Successes

Mark O’Donnell

Upon the passage of 2004 Ballot Measure 37, partial takings, Mark O’Donnell and Kelly Clark handled approximately two dozen of the first Measure 37 cases to be filed in early 2005. Amidst the legal and political controversy and chaos, their experience and tenacity has been recognized repeatedly, as landowner after landowner seeks their assistance in obtaining a just result.

Kelly Clark

Kelly Clark has had the honor of representing over 150 courageous men and women who were sexually abused as children by trusted adults. Often these stories of betrayal have arisen out of institutions of trust. In this work, Kelly has brought dozens of sexual abuse claims against various dioceses and order of the Roman Catholic Church in over half a dozen states around the country, as well as the Mormon Church, other Protestant and Evangelical churches, the Boy Scouts, public and private schools, gymnastic leagues, ballet school—in short, any place where children trust adults, and where too often, adults abuse that trust.

Kelly has also won victories against the LDS Mormon Church, including numerous trial court wins on questions of statutes of limitations, agency and punitive damages–and in the summer of 2007, won an important victory when the Oregon Supreme Court refused to overturn a trial court order requiring the Mormon Church to disclose its financial strength and records as part of a punitive damages case against the Church in DI v Johnson and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, (Oregon Supreme Court, mandamus proceeding, July, 2007).

Kristian Roggendorf

This year, Kristian made Partner with O&C after five and a half years as an Associate Attorney.  In the courtroom, Kristian has managed to achieve victories for our clients in many forums and many areas of law.   The Oregon Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal from our child abuse case against the City of the Dalles—a significant feat in a court that gets to choose what cases it wants to hear, and where we had lost a hard fought battle in the Court of Appeals.  Also in the Oregon Supreme Court, Kristian succeeded in protecting the medical and school records of developmentally disabled students from being used to try to clear the criminal record of their convicted rapist—the predator’s conviction was not set aside. 

Kristian’s work in the Archdiocese Bankruptcy helped to secure fair and just settlements for our clients who were abused by priests.  He has also taken the lead in the firm’s Measure 37 caseload, chalking up wins against the State and counties on several attempts to get our clients’ Measure 37 claims thrown out before a jury could hear them.  While the Measure 37 fight is still ongoing for our clients across the State, Kristian has helped hold the line against bad court decisions so far in Multnomah and Clackamas Counties.  And during this last year, Kristian helped the litigation team achieve great success against the LDS church—including success on a punitive damages claim that would force the Church to end its secretiveness—on behalf of several survivors of the Church’s child abuse.   Kristian continues to fight for our clients against governments, large institutions, and corporate behemoths like AT&T.

Matt Lowe

Over the past few years, Matt has seen phenomenal growth in his practice, particularly in the representation of charter schools, private alternative education programs, trade associations and other nonprofit entities.  Matt regularly attends national conferences on the representation of tax-exempt organizations and trade associations to assure that he is on the cutting edge of the law for these complex organizations.  Matt has also spent a great deal of time successfully litigating complex commercial and real property issues on behalf of the firm’s business clients over the past year while maintaining his growing business and hospitality law practice. 

Matt now represents nearly a dozen different charter schools and private alternative education programs around the state, including Oregon’s largest charter school with nearly 2000 students, as well as several other charitable and non-charitable organizations.  Defending the rights of charter schools in Oregon can be a daunting task as many groups are actively seeking to limit school choice and opportunities for Oregon’s school children and their families.  To counter these efforts, Matt and the team at O’Donnell Clark & Crew LLP work closely with legislative leaders, school activists, officials at the Oregon Department of Education and others and have successfully fended off attempts to close our clients’ schools and to otherwise derail the charter school movement in Oregon.

Matt currently serves as the Treasurer for the Dorchester Conference, a political gathering held each year at the Oregon coast which is the only one of its kind in the nation.  Matt’s personal passion for politics also manifests itself in his law practice where he has advised numerous political candidates, political organizations, and other entities on election and public policy issues.

