Karen Koehler
Senior Managing Partner, forty years at the bar. Hers is the only WSBA record on this site that shows any volunteer service history — four bar posts including Chair of the Litigation Section. The firm's rideshare page is the one that names the statutory numbers, including a 2022 cut to the required underinsured-motorist cover that the others do not mention.
The bar record
We read Karen Koehler in the Washington State Bar Association’s legal directory. Rows shaded below the line are the ones WSBA labels as coming from the lawyer, not from the Bar.
Washington never says “none”, so neither do we. The Disciplinary History section carries no entries and no statement — only a warning that in some cases discipline search results will not reveal all disciplinary action relating to a Washington licensed legal professional, and may not display links to the official decision documents. So what we can report is narrow: no disciplinary entries are displayed, and WSBA warns its search may not display everything. That is not the sentence “this lawyer has no discipline”, and we will not write the second when the register only supports the first. Every other state we use answers out loud; this one does not.
And the shaded rows might be wrong. Above that block WSBA states that the information is provided voluntarily by the licensed legal professional and might be incomplete, inaccurate, and/or out of date. Texas calls its equivalent “self-reported”. Washington says it might be wrong. Note also the Judicial Service line: asked whether this lawyer has ever served as a judge, the register answers Unknown. A register that will print its own ignorance is rarer than it should be.
What the record shows
Her WSBA entry is the only one on this site with a Volunteer Service History: Chair of the Litigation Section 2008–09, Chair-elect 2007–08, Treasurer 2005–07, and Consumer Protection Committee member 2001–03. Every other Washington record we have read, Gustad’s included, shows None.Verified
The firm’s rideshare page states that the legislature amended the law effective 9 June 2022, dropping the underinsured-motorist cover required on a prearranged ride from $1 million to $100,000 per person and $300,000 per accident. No other firm page in this batch mentions that a required protection was reduced.Verified
Her register practice areas are Civil Rights and Torts. That is a self-reported field, and it does not list rideshare or motor vehicle work; the rideshare page is the firm’s.Verified
What the firm says
She writes that an opposing lawyer told her defence attorneys called her “The Velvet Hammer”, and that she adopted the name; her firm page carries it as a trademark.Reported
She says she received the Washington State Trial Lawyers Association President’s Award in 2004, its Trial Lawyer of the Year Award in 2005, and served as President of the association from 2007 to 2008.Reported
She says she began practising with Pat LePley in Bellevue in 1996 and moved to Stritmatter in 2004, having previously worked for an insurance defence firm and then for Tom Chambers, who later joined the State Supreme Court.Reported
Rideshare
What we haven’t checked
No attorney pays to be listed here, and this profile is not an endorsement or a recommendation. We report the public record so you can weigh it yourself. If anything here is inaccurate or out of date, tell us and we’ll correct it. How we work