Lawyer helped state stem losses from DSHS suits

In 2000, the Department of Social and Health Services hemorrhaged $69 million to settle lawsuits for alleged wrongdoing.

Bernie Friedman, a sharp, blunt, cigar-loving lawyer, came on that same year as risk manager. Five years later, the state's most-sued agency had cut its payouts in half.

The results seemed to assure Mr. Friedman's job security. But he feared he had stepped on too many toes, especially in the Attorney General's Office, and he resigned when former Attorney General Christine Gregoire became governor.

"He was a bull in a china closet, but he was our bull," said Dennis Braddock, the former DSHS secretary who hired Mr. Friedman.

Mr. Friedman died of a heart attack Thursday in Olympia while recovering from foot surgery. He was 63.

The witty, erudite lawyer was born in the Bronx to two social workers. His mother was a labor organizer for New York City garment workers, giving Mr. Friedman a grounding in civic duty.

He earned a degree in biochemistry, then spent 12 years as an Air Force meteorologist, proudly delivering weather reports for the Apollo 11 astronauts.

He met his wife, Kathleen, while stationed in Germany, and together they went to all the three-star restaurants on the Continent. They celebrated their 30th anniversary last month.

The Friedmans and their young daughter moved to Washington after he graduated from Duke Law School. He soon was elected to the Mukilteo City Council, and he joined a big Seattle law firm.

Bill Bailey, a Seattle plaintiff's attorney, met Mr. Friedman as opposing counsel during an asbestos case. Bailey said he wanted to dislike Mr. Friedman, "but he said in an aside to me one day: 'What am I doing representing the asbestos companies? Both my parents were labor organizers in New York!' "

"Bernie had an unerring moral compass. He didn't like pretense. He didn't like fakery," Bailey said. The Friedmans' daughter Laura Ann was diagnosed with cancer. Her death in 1990, at age 12, "deeply wounded" Mr. Friedman, Bailey said, and the lost work hours got him fired from his firm.

"I admired his courage — as tough as that was, he didn't crumple," Bailey said.

Instead, Mr. Friedman and another attorney from the firm, Phil Talmadge, launched their own law office. When Talmadge was elected to the State Supreme Court in 1995, he asked Mr. Friedman to join him as his law clerk.

That job is traditionally taken by young lawyers. Mr. Friedman later joked that he was "oldest law clerk in captivity."

But that was also the happiest time in Mr. Friedman's professional life, said his daughter Alana Friedman. "He was happiest when he could sit in a room and think," she said.

Talmadge said he and Mr. Friedman would debate cases and trade draft after draft of legal opinions. "He loved the law, loved the intellectual challenge of the law and loved shaping the law," Talmadge said.

While Mr. Friedman's mind was keen, Talmadge said, his car was a mess, a clutter of sunflower seeds and cigar ashes.

As Talmadge was preparing to leave the bench, Braddock, newly appointed the DSHS chief, called Mr. Friedman in 2000. Braddock wanted an in-house lawyer to cut his agency's liability after a string of huge, embarrassing lawsuit settlements.

Mr. Friedman demanded that the Attorney General's Office — DSHS' lawyers — do a better job of quickly settling cases DSHS could not win and litigating more vigorously those it could win.

In 2003, Mr. Friedman insisted on going to trial against Said Aba Sheikh, a 15-year-old Somali refugee beaten into a coma by a gang of thugs living in a West Seattle foster home. Aba Sheikh's lawyers, Mr. Friedman thought, were arguing that DSHS should be omnipotent in preventing the misdeeds of every child in its care.

DSHS lost the trial and was ordered to pay $8.3 million to Aba Sheikh. But Mr. Friedman's opinion won out: The Supreme Court tossed out the award earlier this year.

By the time he left, DSHS had spent less in lawsuit payouts in 2004 and 2005 combined than it had in 2000 alone, according to the state Office of Financial Management.

Braddock said that is Mr. Friedman's legacy: "Over a 10-year period, I think Bernie will save the state millions of dollars."

Mr. Friedman is survived by his wife, Kathleen; daughter Alana; and sisters Gerri Siegel of Los Angeles and Anita Allen of Las Cruces, N.M. He was preceded in death by his parents and daughter Laura Ann.

A public reception is planned for Thursday, Aug. 10, from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Waterstreet Cafe, 610 Water Street S.W., Olympia.

Jonathan Martin: 206-464-2605 or jmartin@seattletimes.com