Property Rights. Eminent Domain.

Kelly Clark, along with the entire O C & C litigation team, beat the City of Portland in eminent domain ("takings") in 2003. Richard and Gayanne Courter — and Gayanne’s 93 year-old mother — had fought the City for 10 years to get a fair deal on the City’s forced taking of 1.6 acres of the Courters’ property in the West Hills of Portland. The City claimed that it needed this prime piece of development property for its water storage facilities, a claim hotly disputed by the Courters and neighbors. Taking the case over just weeks before the trial, we obtained a verdict after a two-week jury trial, of over five times the City’s last offer. The City was also forced to pay the Courter’s legal fees and court costs; with interest, the final payment by the City would eventually approach nearly one million dollars.

Kelly Clark and Kristian Roggendorf of O’Donnell Clark & Crew successfully battled the City of Portland’s attempts to expand light rail at the expense of a family owned industrial business. Legal strategy included attacking the entire Interstate Avenue North-South light rail project in federal court. City of Portland v. Van Raden Industries, Multnomah County case number 0101-00985 and Van Raden Industries v. City of Portland, Secretary of Transportation, et. al., CV 01-233-BR 2001 U.S. District LEXIS NYS (Or. D. 2001).

Mr. Clark and O’Donnell Clark & Crew LLP associate, Ross Day, successfully stopped local land use planners and government officials from arbitrarily using stop work orders, refusing building permits, and otherwise retaliating against a family-owned marina. The US District Court ruled that the County violated the constitutional property rights of the marina by a "temporary taking," without due process of law. The case settled immediately afterwards; the settlement required the government to process the marina’s expansion and building permits, reverse long standing restrictions on the marina’s property land use, and pay the marina’s legal fees and court costs. Frevach Land Company v. Multnomah County, et. al, 2001 U.S. District LEXIS 22255.

Other Property Rights Cases

Upon the passage of 2004 Ballot Measure 37 ("partial takings" law) Mark O’Donnell and Kelly Clark handled approximately two dozen of the first Measure 37 cases to be filed in early 2005. Amidst the legal and political controversy and chaos, their experience and tenacity has been recognized repeatedly, as landowner after landowner seeks their assistance in obtaining a just result. Watch this space for further developments.

Kelly Clark successfully sued the Oregon Division of State Lands on behalf of a family-owned marina for civil and constitutional rights violations, when DSL terminated the marina’s long term lease after the agency discovered the marina was six feet outside the lease lines. This, despite that the marina had existed at that exact location for 20 years, that the DSL itself had prepared the original lease, and that the marina had requested a hearing (unsuccessfully) to contest the matter. Case resulted in a settlement whereby the State agreed to reimburse the marina’s legal fees, yield its position, and grant the marina a new 20 year lease on favorable terms. Brown’s Landing Marina v. Division of State Lands, Columbia County Circuit Court case number 94-2086.

Mr. Clark and O’Donnell Clark & Crew LLP in 2000 filed an amicus brief before the Oregon Supreme Court in the "Measure 7 Case" a property rights measure, in an attempt to persuade the Court to modify or reverse its trend toward usurping citizen authority over constitutional questions through such mechanisms as "single subject" or "multiple amendment" rulings. League of Oregon Cities v. State, 336 Or 593, 87 P3d 672 (2004).

Kelly Clark and Kristian Roggendorf represented United We Stand Oregon, a group of property owners who were concerned about Portland’s proposal to protect urban waterways with the so-called "Healthy Streams Initiative." This initiative would have restricted virtually all development in the West Hills, Fanno and Johnson Creek areas. In all 14,000 property owners would have been affected. In fighting the City’s drastic scheme, O’Donnell Clark & Crew LLP were instrumental in forcing the City to shelve the entire plan.

