had increased in value by $6,000 over the past four years is surely sophistry. Surely not even Ms. Hicks could assert that Medicaid would be slashed by as much as 50% in the unlikely event that Trump got his way.

I suspect, too, that there was some level of coordination with the reply of my relation, which contained egregiously counterfactual statements, if not perjury. Difficult to prove, albeit, under these most inauspicious circumstances.

But the heart and mind know.

I stupidly acceded to the assertion that there had been no self-dealing, when in fact there was really no way for either me or the judge to be know this until I had had the time to hire a professional to look at the accounting that this frankly unscrupulous relative had hastily completed just a day or two earlier.

What was the most disconcerting, perhaps, was that there was an apparently not illegal quid pro quo offered by the Stokes & Lawrence attorney in exchange for my releasing this relative from all liability.

All I can say is: Stay away from this law firm and this attorney if you value integrity rather than a simple desire to go for the jugular and/or outwit your own identified "opponent" (even if it's a family member).

Needless to say, the legal expenses were indirectly assumed by me.

Reputations of firms such as this are based on the cases won--no matter how they are obtained--for the client, not on the justice served or the methods employed. The adage that lawyers "go in for the kill" would indeed seem to be warranted by my experience with Stokes Lawrence.

What is legal is not...

Karolyn Hicks is a professional with a very strong skill set. If you need a litigator, you want Karolyn on your side. Karolyn is also a superior negotiator with excellent communication skills. Whether your need is large or small, corporate, personal or family, Karolyn is the professional to see your case to completion. Additionally, Stokes Lawrence has a very wide resource base to draw upon when preparing your case to achieve a...