Rory O'Sullivan

Biography

Rory is a founding partner of Washington Employment Benefits Advocates, PLLC. He grew up in the Seattle area and spent a year teaching English in China after high school. Rory received a double degree from the University of Washington in International Studies and Economics. He worked for Congressman Jim McDermott in Washington D.C. before attending law school at Georgetown University Law Center.

After spending a year clerking for Judge Edward Shea in the Eastern District of Washington, Rory dedicated his career to legal aid and poverty law, representing homeowners facing foreclosure at Northwest Justice Project and then serving as the Managing Attorney for the King County Bar Association's Housing Justice Project.

Rory has served as an adjunct professor at both the University of Washington School of Law and at Seattle University School of Law, teaching courses on foreclosure, the Fourteenth Amendment and on access to justice. Rory has published articles in the Seattle University Law Journal, the Gonzaga Law Review, Blackpast.org, and he has written Op Eds that have appeared in the Seattle Times and Real Change.

Rory has argued cases before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and the Washington State Supreme Court and he is a member of the bar of the Ninth Circuit and the United States Supreme Court.

Before founding WEBA, Rory served as an Administrative Law Judge hearing unemployment insurance appeals. He created WEBA because he saw how many people were struggling to understand their rights in the context of the unemployment insurance system and he wanted to find a way to help.