August 25, 2022
August 2022: Patrick Stickney
Patrick Stickney (he/him)
Chair, Washington State Lawyer Chapter; Former Chair, Penn State Law Student Chapter; Next Generation Leader; Financial Legal Examiner, Washington State Department of Financial Institutions
My story, like many others, has been shaped by precarity, the arbitrary provision of circumstance one of its throughlines. Because of how this had shaped my life, I almost missed out on college altogether, much less being an attorney. And, I would have done so but for a chance, and otherwise mundane, trip to the library during high school that fundamentally reshaped my understanding of what I could do with my life (one of the many examples that underscore the importance of robust public institutions). Out of necessity, I became engaged in political organizing soon after I started college, due to the threat that tuition hikes in the years following the Great Recession posed to my ability to attain a degree. I continued to organize and manage campaigns after graduating, before finally taking the unknown step of attending law school.
Through my organizing experience, it was evident that progressives could only win if people worked together. Which is why, when I learned about ACS in the months before law school, I knew that it was an organization with which I had to be involved. The importance of an organization that worked to bring together and foster collaboration between disparate threads of the progressive milieu was immediately apparent, and so too was the knowledge that its success would only come from the involvement of as many attorneys and would-be attorneys as possible. The crucial role that ACS plays in connecting distinct legal movements to advance an inclusive, public interest-oriented understanding of the Constitution is an important reason why I continue my involvement, now as the chair of the Washington State Lawyer Chapter.
I am currently a civil servant in my day job, working for my state’s securities regulator to help protect investors and franchisees from financial fraud (to make the standard disclosure: my views shouldn’t be imputed onto my employer). Although states are on the front lines of protecting the public from fraudulent, misleading, and exploitative practices, the federal government has preempted them to successively greater degrees over the last few decades. This has prevented state regulators from protecting their residents—and many actors are trying to disempower them even further. As we see a new wave of old frauds dressed up as innovation, the last thing that everyday investors need is less engagement from the regulators closest to the ground.
My previous precarity has taught me that most nothing gets better by itself. It takes people, those who do as much as they can, to make it better. This is particularly true in government, which also requires policymakers willing to translate that effort into impactful legislative or regulatory change. ACS is at the forefront of developing a legal community that will do just this, full of people who will do as much as they can to make our country a better place. I am proud to count myself a part of it.