Jody Gross obtained her Juris Doctor from Seattle University in 1988 and became a member of the Washington State Bar Association in 1989. She holds memberships with the Washington State Trial Lawyers Association and Washington State Employment Lawyers Association. Prior to law school, Ms. Gross obtained her Bachelor of Arts from Seattle University where she graduated Cum Laude in 1985.

            After graduating from law school, Ms. Gross began her legal career as a deputy prosecutor for the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office where she was responsible for litigation and case resolution of criminal misdemeanor and gross misdemeanor offenses cited into Shoreline District Court. Ms. Gross next worked two years as an Assistant Attorney General for the Office of the Attorney General, where she was responsible for all phases of workers compensation litigation on behalf of the Department of Labor & Industries at the Board of Industrial Insurance Appeals and Superior Court. Ms. Gross was also lead advisory counsel to the Director of the Department of Labor & Industries, concerning agency review of prevailing wage decisions.

            Subsequently, Ms. Gross was invited to join the law firm of Reaugh, Fischnaller & Oettinger, and to establish and direct the law firm’s workers compensation practice on behalf of injured workers. With experience in personal injury, workers compensation and employment law, Ms. Gross opened her own firm in October, 1992. Since opening her practice, Ms. Gross focuses primarily on representing clients who sustain personal, physical, and/or psychiatric injury, in and out of the work place.

            Her scope of legal knowledge includes personal injury and workers compensation, disability, and employment law. Ms. Gross’s client base includes police officers and other workers in high risk professions and she is responsible for establishing rare equitable grounds to permit a waiver of her widowed client’s untimely filing for survivor benefits after the employment related death of her husband. Nancy Rabey v. Dep’t of Labor & Indus., 101 Wn. App. 390, 393, 3 P.3d 217, review granted, 142 Wn.2d 1007 (2000), review dismissed (Wash. May 8, 2001) (No. 70030-3) . Ms. Gross’s legal practice focuses on the rights of injured people and workers; however, periodically she works to defend and train clients with respect to employment related issues. Representative past defense clients include Sahalee Country Club, Northwest Hospital, Seattle Yacht Club, and National Securities.

             A native Alaskan, Ms. Gross was born in 1960 and graduated Juneau-Douglas High School in 1978.  Ms. Gross is a lover of the outdoors and a top level Northwest fisherwoman.  Following graduation from Juneau’s only high school, Ms. Gross lived and worked three years as part of a construction camp work maintenance crew on the oil pipeline in Prudhoe Bay, Dead Horse, Alaska. Her early experiences working in extreme and arduous conditions nurtured a unique perspective on hard work and the legal needs that arise within the work place, and set the stage for her subsequent law practice and area of specialty. In 2006, Ms. Gross took a sabbatical and, along with her husband and their young son, volunteered in third world countries, including Kenya, Malaysia, and Thailand. Ms. Gross also founded and provides ongoing support to a youth center in Umala Village, Nyanza district, Kenya.

           Janelle Chase, Legal Assistant to Ms. Gross, graduated Magna Cum Laude in 2009 from Mills College with a Bachelor’s in Spanish and Latin American Studies, and a minor in English. A recipient of the Gabriela Mistral Award, Ms. Chase went on to utilize her linguistic experience in the classrooms of high schools in California and Washington before entering the legal world. Ms. Chase is a Washington State certified interpreter of Spanish and English, and is excited to collaborate with Ms. Gross in offering bilingual services to meet the legal needs of our ever growing Spanish-speaking community in Seattle and the surrounding area.