Mental Health System

Mr. Clark successfully advocated for the family of a young caseworker in a mental health facility who was murdered by one of her former patients, a man repeatedly adjudicated as seriously mentally ill and dangerous. Kelly successfully sued the State Mental Health Division, Washington County, Portland Adventist Medical Center, and a private physician for the premature release of the mental patient from civil commitment despite clear warnings of his dangerousness. The case was settled just after jury selection, a settlement (amount confidential) which included significant change in the policies in the defendant institutions and in legislative review of state mental health statutes. Cuenca v. State of Oregon Mental Health Division et al., Multnomah County Circuit Court case number 9509-06470.

Elections Officials

Along with O’Donnell Clark & Crew LLP associates, Ross Day, Eric Winters and OC&C attorney Matt Lowe, Mr. Clark represented initiative advocates Don McIntire, Lloyd Marbet and others in a challenge to the Secretary of State’s practice of disenfranchising certain voters. On behalf of so-called inactive voters, O’Donnell Clark & Crew LLP defeated, as unconstitutional, attempts by Secretary of State Bill Bradbury to prevent certain citizens from signing initiative petitions, on a constitutional theory of due process of law. The victory resulted in an agreement by the government to change its practices and court-ordered attorney fees against the government. McIntire, et. al v. Bradbury, et. al., Multnomah County Circuit Court case number 0006-06252.

Taxing Agencies

Earlier in his career, Mr. Clark challenged and defeated, on constitutional grounds, Oregon’s system of tax foreclosures for its failure to provide due process protections to lien holders before foreclosure. The case included successful argument before the Oregon Court of Appeals. Seattle-First Nat. Bank v. Umatilla County, 77 Or App 283, 713 P2d 33 (1986).

Charter Schools

Long an advocate for choice within public schools, since 1999 Kelly Clark successfully represented almost all of the first charter schools in their battles to obtain charters, including: The Village School (Eugene), McCoy Academy (Portland), Portland Arts and Science Academy (Portland), Willamette Valley School (Corvallis), Three Rivers Charter School (West Linn), and Trillium Charter School (Portland). These cases often required a mixture of legal strategy and public relations, administrative appeals, marshaling of community and newspaper support, negotiations, and litigation or threatened litigation-to force reluctant or hostile school districts and teachers unions to follow the law.

Voting and Initiative Rights

Kelly Clark, Ross Day and Eric Winters represented US Term Limits in fighting the growing practice of Oregon’s courts to invalidate on hyper-technical grounds (e.g., single subject challenges), citizen-sponsored constitutional amendments, fighting for the right of citizens to exercise their initiative power to amend their constitution without undue interference by the courts. Kelly argued the case before the Supreme Court. Lehman v. Bradbury, 333 Or. 231, 37 P. 3d 989 (2002).

The Dignity of Life

On behalf of poor and disenfranchised terminally ill patients, Mr. Clark has fought against Oregon’s euthanasia law by co-authoring an amicus brief in support of the U.S. Department of Justice’s attempt to outlaw assisted suicide. Oregon v. Ashcroft, 192 F Supp2d 1077 (D.Or. 2002) rev granted, 368 F3d 1118 (9th Cir 2004), cert. granted sub nom, Gonzales v. Oregon, U.S. 125 SCt. 1299, 161 LEd.2d 104 (2005).

Religious Liberty

Earlier in his career, Kelly Clark fought for the constitutional rights of high school students to compose and offer a nonsectarian at prayer at graduation ceremonies. Mr. Clark argued the case before the Oregon Supreme Court. Kay v. David Douglas School Dist. No. 40, 303 Or 574, 738 P2d 1389 (1987).

Mr. Clark represented a religious organization in a First Amendment fight against the State Employment Department’s attempt to tax religious organizations on employment decisions. Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources v. Rogue Valley Youth for Christ, 307 Or 490, 770 P2d 588 (1989). And on the same issue, Kelly represented 23 religious schools around the state in a longstanding dispute with the State Employment Department for the school’s constitutional right to be free from arbitrary taxation.

