Skellenger Bender is proud to announce the Rita L. Bender Justice & Equity Summer Clerkship. This clerkship celebrates our retired law partner’s lifelong dedication to justice, equity, and the rule of law, which continues to inspire us.
Rita attended Queens College in New York City and worked as a teacher before traveling to Mississippi in 1964, at age 22, to participate in Freedom Summer, organized by the Congress for Racial Equality and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. That same year, Rita worked with the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in its historic efforts at the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City that led to passage of the Voting Rights Act.
Rita obtained her law degree from Rutgers University in 1968, one of only five women out of a class of 150. Rita worked with the ACLU of New Jersey and as a public defender in Newark and taught in the poverty law clinic at Rutgers.
In 1975, Rita and her husband, Bill Bender, moved to Seattle with their two children. Rita worked as a public defender in King County before being appointed by President Jimmy Carter as Regional Director of the Legal Services Corporation.
After joining Skellenger Bender in 1990, Rita served as a member of the Practice of Law Board and the Gender and Justice Commission, and as disciplinary counsel for the Commission on Judicial Conduct. She and Bill taught courses at the University of Mississippi and Seattle University School of Law on the deliberate denial of education to Black children, and went on to co-counsel the Southern Poverty Law Center’s lawsuit seeking redress for these harms. In 2015, the Legal Foundation of Washington presented Rita and Bill with the Charles A. Goldmark Distinguished Service Award.
Rita retired from law practice in 2024. We are honored to commemorate her remarkable legacy through this clerkship. The 2025 clerkship has been awarded to Maeve Axtell, a second-year student at Seattle University School of Law, for her demonstrated commitment to promoting diversity and social justice.