Respect Means Giving You the Straight Answer
Karen Schweigert believes clients deserve empathy. They also deserve candor.
“I have too much respect for my clients to waste their time or their money telling them only what they want to hear,” Karen says.
Her approach is to give clients an honest and realistic assessment of their situation, explain what she believes is possible, and help them make decisions with both their immediate problem and their long-term interests in mind.
“My goal is always to work as quickly and efficiently as possible to help my clients achieve their goals.”
Sometimes the most efficient path is an agreement. Sometimes it requires litigation. Karen considers aggressive litigation one tool in her toolbox, not the answer to every problem. She would rather minimize unnecessary conflict when that can protect the client’s interests and still accomplish the client’s goals.
But when a case needs to be fought, she is prepared to fight it.
Experience Has Taught Her Not to Judge Too Quickly
Karen once believed that no real parent would ever leave his or her child.
As a parent herself, she could not imagine circumstances in which she would leave her own children behind.
Then she represented a mother who had done exactly that.
The mother had suffered domestic abuse not only from her husband, but from members of his family. She eventually fled the state without her children because she believed trying to take them with her would put her in even greater danger.
More than two years later, she came back to Washington to fight for them.
Karen had the opportunity to see for herself the people and circumstances her client had been afraid of. The case changed the way she thought about parents, fear, and the conclusions that can seem obvious when you do not yet know the whole story.
Sometimes, Karen learned, a parent may have to make what she calls a “strategic retreat.”
That does not mean the parent does not love their children. Sometimes a person has to get to safety before she can put herself in a position to protect them.
Karen ultimately helped that mother obtain custody of her children, with professionally supervised visits for the father and protection orders against the father and his parents.
The lesson stayed with her: family cases are rarely improved by easy assumptions. You have to understand what happened, why it happened, and what the family actually needs now.
Children Should Be Protected From the Conflict
Karen believes children should not have to carry their parents’ disputes.
“Children need to be protected from conflict,” she says. “Children should not even be aware of the disputes between parents.”
Even in high-conflict cases, she believes parents need to remember that the person on the other side is not merely an ex. That person is also their child’s parent.
“Children need to be allowed to love both of their parents.”
There are cases where serious problems require firm boundaries, restrictions, protection orders, or aggressive litigation. Karen has handled family-law matters from the first consultation through temporary orders, discovery, mediation, trial, and appeal.
But litigation should serve a purpose. Karen does not believe lawyers improve a family by adding unnecessary conflict of their own.
What It Is Like to Work With Karen
Karen describes what clients need from a lawyer as “empathy, balanced with clear and candid communications, an honest and realistic assessment of the situation, and advice that is centered around the client’s best long- and short-term interests.”
That is also a good description of what it is like to work with her.
She will listen. She will work to understand what matters to the client. Then she will give the client her best assessment of the situation, including things the client may not particularly enjoy hearing.
Karen believes clients should have enough honest information to make their own litigation decisions. Her job is not to make those decisions for them, and it is not to nod along with every idea simply because the client suggested it.
That makes her a good fit for someone who wants clear advice, realistic expectations, and an attorney focused on getting somewhere rather than keeping a fight alive.
It also helps explain why Pacific Northwest Family Law appealed to her.
Karen values working at a firm where the entire legal team can work together for a client. She describes it as having “the back up of an army of family law practitioners working in unison.” Just as important, the firm’s philosophy matches her own belief that lawyers should minimize unnecessary conflict while remaining prepared to litigate aggressively when the circumstances require it.
After more than two decades practicing law, Karen still describes what makes the work meaningful in remarkably simple terms:
She loves helping her clients achieve their goals and find their “safe and happy endings.”
Family law cannot promise a perfect ending.
But it can help people make good decisions about what happens next.
Professional Background
Education
Gonzaga University School of Law
Juris Doctor
Gonzaga University
BA Criminal Justice
Licensed in Washington since 2004
Selected Appellate and Complex Family Law Matters
Karen’s experience includes family-law matters that have reached state appellate courts. The cases below illustrate different roles she has played: representing parents in contested appeals and serving as an independent custody investigator asked to make difficult recommendations concerning children.
Roman v. Karren, 461 P.3d 1252 (Alaska 2020)
Karen served as the court-appointed custody investigator in a difficult interstate parenting dispute. Her investigation originally supported leaving the child’s primary placement unchanged, while identifying serious concerns that the child’s relationship with her father was being damaged.