Mark O’Donnell

Upon the passage of 2004 Ballot Measure 37, partial takings, Mark O’Donnell and Kelly Clark handled approximately two dozen of the first Measure 37 cases to be filed in early 2005. Amidst the legal and political controversy and chaos, their experience and tenacity has been recognized repeatedly, as landowner after landowner seeks their assistance in obtaining a just result.

Kelly Clark

Kelly Clark has had the honor of representing over 150 courageous men and women who were sexually abused as children by trusted adults. Often these stories of betrayal have arisen out of institutions of trust. In this work, Kelly has brought dozens of sexual abuse claims against various dioceses and order of the Roman Catholic Church in over half a dozen states around the country, as well as the Mormon Church, other Protestant and Evangelical churches, the Boy Scouts, public and private schools, gymnastic leagues, ballet school—in short, any place where children trust adults, and where too often, adults abuse that trust.

Kelly has also won victories against the LDS Mormon Church, including numerous trial court wins on questions of statutes of limitations, agency and punitive damages–and in the summer of 2007, won an important victory when the Oregon Supreme Court refused to overturn a trial court order requiring the Mormon Church to disclose its financial strength and records as part of a punitive damages case against the Church in DI v Johnson and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, (Oregon Supreme Court, mandamus proceeding, July, 2007).

Kristian Roggendorf

This year, Kristian made Partner with O&C after five and a half years as an Associate Attorney.  In the courtroom, Kristian has managed to achieve victories for our clients in many forums and many areas of law.   The Oregon Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal from our child abuse case against the City of the Dalles—a significant feat in a court that gets to choose what cases it wants to hear, and where we had lost a hard fought battle in the Court of Appeals.  Also in the Oregon Supreme Court, Kristian succeeded in protecting the medical and school records of developmentally disabled students from being used to try to clear the criminal record of their convicted rapist—the predator’s conviction was not set aside. 

Kristian’s work in the Archdiocese Bankruptcy helped to secure fair and just settlements for our clients who were abused by priests.  He has also taken the lead in the firm’s Measure 37 caseload, chalking up wins against the State and counties on several attempts to get our clients’ Measure 37 claims thrown out before a jury could hear them.  While the Measure 37 fight is still ongoing for our clients across the State, Kristian has helped hold the line against bad court decisions so far in Multnomah and Clackamas Counties.  And during this last year, Kristian helped the litigation team achieve great success against the LDS church—including success on a punitive damages claim that would force the Church to end its secretiveness—on behalf of several survivors of the Church’s child abuse.   Kristian continues to fight for our clients against governments, large institutions, and corporate behemoths like AT&T.

Matt Lowe

Over the past few years, Matt has seen phenomenal growth in his practice, particularly in the representation of charter schools, private alternative education programs, trade associations and other nonprofit entities.  Matt regularly attends national conferences on the representation of tax-exempt organizations and trade associations to assure that he is on the cutting edge of the law for these complex organizations.  Matt has also spent a great deal of time successfully litigating complex commercial and real property issues on behalf of the firm’s business clients over the past year while maintaining his growing business and hospitality law practice. 

Matt now represents nearly a dozen different charter schools and private alternative education programs around the state, including Oregon’s largest charter school with nearly 2000 students, as well as several other charitable and non-charitable organizations.  Defending the rights of charter schools in Oregon can be a daunting task as many groups are actively seeking to limit school choice and opportunities for Oregon’s school children and their families.  To counter these efforts, Matt and the team at O’Donnell Clark & Crew LLP work closely with legislative leaders, school activists, officials at the Oregon Department of Education and others and have successfully fended off attempts to close our clients’ schools and to otherwise derail the charter school movement in Oregon.

Matt currently serves as the Treasurer for the Dorchester Conference, a political gathering held each year at the Oregon coast which is the only one of its kind in the nation.  Matt’s personal passion for politics also manifests itself in his law practice where he has advised numerous political candidates, political organizations, and other entities on election and public policy issues.

