Deborah M. Nelson

Deborah M. Nelson is the immediate past president of the Washington State Trial Lawyers Association (WSTLA). She is a partner in the Seattle firm of Nelson Langer Nelson, PLLC where she concentrates her law practice primarily in the areas of brain injury, long term disability insurance denial, catastrophic personal injury, and insurance bad faith cases. Previously, she was a solo practitioner in Port Angeles for 13 years.

For years, Deborah has been an advocate for those wronged by bad faith practices in the insurance industry. Her latest cases include a settlement with State Farm Insurance on behalf of a woman who was injured in two separate automobile collisions, then harmed again when her carrier abruptly stopped payment and impermissibly required the woman to apportion injuries and medical treatment expenses related to each collision.

Deborah also recently arbitrated a case for a client who suffered a mild traumatic brain injury following a head-on collision. Despite the fact that the woman’s insurance carrier and the third-party insurance company disputed that her injuries were the result of the accident, Deborah secured $305,000 – more than twice the amount that the insurers offered for settlement. She also recently recovered nearly $700,000 for a client who suffered spinal, shoulder, and other serious injuries in an automobile accident.

Prior to serving as president of WSTLA, Deborah held a variety of leadership roles with the organization including vice president of legislative steering, continuing legal education, development, finance, and publications. She has been a member of the WSTLA Board of Governors since 1996. She is a member of Board of Directors of Lawyers Association Trust (LAT), serves on numerous WSTLA committees, frequently speaks at seminars throughout the legal community, chaired the Clallam County People’s Law School, and chaired the Clallam County WSTLA roundtable. In addition to her WSTLA service, Deborah is active in the American Association of Justice (formerly the Association of Trial Lawyers of America) where she is a member of M Club, the State Affairs Committee, and serves as the president of the Council of Presidents. She is also a Fellow in The Melvin M. Belli Society.

A recognized expert in her specialty areas, Deborah authored a chapter on PIP bad faith litigation for WSTLA's Automobile Accident Litigation Deskbook and contributed forms for WSTLA's Motion Practice CD.

In addition, she was the 2001 recipient of WSTLA's Alvin Anderson Award, has been selected a "Super Lawyer" by Washington Law & Politics magazine since 2002, and was voted "Best Attorney in Clallam County" by a Peninsula Daily News readers' poll. She was also awarded the “Woman of Distinction Award” by Soroptimist International of Port Angeles.

Deborah graduated magna cum laude with a degree in American history from Armstrong Atlantic State University in Savannah, Georgia, and was the first graduate of Armstrong to receive "special honors in history." She received her law degree from the University of Cincinnati College of Law where she was a member of the Moot Court Honor Board and was inducted into the Order of Barristers.