The 2023 APEX Awards

The APEX — Acknowledging Professional Excellence — Awards honor exemplary members of the legal community, including legal professionals, judges, and members of the public.

Professionalism Resources
 

PROFESSIONALISM AWARD

Peter Kram

TACOMA

The Professionalism Award is awarded to a WSBA member who exemplifies the spirit of professionalism in the practice of law, as defined in the WSBA's Creed of Professionalism.

Kram’s nomination lauded him for being a kind, highly experienced mentor who fosters a collegial workplace for young associates to grow into thriving practitioners. He was also recognized for a remarkable legal career in Tacoma over nearly 50 years. Kram has served as an arbitrator in King and Pierce Counties, a Hearings Examiner Pro Tem in Tacoma, a Superior Court Commissioner Pro Tem and Pierce County District Court Judge Pro Tem. He also served on several non-profit boards, including the Tacoma-Pierce County Bar Association, the United States Tennis Association/Pacific Northwest Section, Lakewood Racquet Club, Lindquist Dental Clinic for Children, and the Tacoma Metropolitan Parks Business Advisory Council.

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What does professionalism look like? Peter Kram is this year’s recipient of the 2023 Washington State Bar Association 2023 APEX (Acknowledging Professional Excellence) Professionalism Award honoring exemplary members of the legal community. It honors “a WSBA member who exemplifies the spirit of professionalism in the practice of law, as defined in the WSBA's Creed of Professionalism.” He is the living embodiment of professionalism. Peter Kram exemplifies the spirit of professionalism in his daily practice of law, his community engagement, in his mentorships of other lawyers, and in his daily execution of the WSBA Creed of Professionalism.

My wife, Jane, and I have known Peter since 1983 when we were neighbors on Tacoma Avenue where Peter still lives. While I worked as Associate General Counsel and Risk Manager for a group of maritime corporations based on Lake Union, Peter had a partnership with James Leggett. We’d get together with Peter and his wife most Friday nights during the “Miami Vice” and “LA Law” era watching the shows plus enjoying many good times camping and road-tripping. My three children regard “PK” as a beloved uncle. In 2011 my firm, Mann, Johnson, Wooster & McLaughlin, merged with Peter’s firm after James Leggett retired. When Garold Johnson was appointed to the Superior Court and another partner struck out on his own, we shortened the firm name to Kram & Wooster. If we ever had a disagreement it could not have been significant, because there are none recalled. Peter fully supported my decision to earn my LLM in Dispute Resolution from Pepperdine Caruso Law School’s Straus Institute of Dispute Resolution to help build my mediation practice. We still love taking road trips to rodeos, resorts and coasts with our spouses. Peter’s work ethic, integrity and humor make him a great partner, allowing us to build a successful firm in which we often laugh together.

Lawyers profoundly impact our society and each other in shaping how it looks to live in a just society. Listen to the recounting of accolades, struggles, and accomplishments of our members upon ascending to the bench. Those life stories reveal lawyers’ impact on our communities. Realizing our missions for justice highlights the ripples our efforts send across society. Our actions have a social impact by broadening our client’s world view and changing our notions of what is just. Lawyers provide clients with a vision for the future, an opportunity to correct injustice, enforce commitments, resolve disputes; a chance for community members to be heard in a way that helps us live with each other civilly.

The legal profession engages in much discussion about ethics and professionalism. View our WSBA website, where an entire section is devoted to understanding and teaching what it means to be a professional [1]. Pull out your Rules of Professional Conduct and read the Preamble: “A Lawyer’s Responsibilities,” noting our members as “having special responsibility for the quality of justice.” [2] Read and live the WSBA Creed of Professionalism. Time invested in revisiting those resources and discussing them with friends, colleagues and family will reinforce how special it is to be engaged in a profession that has a profound and lasting impact on the fabric of our communities.

Peter Kram is the oldest of ten children from a Chicago family; an Eagle Scout, a collegiate tennis player, an Air Force Officer, and a Forest Service firefighter. Peter has served on many civic, charitable and non-profit boards. Peter was even a contestant on the ’70s TV Show, “The Dating Game,” where he won a date with Marilou Metzger, a singer and dancer on the Lawrence Welk Show. Since joining the Bar in 1977. Peter’s practice in Pierce County has run the gamut, from successfully defending a murder suspect and blocking bad dog legislation to Minor Guardianships, Trusts and Estates, and representing personal injury clients. He has served pro tem as a Court Commissioner, Hearing Examiner, and Judge. He is an arbitrator for the US Tennis Association (“USTA”) and has held many committee and board positions with the USTA. Peter has had the pleasure of representing three and four generations of clients’ families.

Peter also had a crucial role in restoring the prominence of the Pacific Northwest Open Tennis Championships at the Tacoma Lawn Tennis Club and binding it to the "Tennis Ball," a fundraiser for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Since the 1980s that event has raised over two million dollars for Cystic Fibrosis (“CF”) research to develop new drugs and therapies. A child with CF in the ‘80s would typically die in their teens; now, CF patients live into their forties, having families of their own.

Peter has always made himself available to mentor associates in our firm and new lawyers in the community. He fully understands and shares that one can be an effective and zealous advocate for a client without embracing an offensive personality. He can be curt, as exemplified by his response to a Seattle lawyer’s letter specifying long, burdensome, and condescending preconditions for exchanging discovery. Peter took out a sharpie, wrote “NO” on the offending letter, and faxed it back to the attorney.

However, time and again, Peter works with opposing counsel to streamline litigation, focus on what is essential, and resolve issues that can be resolved before the matter is presented to the court for a decision on the remaining issues. When Family Law matters involve children, Peter will always emphasize to his clients that, through their children, they will be bound to their partner and reminds the client to be mindful of how the children will replay the story of mom and dad’s separation, divorce and custody. Peter shifts the client’s focus from the heat of the moment to a long-term view and in doing so helps his clients pull animosity out of the case, which allows cooperative resolution to take root.

Peter’s good humor and love for others have made him a significant contributor over his forty-eight years in the Tacoma-Pierce County Bar Association and WSBA. With a Master’s Degree in History, Peter will enlighten everyone about obscure historical facts, and he has never passed a roadside historical marker without stopping to check its accuracy. Congratulations to Peter Kram on this well-deserved recognition for years of professionalism and contributions to our professional life.

[1] https://www.wsba.org/for-legal-professionals/member-sup- port/professionalism.
[2] Wash. Rules of Prof’l Conduct, Preamble: A Lawyer’s Responsibility (Wash. Bar Ass’n 2018) (emphasis added).

 

Richard H. Wooster, J.D., LLM, is a partner at Kram & Wooster, P.S. and serves on the TPCBA Board of Trustees.