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Board of Directors


   Back row (left to right): Asser "Ace" Aldana, Gail Rosario Manuguid (secretary), Eric C. de los Santos (president-elect), John Solano Laney, Jerilynn Gonzales (treasurer), Nolan Lim, Benes Aldana, Rommel E. de las Alas. Front row (left to right): Tisha Pagalilauan, Abigail Daquiz (president), Mimi Castillo, Heather Hamamoto. Not pictured: Lisa Apsay, Elain Edralin Pascua, Aurora Martin, Florian Purganan. 


Abigail Gonzales Daquiz, President
United States Department of Labor, Office of the Solicitor

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Abigail is proud to serve you as FLOW's President. She is an attorney for the U.S. Department of Labor enforcing federal labor laws including safety laws, reemployment rights for veterans, the Fair Labor Standards Act, and other labor laws.  She was born in the Philippines and emigrated to the United States in 1985 as the first of six children.  She attended Olympic Community College and transferred to the University of Washington where she earned her B.A. in Political Science.  Abigail is a graduate of the University of Washington School of Law.  She volunteers with the Northwest Immigrant Rights Group (NWIRP), serving on their Board of Directors, and volunteers as an attorney for the Asian Bar Association/King County Bar Association Legal Clinic. 

email abigail.daquiz@gmail.com

phone 206-595-9380

Eric C. de los Santos, President-Elect
TrueBlue, Inc.

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Eric C. de los Santos is Assistant General Counsel and Director of Employment Law for TrueBlue, Inc., headquartered in Tacoma, Washington. TrueBlue is a national leader in the blue collar staffing industry. In addition to providing counsel and advice on labor and employment issues, Eric coordinates lobbying efforts on behalf of the company in several of its larger markets across the country. He is active in various bar associations and is President-Elect of the Filipino Lawyers of Washington. He also formerly served on the Washington State Bar Association Board of Governors. He is a graduate of Brown University and the University Of Washington School Of Law. He was born and raised in Honolulu, and lives with his partner Chad in Seattle.

 email edelossantos@trueblueinc.com

phone 253-680-8483

Gail Manuguid, Secretary
Bullivant Houser Bailey, PC

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Gail is an associate in Bullivant Houser Bailey PC's Seattle office, and focuses her practice on Corporate and Business matters. Gail has significant experience assisting both public and privately held companies with a range of corporate legal needs, including pre-formation planning, entity formation, corporate governance, and contractual issues, and cross-border transactions. She has also advised companies on a range of regulatory matters, including assisting an American subsidiary of a Japanese freight forwarder on compliance with Japan's Financial Instruments and Exchange Law (J-SOX). In addition, she has handled several multi-million dollar acquisition and reorganization transactions between companies on a regional, national and international scale. 

email gail.manuguid@bullivant.com

phone 206-292-8930

 

Jerilynn Gonzales, Treasurer
Evergreen Healthcare

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Jeri is the Contracts Attorney for Evergreen Healthcare in Kirkland, Washington, where she is responsible for reviewing, drafting, negotiating, and managing various types of contracts on behalf of the Hospital.  Prior to going in-house at Evergreen, Jeri was an associate attorney with Miller Nash LLP, in the firm’s business department.  Jeri is a 2007 graduate of the University of Washington School of Law, where she was part of the Tribal Court Criminal Defense Clinic, the Moot Court Honor Board, and served as Vice President of the Asian Pacific American Law Students Association.  Jeri attended Rice University on a tennis scholarship, and she graduated in 2004, cum laude, with a degree in Kinesiology/Sports Medicine.  Jeri’s mother, Loida, was born and raised in Manila, and moved to the U.S. in 1975.  Jeri’s paternal grandfather was from Dagupan City in the Pangasinan province, and her paternal grandmother was from Danao in Cebu.  Jeri’s father, Jeffrey, and older brother, JJ, are both Immigration attorneys in Portland, Oregon. 

email jcgonzales@evergreenhealthcare.org

phone 206-425-899-2646

Asser (Ace) Aldana
Aldana Law Group, PLLC

 

Ace is a solo practitioner engaged in limited but general practice of law with a focus primarily on labor and employment issues. Prior to starting his own practice, Ace was an associate at In Pacta Lawyers, PLLC. Before that, Ace was a member of the e-Discovery and Technology Group at K&L Gates, LLP for eight years. Ace earned his law degree from Suffolk University Law School, in Boston, Massachusetts. As a law student, he served in various leadership roles, including president of the Asian Pacific American Law Student Association. While in law school, Ace served as a summer law clerk for a federal magistrate judge in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York and received a public interest law fellowship award. With the fellowship, he clerked for the City of Boston Law Department for two years until his final year of law school.  Ace also represented low-income clients in various landlord-tenant matters as a Rule 9 intern with the Greater Boston Legal Services’ Housing Unit.  Prior to law school, Ace spent three years in Nagasaki, Japan as an English teacher for the Japanese government’s Japan Exchange and Teaching Program. Ace is a graduate of Gonzaga University with B.A. in Political Science and a minor in Italian, where he served as student body president during his senior year. Ace’s interest in language and culture motivated him to study Italian abroad, in which he spent his junior year in Florence, Italy through the Gonzaga-in-Florence program. Ace is also a member of the American Bar Association’s General Practice, Solo and Small Law Firm Division, and the Asian American Bar Association of Washington.  

