Schroeder Law Offices is excited to announce that J.D. Paralegal Lindsay Thane passed the Oregon State Bar, and will be licensed to practice law in Oregon upon her swearing in ceremony scheduled for May 18^th, moving into the position of Associate Attorney.

Lindsay joined Schroeder Law Offices in their Portland, Oregon office in 2016 after graduating from the University of Montana School of Law. Lindsay is an avid runner and enjoys competing in local road races. She loves being outdoors hiking with friends and family. Lindsay has also spent many summers water skiing on Flathead Lake near her home town in Montana.

After the 1969 oil spill in Santa Barbara, Senator Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin appealed to the student anti-war movement and worked with them to bring the ideas of air and water pollution to the public consciousness. In 1970, Senator Nelson  was inspired to create Earth Day as he was worried about the rate of the industrialization and the carelessness our society had towards the environment. Joining in the effort to create Earth Day, Congressman Pete McCloskey, a conservation-minded Republican, was the co-chair and Denis Hayes from Harvard was the national coordinator. Hayes was able to build a national staff of 85 to promote events across the country, choosing April 22^nd, 1970 as the date as it fell between Spring Break and Final Exams.

Earth Day 1970 achieved a rare political alignment, enlisting support from Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor, city slickers and farmers, tycoons and labor leaders. Earth Day is celebrated internationally on April 22^nd every year. A common practice is to plant trees as they help the environment, producing oxygen and removing carbon dioxide and other contaminants from the air. Trees also help clean our water by reducing stormwater runoff. It is created when rain falls on the roads, driveways, parking lots, rooftops and other paved surfaced that do not allow water to soak into the ground.  These large volumes of water are swiftly carried to our local streams, lakes, wetlands and rivers, and can cause flooding and erosion, impacting the habitat of critters that live near and in these areas.

Trees and forests improve stream quality and watershed health primarily by decreasing the amount of stormwater runoff and pollutants that reaches our local waters. Trees and forests reduce stormwater runoff by capturing and storing rainfall in the canopy and releasing water into the atmosphere through evapotranspiration (the process by which water is transferred from the land to the atmosphere by evaporation from the soil and other surfaces and by transpiration from plants). In addition, tree roots and leaf debris create soil conditions that promote the infiltration of rainwater into the soil. This helps to replenish our groundwater supply and maintain streamflow during dry periods.

So help our water and celebrate Earth Day by planting a tree!

World Water Day is an opportunity to learn more about water related issues and the importance of freshwater and the sustainable management of freshwater resources. Since March 22, 1993, the United Nations has declared this day as World Water Day. The goal of the United Nations is to ensure that the world’s population has access to clean, drinkable water. Recently, in the United States, nearly 2,000 water suppliers serving over 6+ million people in all 50 states found excessive and harmful amounts of lead.

2017’s World Water Day theme is “Why Wastewater?” which focuses on ways to reduce and reuse wastewater. Currently, over 80% of wastewater from our homes, cities, industry and agriculture flows back to nature. There are vast amounts of opportunities to use wastewater as a sustainable source of water, energy, nutrients and other recoverable materials. By improving the collection and treatment of wastewater the 1.8 billion people that only have access to drinking water contaminated with feces could prevent the 824,000 deaths each year from preventable diseases such as cholera, dysentery, typhoid and polio.

Other than the use of drinking water, freshwater also impacts our economy. Half of the world’s workers are in water related sectors and more than $450 billion spent on foods, fiber, manufactured good and tourism all depend on watersheds. Large cities can improve water quality through upstream forest protection, reforestation and improved agricultural practices.

Remember:  There is NO ALTERNATIVE to WATER!

To learn more about World Water Day and how you can help, please visit www.un.org.

Schroeder Law Offices understands it can be a bit intimidating to contact a law firm when you encounter a problem you cannot solve alone. You are not alone:  Schroeder Law receives multiple initial potential client calls every day, and our goal is to listen, understand, and meet your goal to solve a problem in a cost effective and professional manner.

Unfortunately due to liability, attorneys cannot give legal advice on your initial, first-time call.  While it can be frustrating not to receive an immediate answer to what you may presume is a “quick legal question,” attorneys can only provide answers after conflicts are checked by running them through a system check and the client as well as the general issue are approved to be addressed by the firm.  All information requested of potential clients on the initial call is necessary in order to provide the best and most ethical advice and counsel possible.

When you call Schroeder Law Offices, your call is directed to an experienced member of our staff who will collect basic information and listen to the reason for your call. Below is a short list of the kinds of questions our staff will ask in order to determine what kind of legal assistance you need and if there are any potential conflicts that our office may encounter:

1. What is your contact info (phone number, email, mailing address)?
2. Where is the property at issue located? (we prefer lot descriptions)
3. What is the reason you are seeking legal help? (legal issue or goal for the representation)
4. What are the names or the people or companies and their attorneys (if you know them) that are involved?
5. Who is or might be opposed to what you are trying to accomplish?
6. Are there any immediate deadlines that you are facing?

Once we obtain the relevant information, we will run a conflict of interest check through our digital file system to ensure that any opposing parties are not current or previous clients, confirm that current or previous clients do not own or lease property near the property of concern, there is not a present  deadline that our firm cannot meet, or involve an issue that requires expertise other than what the firm may collectively lend its experience in addressing.

After we confirm there is no conflict, we pass the information to an attorney to review and help with next steps. Based on the next steps that our attorney advises, we will call or email you.  The response may be to offer you an initial attorney call at a flat fee, hourly fee or refer you to another attorney or organization better suited for your needs.  If a flat or hourly fee is involved, and you are interested in proceeding, a proposed fee agreement will be emailed to you.

Upon receipt of the flat or hourly fee agreement, we schedule an initial client conference between you and an attorney to understand your issue more fully, provide preliminary recommendations for moving forward, and legal advice in summary.  Following the initial client conference, you will receive a summary letter of any recommendations or advice provided in the conference.  The summary letter may also include a further contract for legal services with the scope of work tailored to fit your preferred course of action given the recommendations provided.

This process can take anywhere from twenty four hours to one week after conflicts are cleared. However, we understand how important the issues you call our office about are to you and we strive to work as quickly as possible to better serve you, the client!

If you are seeking an experienced Water Law attorney, you can call our office at:

Portland: 503-281-4100

Reno: 775-786-8800