Property Rights. Eminent Domain.

Kelly Clark, along with the entire O C & C litigation team, beat the City of Portland in eminent domain ("takings") in 2003. Richard and Gayanne Courter — and Gayanne’s 93 year-old mother — had fought the City for 10 years to get a fair deal on the City’s forced taking of 1.6 acres of the Courters’ property in the West Hills of Portland. The City claimed that it needed this prime piece of development property for its water storage facilities, a claim hotly disputed by the Courters and neighbors. Taking the case over just weeks before the trial, we obtained a verdict after a two-week jury trial, of over five times the City’s last offer. The City was also forced to pay the Courter’s legal fees and court costs; with interest, the final payment by the City would eventually approach nearly one million dollars.

Kelly Clark and Kristian Roggendorf of O’Donnell Clark & Crew LLP successfully battled the City of Portland’s attempts to expand light rail at the expense of a family owned industrial business. Legal strategy included attacking the entire Interstate Avenue North-South light rail project in federal court. City of Portland v. Van Raden Industries, Multnomah County case number 0101-00985 and Van Raden Industries v. City of Portland, Secretary of Transportation, et. al., CV 01-233-BR 2001 U.S. District LEXIS NYS (Or. D. 2001).

Mr. Clark and O’Donnell Clark & Crew LLP associate, Ross Day, successfully stopped local land use planners and government officials from arbitrarily using stop work orders, refusing building permits, and otherwise retaliating against a family-owned marina. The US District Court ruled that the County violated the constitutional property rights of the marina by a "temporary taking," without due process of law. The case settled immediately afterwards; the settlement required the government to process the marina’s expansion and building permits, reverse long standing restrictions on the marina’s property land use, and pay the marina’s legal fees and court costs. Frevach Land Company v. Multnomah County, et. al, 2001 U.S. District LEXIS 22255.

Other Property Rights Cases

Upon the passage of 2004 Ballot Measure 37 ("partial takings" law) Mark O’Donnell and Kelly Clark handled approximately two dozen of the first Measure 37 cases to be filed in early 2005. Amidst the legal and political controversy and chaos, their experience and tenacity has been recognized repeatedly, as landowner after landowner seeks their assistance in obtaining a just result. Watch this space for further developments.

Kelly Clark successfully sued the Oregon Division of State Lands on behalf of a family-owned marina for civil and constitutional rights violations, when DSL terminated the marina’s long term lease after the agency discovered the marina was six feet outside the lease lines. This, despite that the marina had existed at that exact location for 20 years, that the DSL itself had prepared the original lease, and that the marina had requested a hearing (unsuccessfully) to contest the matter. Case resulted in a settlement whereby the State agreed to reimburse the marina’s legal fees, yield its position, and grant the marina a new 20 year lease on favorable terms. Brown’s Landing Marina v. Division of State Lands, Columbia County Circuit Court case number 94-2086.

Mr. Clark and O’Donnell Clark & Crew LLP in 2000 filed an amicus brief before the Oregon Supreme Court in the "Measure 7 Case" a property rights measure, in an attempt to persuade the Court to modify or reverse its trend toward usurping citizen authority over constitutional questions through such mechanisms as "single subject" or "multiple amendment" rulings. League of Oregon Cities v. State, 336 Or 593, 87 P3d 672 (2004).

Kelly Clark and Kristian Roggendorf represented United We Stand Oregon, a group of property owners who were concerned about Portland’s proposal to protect urban waterways with the so-called "Healthy Streams Initiative." This initiative would have restricted virtually all development in the West Hills, Fanno and Johnson Creek areas. In all 14,000 property owners would have been affected. In fighting the City’s drastic scheme, O’Donnell Clark & Crew LLP were instrumental in forcing the City to shelve the entire plan.

