Page 38 - Pierce County Lawyer - July August 2025

TACOMAPROBONO COMMUNITY LAWYERS By Laurie Davenport
MEET OUR NEW
BOARD MEMBERS!
Regular readers of the Pierce County
Lawyer will recall our last article in which
we described in some detail our search
for new board members to diversify and
strengthen our strategic and fiduciary
leadership. We now welcome our new
board, which held its first meeting on
June 12, 2025!
The 2025-26 board is composed of: James
McCormick, Kyle Lauderdale, Alishia
Agee-Cooper, Marissa Beach, Dominique
Crisp, Pat deMarco, Maria Teresa Gamez,
Vitaliy Kertchen, Christy McKinley,
Ash Meer and Robert Taub. Non-voting
members are Liz Johnson (TPCBA
Liaison) and Judge André Peñalver
(Judicial Liaison).
We thank Tacomaprobono’s stellar project
manager Julie Dugan and indefatigable
ED/CEO Melisa Evangelos for wrangling
the infinite details involved in the lengthy
process of recruitment, planning and
bringing this group together for our first
meeting. We’re happy to report that we
have advanced many of our goals for
this board, including improvement in
demographic/community representation
as we’ve moved from our previous
‘lawyers only’ model: We now have more
women than men, and just under half of
our members are from black and brown
communities.
To give you a picture of the breadth of
experience and skills we’re gaining, we’d
like to introduce a few of our new board
members:
Christy McKinley – Founder and
Principal of The Village Firm
Christy is the owner and principal
attorney at The Village Firm in Tacoma.
She practices Family Law, primarily cases
involving domestic violence and high
conflict/anti-social opposing parties.
She is also the President of the Board of
Litigation Survival School, which she
co-founded in 2022 to help litigants who
cannot afford an attorney to learn the
basics of defending themselves. She and
her co-founder have created content for
the Pierce County Law Library, the King
County Library, and the Washington State
Bar Association. They hold classes for
both private organizations and the public,
including free seminars for the public.
Christy is on the board of both Pierce
County Washington Women Lawyers
and the Tacoma Pierce County Bar
Association. Christy began her legal
career by putting herself through law
school as a single mother, where she
graduated in the top 6% of her class.
Her career following law school has
been heavily influenced by her own
experiences with navigating the Family
Law systems. In all these experiences,
Christy has learned more than most
people care to about domestic violence,
trauma, and antisocial personalities. Her
experience lends her a unique perspective
not only on the procedure and process
of law but on the impact that the trauma
of litigation has on the litigants. This
informs every aspect of her work as
she teaches clients to balance litigation
advantage, their mental health, and their
relationships outside of litigation.
Maria Teresa Gamez – Language Access
Coordinator, City of Tacoma
Maria Teresa is an expert in community
engagement and partnership. She has
specialized in social marketing strategies
with extensive experience in diverse
community outreach and mobilization.
Fluent in Spanish, Portuguese, and
English, she is proficient in bilingual
project management, with extensive
experience in high-risk communities
in North, Central and South America.
She is a professional communicator and
filmmaker specializing in community
outreach; a director and producer of short
films, social media content, and feature
documentaries.
Alishia Agee-Cooper—MSW
Alishia Agee-Cooper is a distinguished
graduate of the University of Washington
with a Master’s in Social Work. As a
committed clinical social worker and
child welfare expert, she focuses on racial
equity and dismantling systemic barriers
within child welfare and community
systems. With a dual emphasis on practice
and policy, Alishia offers consulting
services to promote equity and justice.
Marissa Beach – Realtor
Marissa Beach has been a Realtor in
Washington State since 2014, leveraging
her passions for teaching, leadership,
and board management as a catalyst
for change. She has taught over 50
homebuyer seminars in English and
Spanish on down payment assistance,
collaborating with lenders, inspectors,
title and escrow companies, insurance
companies, and more.
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