As the case developed, Karen concluded that those concerns had become serious enough that maintaining the existing arrangement was no longer likely to protect the parent-child relationship. She revised her recommendation and testified that primary custody should change.
The trial court relied substantially on Karen’s investigation and testimony in changing custody to the father. The Alaska Supreme Court later upheld that result, including the trial court’s reliance on Karen’s professional judgment as the custody investigator.
→ Read Roman v. Karren on Google Scholar
In re Marriage of Shepard, No. 37508-1-III (Wash. Ct. App. Apr. 5, 2022) (unpublished)
Karen represented the father in an appeal arising from a highly contested divorce and parenting case.
Before the parties separated, the mother had been the child’s primary caretaker. After trial, however, the court designated Karen’s client as the primary residential parent, awarded him sole decision-making authority, and imposed significant parenting restrictions on the mother based in part on findings that she had engaged in an abusive use of conflict. The record included false allegations of abuse, coaching of the child, and protracted and contentious discovery.
The mother appealed the parenting plan and other rulings, arguing in part that her history as the child’s primary parent supported a different result. The Washington Court of Appeals rejected those challenges and affirmed the father as the child’s primary residential parent, with sole decision-making authority and the parenting restrictions left in place.
→ Read In re Marriage of Shepard on Google Scholar
In re Marriage of Williams, No. 37724-5-III (Wash. Ct. App. May 3, 2022) (unpublished)
Karen represented the husband in a divorce involving an important property question: whether a home that had originally been inherited as separate property had later been intentionally converted into community property.
The evidence developed at trial supported the conclusion that the property had been transferred to the marital community. The trial court treated the home as community property and ordered an equalization payment to Karen’s client.
The Washington Court of Appeals upheld that result, leaving in place the characterization of the home as community property and the equalization payment awarded to Karen’s client.
→ Read In re Marriage of Williams on Google Scholar
Dennis v. Yates, No. 36722-3-III (Wash. Ct. App. Oct. 20, 2020) (unpublished)
Karen represented the mother in a parentage case in which the parents reached a mediated parenting agreement.
When the father later attempted to back away from the agreement, Karen successfully sought its enforcement. The trial court also awarded attorney fees based on the father’s intransigence.
On appeal, the father challenged both the mediation process and the attorney-fee award, contending that he had not understood the nature of the mediation or the binding effect of the agreement he signed.
The Washington Court of Appeals rejected those arguments, leaving the mediated parenting agreement in place and preserving the attorney-fee award for Karen’s client.
→ Read Dennis v. Yates on Google Scholar
Family Law Experience
Karen’s practice has included:
- Divorce and legal separation
- Parenting plans and parenting disputes
- Child support
- Domestic and family-law litigation
- Protection-order matters
- Dependency and CPS matters
- Guardian ad Litem work
- Discovery and depositions
- Mediation
- Trial
- Appeals
Professional and Public Service
Karen has served the profession and her community through:
- Washington State Bar Association, member since 2004
- Spokane County Bar Association, member since 2012
- Spokane County Title 26 Guardian ad Litem registry, since 2016
- WSBA Family Law Section Executive Committee, 2017–2019
- WSBA Pro Bono and Legal Aid Committee, 2012–2013
- Spokane County Bar Association Volunteer Lawyers Program, volunteer since 2010
- Snohomish County Legal Services Housing Justice Project, 2007–2010
- Spokane County Juvenile Court CASA/GAL Program, 1996–2000 and 2010–2012
Selected Continuing Legal Education Presentations
Karen has taught other lawyers on family-law subjects including:
- WSBA Family Law Section, Family Law Skills Training Institute, Tri-Cities (2019) — Obtaining Information and Documents
- WSBA Family Law Section / Domestic Relations Attorneys of Washington (DRAW), Family Law Skills Training Institute, Yakima (2018) — Obtaining Information and Documents
- WSBA Family Law Midyear Meeting & Conference (2018) — Discovery in High Conflict/Low Asset Cases
- Family Law: What To Do When . . . ? (2016) — Ethical Challenges; Problematic Litigants; Custody and Visitation Disputes; Parental and Third-Party Rights
- Spokane, Washington (2016) — Discovery and Evidence in Divorce