The Alaska Bar Association has finally announced the results of its February 2017 examination and BHBC is proud to announce that two of its Alaska-born lawyers are among the 22 newly admitted to practice in the 49th State.
Shane Coffey is a graduate of West Anchorage High School, where he was a part of three 4A State basketball championships (which required multiple wins over a Bartlett High squad led by future NBA champion Mario Chalmers). Shane earned his undergraduate degree in finance from the University of Alaska in Anchorage before attending law school at the University of Oregon. In law school, he was a member of the Law Review and the Moot Court Board, and he worked as a judicial extern at the local state trial court in Eugene, Oregon. He helped the court with a bustling docket of cases covering divorces, domestic violence, medical malpractice, murder, and more. Shane joined BHBC’s Anchorage office not long after taking the bar exam. His practice will likely draw on his background in finance to focus on business transactions and corporate law, and he hopes to also draw on his love for the outdoors to practice natural resource law.
Zach Olson has practiced in our Washington, D.C. office for nearly three years. He is from Nome, where he also played basketball (though his team washed out in the first round of the 3A State championship). He attended college at the University of Idaho and then worked for several years with U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), before attending law school at George Mason University. He worked on transportation, wildlife, environmental, and land use policy on Capitol Hill, at the U.S. Department of Interior, and then at the U.S. Court of Federal Claims before joining a large lobbying firm. His practice for BHBC has focused on wildlife law, including using regulatory and litigation tactics to protect hunting and trapping rights. He has also done a lot of work for energy and utility companies before the Regulatory Commission of Alaska. He is hoping that being licensed in Alaska will give him greater flexibility when representing his many Alaska-based clients and is looking forward to spending some time in BHBC’s Anchorage office this summer.