Washington State Bar Association
American state bar association
The Washington State Bar Association (WSBA) is the state bar association of the U.S. state of Washington. It operates under the delegated authority of the Washington Supreme Court to license the state's nearly 41,000 active and inactive lawyers and other legal professionals. The WSBA's mission is to serve the public and the members of the Bar, to ensure the integrity of the legal profession, and to champion justice.
History
In the days of Washington Territory, lawyers who had cases set for argument before the State Supreme Court were required to be present at the beginning of the Court term in January. Sometimes they waited for weeks for their cases to be called.
On January 19, 1888, a group of these lawyers met in the Supreme Court chambers to form the Washington Bar Association. This was a voluntary organization and did not include all lawyers admitted to practice; originally it consisted of 35 lawyers, at a cost of $5 a year. In 1890, the name changed to Washington State Bar Association.
In 1930, as more lawyers were admitted to practice, it was proposed that the Bar Association have a paid executive secretary and a paid representative in Olympia when the Legislature was meeting, that it have an official publication, and that it be incorporated. George McCush of Bellingham headed an Incorporation Committee to draft a Bar Association Act proposal.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Washington State Bar Association” is american state bar association. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Washington, State and Association, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “american state bar association” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7972228. VIAF identifies the subject as 135961417. The Library of Congress control number is n80030745. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1888, 1890 and 1930.
Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Washington State Bar Association”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Washington State Bar Association primary sources, Washington State Bar Association archive and Washington research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Washington State Bar Association”?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
- Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Washington State Bar Association” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.