Alumna J. Ashlee Albies JD ’05 and her firm was recently received the 2025 Pro Bono Challenge Award in the small firm category. Albies co-founded her firm, Albies & Stark, with her law partner, Whitney Stark in 2017. The firm joined forces with Legal Aid Services of Oregon (LASO) and the Oregon Law Center to represent Emanuel Displaced Persons Association 2 (EDPA2) and 27 Black survivors and descendants of families who lived, worked and thrived in the Central Albina neighborhood.
“Between 1971 and 1973, [Portland Development Commission (PDC)] demolished an estimated 188 properties, 158 of which were residential and 30 of which were commercial. Those properties were inhabited by approximately 88 families, 83 individuals, 23 businesses, nine rental businesses, and four church or community organizations. Of the 171 reported forcibly displaced households, 74% were Black and many owned their homes free and clear,” wrote Melody Finnemore for the October issue of the Oregon State Bar Bulletin.
Working on EDPA 2 made up the bulk of Albies pro bono work of late, but civil rights work is nothing new to Albies. Albies has been practicing civil rights and employee-side employment law for two decades. She has devoted her legal career to advocating for clients who have been harmed by discrimination, retaliation, or unfair treatment by an employer or by the government. She believes in client-centered practice: ensuring that her clients have the information they need to make informed decisions about major life choices.
Albies earned her undergraduate degree from Cook College at Rutgers University before moving to Oregon to study law. Like many people, Albies initially pursued environmental law but it was a fateful externship with the Center of Constitutional Rights in New York that changed the trajectory of her law career. She realized she could use the law to further human rights in other contexts too.
After law school, Albies clerked for several months and did a short stint in solo practice before working for a local civil rights law firm. Then she met her current law partner Whitney and the rest is history!
When asked what advice she’d give her younger self or to a current law student, she said she wouldn’t change anything, but she did have the following three pieces of advice:
- Take evidence!
- Trust your gut and follow your heart.
- Find your community - law school can be such an isolating experience where you feel like you’re swimming upstream. Find the people whose beliefs and values resonate with yours and they will become your support system and inspiration.
It is those relationships that have sustained Albies in time of need and continues even today. Outside of practicing law, Ashlee enjoys reading, crossword puzzles, and spending time with her family and friends.