Congratulations to Shirley Battan for being selected as the 2023 Daniel Bigelow Award Recipient!
Shirley started her career working at the Supreme Court. She left that position and moved to the Attorney General’s Office where she had a long and distinguished career. She retired as a Deputy Attorney General responsible for seven legal divisions and was in charge of hiring and training. During her career, she won multiple awards for her work as an advocate for diversity, for attorney training, and for outstanding management. She was named Executive Manager of the Year by the National Association of Attorneys General in 2014, a national recognition of her groundbreaking work in training new lawyers. She also received the Kempsky Award for Outstanding Management from the Conference of Western Attorneys General.
After leaving the Attorney Generals office, she took her management skills into the community, serving on the Olympia Historical Society and Bigelow Museum Board from 2017 to date, including three years as President of the Board. She spent five years of her “retirement” as a management training volunteer for the Attorney General’s Office as as a consultant to the Public Disclosure Commission and the Pierce County Attorney’s Office. Today, she serves on the Washington State Executive Ethics Board, charged with the enforcement of the Ethics in Public Service Act, where she is the chair of the Board. Thank you, Shirley, for your commitment and countless hours volunteering in the local legal community.