Cullen Gatten, Esq.

Cullen Gatten joined Desmond Law Group in August 2016. His practice focusses complex civil litigation areas that intersect with the fundamental rights of the citizens of Washington. Cullen’s primary focus is on protecting a parent’s liberty interest in parenting their child in dependency proceedings, and preserves a person’s fundamental right to parent in termination proceedings.

Cullen believes that citizens can control their government if and only if they remain informed on the decisions of their government officials. So, he focusses on open government issues under the Washington State Public Records Act, Washington’s Open Public Meetings Act, and the Freedom of Information Act.

Cullen believes that his role of a lawyer does not stop in the courtroom. A lawyer’s responsibility is equally to the community within he or she lives. Just recently, he completed his term as the chair of the King County Bar Association’s Neighborhood Legal Clinics Subcommittee, an extension of the county’s Pro Bono Services Committee for the 2016-17 term. Just before relocating to Olympia in March, Cullen devoted his spare time as the Managing Attorney of the Greenwood Legal Clinic in Seattle for the past two years, and a volunteer there for the past three.

Cullen is a graduate of Gonzaga University School of Law. While there, he organized a series of lunchtime speakers on social justice issues impacting the city of Spokane and the State of Washington and served on the editorial staff of the Journal of Hate Studies, a multiple disciplinary scholarly journal focused on the intersections of race and social justice.