email ace@aldanalaw.com

phone 206-307-9917

 

Benes Aldana
United States Coast Guard

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Benes is a judge advocate in the rank of commander in the U.S. Coast Guard. He is currently in an out-of-specialty tour serving as the Commanding Officer of a mission support unit in Seattle.  Prior to this position, he served as the Executive Officer and Chief, Personnel Services Division of Integrated Support Command Seattle.  Also a military trial judge, he continues to serve in that position since his 2005 appointment, the first Asian Pacific American in the U.S. military judiciary.  His other assignments included serving as the Principal Deputy District Legal Officer for the 13th Coast Guard District, as Special Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington, as a Trial Attorney for the Environment Enforcement Section of the U.S. Department of Justice, as the Deployed Legal Advisor to the Department of Defense Criminal Investigation Task Force in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as Deputy Chief of the Coast Guard's Office of Environmental & Real Property Law, as Program Manager of the Coast Guard's Legal Assistance Program, as Senior Appellate Government Counsel in the Coast Guard's Office of Military Justice, as Trial Counsel at Naval Legal Services Office West in San Francisco and as a Operational & Command Law and Claims & Litigation Staff Attorney, Maintenance & Logistics Command Pacific, Alameda, CA.

Benes is a 1991 Cum Laude graduate of Seattle University with a B.A. in Political Science (Honors Program).  In college, he served as Student Body President and as a Congressional Intern on Capitol Hill.  He received his law degree in 1994 from the University of Washington School of Law where he served as President of the Asian Pacific American Law Students Association and a member of the University of Washington Graduate and Professional Student Senate. He clerked for the Interstate Commerce Commission, interned for the King County Prosecuting Attorney as well as the King County Office of the  Public Defender, and externed for a U.S Federal Magistrate Judge.  He is admitted to practice in the State of Washington, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces and the U.S. Supreme Court.  Benes is a recipient of the American Bar Association's (ABA) Outstanding Young Military Lawyer Award, the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association's "Best Lawyer Under 40" Award, and was named a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation (ABF).  In 2009, he was recognized by the Filipino Community of Seattle with the Emerging Filipino Leaders Award.

Benes is active in the local and national bar, currently serving as the Washington State Supreme Court's appointee on the Civil Legal Aid Oversight Committee, Immediate Past President and Judiciary Committee Chair of the Asian Bar Association of Washington, Vice Chair of the Washington State Bar Association's Section on Legal Assistance for Military Personnel, and State Co-Chair of the Washington ABF Fellows. In 2008, he co-chaired the planning of the national convention of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association held in Seattle, WA.  In the ABA, he serves as Secretary of the General Practice, Solo and Small Firm Division, the State Membership Chair for Washington State and is on the Standing Committee on Judicial Independence.  He also currently co-chairs the Section of Litigation's Special Committee on Litigation Assistance to Military Personnel.  He has previously served in the House of Delegates, the President's Advisory Council on Diversity, the Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Profession, the Commission on the Renaissance of Idealism in the Legal Profession, the President's Task Force on Protecting the Rights of Service Members, and was a former Assembly Speaker of the Young Lawyers Division.

email benes.z.aldana@uscg.mil

phone 206-217-6401

Lisa Apsay
Bellingham Assigned Counsel, P.S.

 

Lisa's father is from Capiz, and her mother from Romblon, in the Visayan region of the Philippines.  They immigrated to the U.S. and settled in Seattle, where she and her siblings were born and raised.  At the age of 14, while sitting at the dinner table arguing with her father, Doty, he sarcastically suggested that she become a lawyer.  Years later, after earning her bachelor’s degree from the University of Washington, Ms. Apsay decided to pursue her father’s suggestion by enrolling at Gonzaga University School of Law.  As a law student, Ms. Apsay served as the secretary and treasurer of the school’s Asian and Pacific Islander Law Caucus and was Gonzaga’s student liaison to the Asian Bar Association of Washington.  During her third year of law school, she had the fortune of working as a judicial extern at the Washington State Court of Appeals, Division III, under the guidance of the Honorable Kenneth Kato.  Ms. Apsay is currently pursuing her passion for criminal law as a public defender in Bellingham, WA, for Bellingham Assigned Counsel, P.S., though she still travels to Seattle often for family parties and home-cooked food.

email lapsay@qwestoffice.net

phone 360-676-7661

 

Mimi Castillo
Castillo Mediation & Arbitration Services

Emilia "Mimi" R. Castillo has over 20 years experience in
Family Law, Probate and Estate Planning matters.  She
began her own practice in 1987 and has been active in the
Asian community, providing legal, and mediation and
arbitration services.  Mimi graduated from the Seattle
University School of Law in 1984.

