“Sometimes it’s hard to stay silent and deal with that. Other times I just let it go and blow it up”.
Cydney Campbell Webster is a Shareholder/Attorney at GLP Attorneys in Seattle, WA. Cydney got her B.A. from Seattle University and her J.D. from the University of Puget Sound. While she was in law school she began working at GLP as an intern. 30 years and much hard work later, she is the most senior attorney at the firm. Cydney is well-known in the greater-Seattle legal community and has been voted Washington State Super Lawyer by her peers every year from 2007-2009 and 2011-present. Cydney lives with her husband and two boys in Seattle.
Liv Gooding:
Hi Cydney. Thank you for agreeing to do this. My first question is, what made you want to be a lawyer?
Cydney Campbell Webster:
I was in college and I really wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do. But I knew I should continue my education after college, and I thought being a lawyer would help narrow down the field of choices available in the career world. Law was more specific. Ultimately, I had worked with some lawyers right out of high school for about a week. I did some work for them, and I thought it was interesting. I just really wanted to continue my education and have a more focused career with my education.
Gooding:
What kind of law do you practice and why did you choose this area of law?
Campbell Webster:
I practice personal injury law but I didn’t so much chose this area of law, I kind of think it chose me. I did work for an attorney when I was about 18 for a week just helping him out, and I was completely clueless about what I was doing. Later, I hired him to be my personal injury attorney when I got into a big crash. My case actually went all the way through the first day of trial before it settled and I thought the process was fascinating. But I was really young and still uncertain about the whole area.
So I went to law school and I found a job in personal injury at the law firm that I currently work for. When I graduated law school they offered me a position and I continued to work here. This month was my 30 year anniversary.
Gooding:
Oh, wow. Congratulations.
Campbell Webster:
Thank you.
Gooding:
What do you like most about what you do and what don’t you like about it?
Campbell Webster
I really love the fast-paced nature of my work. Being a personal injury lawyer, you have quite a few clients and you are dealing with lots of different types of cases. The most normal kind would be car collisions, but I do so many different types of cases, and my area of interest mostly is in construction injury – people that are injured on construction jobs, which is interesting because it gives me the opportunity to learn about all different types of construction work. Whether my client got hurt doing concrete or framing or steel beams, or different aspects of construction work, it is always really interesting. The other part I really enjoy is working with people, of course, and helping people throughout a very difficult time for them.
Gooding:
Is there anything that you don’t enjoy about your job?
Campbell Webster:
The one thing about being a lawyer is it can be a high pressure job, and it can be a lot of work. So sometimes I don’t like the part of the job that it controls you and your life more than another job might. And there are things that are unpredictable, particularly with litigation and trial work that can be very challenging.
It’s funny, but I don’t actually like a lot of conflict. But being in litigation with adversarial attorneys, there is a lot of conflict and you have to deal with conflicting people who can be very difficult.
Gooding:
That sounds tough. Do you find that female attorneys get treated any differently by other lawyers or judges?
Campbell Webster:
I do. I don’t feel it at all from judges, but I sometimes I do from other lawyers. I’ve been doing this for 30 years and early on I thought a lot of it was just because I was younger. But I have realized that sometimes sexism from male attorneys is just their aggressive nature and the nature of the work. I have found that sometimes their aggression is because they feel they can take advantage of a woman, and sometimes that’s hard to stay silent and deal with that. Other times I just let it go and blow it up.
When I graduated from law school, our class was 50% women and 50% men, and I think the numbers are about the same now. There are many female attorneys, but it still feels like it’s a male-dominant world, so there is still an element of sexism.
Gooding:
I hope that’s changing. What advice would you give a person who needs legal help but doesn’t have access to lawyers or understand how the law works?
Campbell Webster:
There are lots of free legal services available for people who don’t have access to lawyers. One of the things I see is that people don’t even know that these resources exist or if they do, how to find them.
The King County Bar Association has a free legal clinic that is available to people. I think people do find the clinic through a lot of phone calls and asking for help. But it would be nice if there was a broader outreach to help people that really need it. I used to volunteer at a free legal clinic, and sometimes it was really just giving people direction and answering their question or helping them write and mail a letter. It’s just the simplest things and people often really just need that kind of help.
Gooding:
Yes – I volunteer at the Skagit Legal Aid Clinic, and it is a lot like that. It was really the simpler things that people needed help with but it was understandable why they needed help because the law can be confusing.
Campbell Webster :
When I worked at a legal clinic, the person who checked-in all the clients was a paralegal. It was a great way for him to be out in the community, giving people direction and help. Many of the counties offer some sort of free legal aid now, so that would be a great way to get introduced to the law.
Gooding:
Yes. Do you follow any cases that are currently in front of, or working their way up to the Supreme Court?
Campbell Webster:
Just this week the Supreme Court’s draft opinion on abortion was leaked. It wasn’t supposed to come out until probably June. I was following that regarding abortion rights, because it’s such a high profile case. Now there’s just so much in the news and so much to think about and talk about.
The actual case name is Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in Mississippi. Right now we’re just waiting to see what’s going to happen with the unprecedented leak. Is it good or bad that the potential opinion was leaked? I think it’s good, because it’s opening up the dialogue before it becomes law, and I think it gets people more prepared for the fight that’s going to happen when this opinion does come out, if it’s comes out the way it is currently written.
Gooding:
Exactly. What effects do you think having Ketanji Brown Jackson on the Supreme Court will have?
Campbell Webster:
I love the fact that she is a female and African American, and she’s also pretty young. I think she’s just a little younger than me, so in her 50s, and she’s going to be on the bench for a long time, so that’s great. I think longer term, she will have an impact on what the court will be deciding as the Court shifts politically over time. Right now the Court is very the conservative down the line, but she will be there for a long time. I think that will have an impact.
Short term, I really think that her impact is great for women as well as African American women and young girls who will see people that look like them reaching the highest court in the United States. That’s a great step forward for women and young girls around the U.S. and even the world.
Gooding:
Yes. What advice do you have for a young woman who wants to get into law?
Campbell Webster:
My main advice is to get a mentor. Somebody who can help you navigate your decision-making going forward. Somebody that you can talk to and look up to starting out. Your mentor might change as your career changes, but having a mentor early, even help you pick what classes you should take and things like that, I think is really important.
Gooding:
Good advice. Thank you. I appreciate it.
Campbell Webster
Thank you, Liv.