Mental Health System

Mr. Clark successfully advocated for the family of a young caseworker in a mental health facility who was murdered by one of her former patients, a man repeatedly adjudicated as seriously mentally ill and dangerous. Kelly successfully sued the State Mental Health Division, Washington County, Portland Adventist Medical Center, and a private physician for the premature release of the mental patient from civil commitment despite clear warnings of his dangerousness. The case was settled just after jury selection, a settlement (amount confidential) which included significant change in the policies in the defendant institutions and in legislative review of state mental health statutes. Cuenca v. State of Oregon Mental Health Division et al., Multnomah County Circuit Court case number 9509-06470.

Elections Officials

Along with O’Donnell Clark & Crew LLP associates, Ross Day, Eric Winters and Matt Lowe, Mr. Clark represented initiative advocates Don McIntire, Lloyd Marbet and others in a challenge to the Secretary of State’s practice of disenfranchising certain voters. On behalf of so-called inactive voters, O’Donnell Clark & Crew LLP defeated, as unconstitutional, attempts by Secretary of State Bill Bradbury to prevent certain citizens from signing initiative petitions, on a constitutional theory of due process of law. The victory resulted in an agreement by the government to change its practices and court-ordered attorney fees against the government. McIntire, et. al v. Bradbury, et. al., Multnomah County Circuit Court case number 0006-06252.

Taxing Agencies

Earlier in his career, Mr. Clark challenged and defeated, on constitutional grounds, Oregon’s system of tax foreclosures for its failure to provide due process protections to lien holders before foreclosure. The case included successful argument before the Oregon Court of Appeals. Seattle-First Nat. Bank v. Umatilla County, 77 Or App 283, 713 P2d 33 (1986).

Charter Schools

Long an advocate for choice within public schools, since 1999 Kelly Clark successfully represented almost all of the first charter schools in their battles to obtain charters, including: The Village School (Eugene), McCoy Academy (Portland), Portland Arts and Science Academy (Portland), Willamette Valley School (Corvallis), Three Rivers Charter School (West Linn), and Trillium Charter School (Portland). These cases often required a mixture of legal strategy and public relations, administrative appeals, marshaling of community and newspaper support, negotiations, and litigation or threatened litigation-to force reluctant or hostile school districts and teachers unions to follow the law.

Voting and Initiative Rights

Kelly Clark, Ross Day and Eric Winters represented US Term Limits in fighting the growing practice of Oregon’s courts to invalidate on hyper-technical grounds (e.g., single subject challenges), citizen-sponsored constitutional amendments, fighting for the right of citizens to exercise their initiative power to amend their constitution without undue interference by the courts. Kelly argued the case before the Supreme Court. Lehman v. Bradbury, 333 Or. 231, 37 P. 3d 989 (2002).

The Dignity of Life

On behalf of poor and disenfranchised terminally ill patients, Mr. Clark has fought against Oregon’s euthanasia law by co-authoring an amicus brief in support of the U.S. Department of Justice’s attempt to outlaw assisted suicide. Oregon v. Ashcroft, 192 F Supp2d 1077 (D.Or. 2002) rev granted, 368 F3d 1118 (9th Cir 2004), cert. granted sub nom, Gonzales v. Oregon, U.S. 125 SCt. 1299, 161 LEd.2d 104 (2005).

Religious Liberty

Earlier in his career, Kelly Clark fought for the constitutional rights of high school students to compose and offer a nonsectarian at prayer at graduation ceremonies. Mr. Clark argued the case before the Oregon Supreme Court. Kay v. David Douglas School Dist. No. 40, 303 Or 574, 738 P2d 1389 (1987).

Mr. Clark represented a religious organization in a First Amendment fight against the State Employment Department’s attempt to tax religious organizations on employment decisions. Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources v. Rogue Valley Youth for Christ, 307 Or 490, 770 P2d 588 (1989). And on the same issue, Kelly represented 23 religious schools around the state in a longstanding dispute with the State Employment Department for the school’s constitutional right to be free from arbitrary taxation.