Professional Affiliations : Member, King County Family Law Voluntary
Settlement Conference Program; Arbitrator, King County Arbitration
Department; Member, Washington State Trial Lawyers Association;
Co-founder, National Asian Pacific American Bar Association.
 

email samiolaw@aol.com

phone 206-517-8080

 

Rommel E. de las Alas
Law Office of Rommel E. de las Alas, PLLC

 

ROMMEL DE LAS ALAS was born in Seattle Washington and raised in West Seattle. He graduated from John F. Kennedy High School, class of 1993. Rommel went on to graduate from the University of Washington in 1997 with a degree in Political Science. Rommel received his J.D. from Gonzaga University School of Law in 2001. He first served as a Deputy Prosecuting Attorney for Thurston County and then worked as an associate for Orion Law Firm. He now has his own business, The Law Office of Rommel E. de las Alas, PLLC. His primary area of practice is criminal defense. Rommel is locally involved with the Filipino Community of Seattle, serving as a boardmember. He is also conversant in Tagalog. 

email rdelasalas@yahoo.com

phone 206-651-6332

Elaine Edralin Pascua
Law Office of William James O'Brian


Elaine is a trial attorney with the Law Office of William J. O'Brien where her practice is in bodily injury and premises liability.  Elaine is an Executive Board Member of the Filipino Alumni Chapter for Seattle University.

email elaine.edralin.pascua@zurichna.com

phone 206-515-4800

 

Heather Hamamoto
Aoki Sakamoto Grant, LLP

 

Heather is an associate at Aoki & Sakamoto LLP where her practice focuses on estate planning, probate/estate settlement, guardianship, and small business planning.  She received her J.D. from Seattle University School of Law, cum laude, and her B.S. in Psychology from the University of Washington.  Heather volunteers with the International Rescue Committee, the Asian Counseling and Referral Service’s neighborhood legal clinic, and is a member of the Seattle Women’s Chorus.

email heather@aoki-sakamoto.com

phone 206-624-1900

John Laney
Stoel Rives, LLP


 

John Laney is an associate in the Corporate practice group and has experience with Stimulus Act funding for renewable energy projects. John represents clients in corporate governance matters; mergers and acquisitions; and corporate, securities and financing transactions, with an emphasis on the development, structuring, financing and acquisition of renewable energy projects. Prior to law school John was a senior account executive with HSBC, Consumer Lending.  John was an extern for the Honorable John C. Coughenour, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington (2007); a law clerk at Forsberg & Umlauf, P.S. (2007); and a legal extern at the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office (Summer 2006).

email jslaney@stoel.com

phone 206-386-7559

Aurora Martin
Columbia Legal Services

 

Aurora currently serves as Deputy Director of Columbia Legal Services, a statewide legal aid program serving low-income people throughout Washington.  Prior to serving as Deputy Director, Aurora served as a national public interest law fellow at Columbia Legal Services through Equal Justice Works.  During her two-year fellowship, she established a pro bono homeless prevention program, the Housing Justice Project, which continues to operate in the Regional Justice Center in Kent, WA.  Aurora also served as a post-graduate law clerk to Washington State Supreme Court Justice Barbara Madsen.  She received her undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Washington, where served as Programs & Development Editor of the Pacific Rim Law & Policy Journal.  Much of Aurora’s undergraduate and graduate work focused on the history of Philippine land reform, which served as an academic connection to her cultural roots.  She speaks Tagalog fluently.  Aurora also serves on the boards of various community organizations, including KCTS 9 and the Laurel Philip Farm Worker Justice Ludlow.

mail aurora.martin@columbialegal.org

phone 425-464-1122, ext. 608

 

Tisha Pagalilauan
K&L Gates, LLP

 

Tisha is a partner at K&L Gates, LLP and counsels and represents public and private clients regarding environmental litigation and regulatory issues.  Her regulatory practice has primarily focused on negotiations with federal and state agencies' hazardous waste issues, brownfields redevelopment and insurance.  She has served as President of the Washington Women Lawyers (2005-2006), serves on the editorial board of the WSBA Environmental and Land Use Section, and  a past Committee Chair of the King County Bar Ethnic Diversity in the Legal Profession.

email tisha.pagalilauan@klgates.com

phone 206-623-7580

 

Florian Purganan
Hanis Irvine Prothero, PLLC

 

Florian "Ian" practices exclusively in immigration and citizenship law. His practice encompasses all areas of immigration law, particularly adjustment of status, family petitions, waiver applications, and deportation defense. Florian also regularly handles employment based immigration matters including labor certifications and non-immigrant visas for foreign professionals. Ian is fluent in Tagalog and is very active in the Filipino community. He is currently the Youth Chair of the regional chapter of the National Federation of Filipino American Associations (NaFFAA). 

email fpurganan@hiplawfirm.com

phone 253-520-5000


 
 
 

Filipino Lawyers of Washington

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