She also serves as the appellate advisor for the Social and Health Services Division in Olympia. After graduating from law school in 1977, she was in private practice in Spokane for 13 years, emphasizing adoption, family and juvenile law, as well as appellate practice. During that time she also taught legal research and writing at Gonzaga University School of Law. From 1991 to 1999, she worked as a law clerk for Chief Justice James Andersen and, later, for Chief Justice Richard Guy, of the Washington State Supreme Court. She joined the Attorney General's Office in 1999.