Joseph Shaub, JD, MA

In 1971, I received my B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley and in 1974, my law degree from the University of Southern California.  I was admitted to the California Bar that year.  After a time working as a legal aid foundation attorney, I focused my practice on personal injury litigation, primarily representing individuals who had been harmed by exposure to drugs and other products, such as asbestos, DES and sulfites. 

 By 1988, I was coming to the strong conclusion that  litigation exacted far too great a personal and economic toll on all participants, other than the lawyers, and because I had enjoyed a very positive counseling relationship, I left my practice and entered the Master’s Degree program in Marriage and Family Therapy at the California Family Study Center (now The Phillips Institute) and received my M.A. in Marriage and Family Therapy in 1989.  I was licensed as a marriage and family therapist in California in 1991.   

That year also found me focusing my law practice entirely on the field of family law, estate planning and mediation.  In 1995, I participated in the 40-hour mediation training conducted by John Allen Lemmon, Professor at San Francisco State and Past Editor of the Mediation Quarterly, the profession’s principle journal. 

One of my strongest memories after passing the California Bar was visiting a law school buddy and his wife in Seattle.   Their home was in the Leschi neighborhood and to this day I remember waking up in their guest bedroom and gazing at Mt. Rainier out of one window and Lake Washington, below us, out the other.  Seattle was the most beautiful city I had ever visited, in this country, and I resolved one day to make it my home. 

In 1995 following through on this dream, I relocated to the Puget Sound, passing the Washington State Bar Exam that year and becoming a  Washington Marriage and Family Therapist immediately afterward. 

I began my own practice the year after I arrived, practicing initially out of my home.  I was also an adjunct instructor at Antioch University, Seattle, teaching Family Systems; Divorce Counseling and Mediation and Law and Ethics. 

In the ensuing years, I moved into my present office in a suite which I share with a stellar group of legal colleagues with diverse specialties (Personal Injury; Criminal Defense; Real Estate, Elder, Business and Employment Law).

Presently, in addition to maintaining my law practice, I teach Interviewing and Counseling and Practical and Ethical Issues in Solo and Small Firm Practice at the University of Washington Law School.  I also conduct continuing legal education seminars and retreats for law firms on issues of communication, transitions, client relations and conflict resolution.  I am also an approved provider of continuing education for therapists through the National Board of Certified Counselors and I conduct periodic seminars with titles such as Family Law for the Mental Health Professional, Minors and the Law and Law and Ethics for Therapists.

For the past two years, I have been actively involved in the Collaborative Law movement in Washington State, serving on the Board of Washington Collaborative Law, as well as the Training and Marketing and Outreach Committees. I have trained attorneys in Collaborative Law and Communication Skills in Seattle and Olympia.

My sweet, small family consisting of me, my wife Bev, 13 year old daughter, Dani and 5 year old golden retriever, Buddy, live on the Eastside. Bev is a therapist in Bellevue; Dani is a middle-schooler who still lives for horses and Buddy lives for his walks - which we enjoy up the I-90 corridor from Tiger Mountain to Denny Creek.