Attorney Profiles

A colleague once described Kate Stricker as absolutely fearless. "I'm willing to do anything legally possible to get my clients what they need and deserve," she says.

An associate attorney in our Federal Way and Tacoma offices, Kate has known she wanted to be an attorney since she was six. Her family didn't have the money for college, so she earned it after high school by joining the Army and becoming a psychological operations specialist. Her duties included developing campaigns to reduce the production of cocaine in Bolivia and supervising eleven soldiers.

Kate received a full scholarship to Wake Forest University of School of Law in North Carolina and graduated in the top 25% of her class. In her second year of law school, she won the National Family Law competition, arguing in front of justices with the New York Court of Appeals. For the last several years she has worked as a corporate attorney, most recently for an Atlanta firm serving Fortune 100 companies. "In family law you come across the same financial issues as corporate law, just on a smaller scale," she says.

Kate has a keen understanding of human nature from her Army psychological training and her undergraduate degree in psychology from Meredith College, where she graduated with honors, says Lutz Law Founder David Lutz. "Kate is a proven leader with a tough-as-nails demeanor when she needs it. She is a fighter."

She has used that trait in her own life. Her husband filed for divorce during her first year of law school and she represented herself in the case. That difficult time made her "very compassionate towards clients. I'm not judgmental. I know they want someone who is aggressive on their behalf, and who will listen to them during an awful stage in their life. I tell them there's nothing we can't deal with."

Kate returned to the Pacific Northwest when her current husband, an Army officer, received an assignment here. Though absolutely fearless in court, for fun she enjoys slightly tamer pursuits, including hikes and ocean kayaking.