Kim Maree Johannessen

We had an absolutely awful oil problem with our personal residence. After going down several wrong paths we were able to find Johannessen & Associates (J&A). Kim was referred to us by a very successful attorney who happens to be an attorney himself. He asked around for us and said that J&A are... who his counterparts recommended. I also told our story to a friend who happened to be on the other side of J&A. They lost. He said they were very tough and very good. Based on our experience, both of these recommendations couldn't have been more accurate. Ask around yourself. If you find someone that doesn't like them, chances are they were on the other side and lost. If you want an attorney that is more than knowledgeable in legal matters around oil and is extremely thorough then I would highly recommend that you talk to this firm.

Ms. Johannessen was able to help us through a very difficult situation involving a leaking heating oil tank. She was fantastic dealing with the previous home owners, insurance company, remediation contractors, and the Department of Ecology for the State of Washington. She saved us over $200,000. ...She hit a grand slam in handling our case. I would definitely recommend her.

Kim represented my wife and I in a negotiation with our next door neighbor's insurer over expenses for remediating leakage from the neighbor's tank that had spread well onto our property and under our home. There were remediation expenses, and costs of consulting engineers and Kim's fees. Kim resol...ved the entire matter without litigation, with full recovery by us of all out of pocket expenses and compensation for disruption of our lives during the remediation process. She did so with a high level of expertise of the law and the utmost professionalism. I would (and have) recommended Kim and her firm to any party having environmental issues to resolve. I am myself a lawyer.

I contacted this firm on the advice of a friend who is involved in protracted litigation. A junior associate was assigned to help me with my matter. She gave me well-informed advice which was unfortunately peppered with descriptions of worst case scenarios not at all similar to the facts in my situat...ion. After the matter had been resolved to my satisfaction, I informed the junior associate that I did not need any more advice, and that she should close the matter and send me a bill. This junior associate responded via email with a long transcript of the information she had conveyed to me during our first conversation, basically telling me that I was making a mistake not pursuing the matter further, and that I was exposing myself to liability, etc., etc., all the advice she had given me over the phone, and that I had presumably already been billed for. I quickly responded to her that I had not asked her to perform any further services on my behalf, and that I wanted to end our correspondence and pay the bill. To my great surprise I received a hostile and angry email from Kim Johannessen herself. To my amusement she suggested that I should be worried if I should need the services of an environmental attorney in the future, as if she were the only one in Seattle. I responded to her briefly that I myself am an attorney, and if a client explicitly asked me to close my matter and bill me, I wouldn't continue to bill them for my time. I suspect that the junior associate was covering her rear by creating a written record of the advice she had given me over the phone. That's understandable, but don't charge me for it, and don't be an alarmist. Lawyers should solve problems, not conjure them up. Regardless of the merits of our disagreement, a professional would never lash out temperamentally and hastily.