Long-time Friday Harbor attorney Carla J. Higginson has been elected as the first San Juan County member of the Washington State Bar Association Board of Governors in the 86-year history of the Association. Her district includes San Juan, Island, Whatcom, Skagit and Snohomish Counties.

Higginson was appointed in 2018 by the WSBA Board of Governors to fill the unexpired term of Blaine attorney Rajeev Majumdar when he became WSBA president-elect; she was then elected to serve a full three-year term beginning in September 2019.

Higginson earned her B.A. at Western Washington University and her law degree at the University of Washington; she was admitted to the bar in 1980. She is a fifth-generation descendant of an original San Juan island pioneer family. Her great-great-grandfather was an American soldier in the “Pig War” in 1872 and thereafter married Anna Pike, a Tsimshian Indian from British Columbia; they homesteaded on San Juan Island. Now owned by Higginson, the homestead is designated as a Washington Centennial farm, having been in the same family since before statehood.

Higginson has practiced in Friday Harbor for 39 years, handling a wide variety of legal matters and litigation; her partner Garrett Beyer joined her in 2010. She previously served five terms as San Juan County Bar Association president, was a municipal court judge for the Town of Friday Harbor, and served on the County Planning Commission.