Attorneys

Carla J. Higginson

Carla J. Higginson has been an attorney in private practice in Friday Harbor since 1980. She chose this location because she is a descendant of the original ten pioneer families who homesteaded on San Juan Island in 1872. Her great-great-grandfather was an American soldier in the “Pig War” and her great-great-grandmother was a Tsimshian Indian from British Columbia.

Ms. Higginson has a very active law practice spanning 46 years, handling real property and land use, estate planning and probate, elder law and guardianship, civil litigation, family law, and criminal defense.

Ms. Higginson is serving her 9th term as president of the San Juan County Bar Association. She was the municipal court judge for the Town of Friday Harbor from 1981-1989 and was once the youngest judge in the state. She also served on the San Juan County Planning Commission for nearly six years, and has been a decades-long volunteer attorney for several nonprofit organizations as well as the founder of San Juan Pilots Association. She served as a governor for the Washington State Bar Association which has 40,000 attorneys, for 4-1/2 years and is currently on a Supreme Court Board.

Ms. Higginson graduated from Western Washington University in 1976 with a B.A. in Communications and was the Outstanding Senior in that major. She graduated from the University of Washington School of Law in 1979. She was admitted to practice in Washington State in 1980, to the Federal District Court for the Western District of Washington in 1980, and to the United States Supreme Court in 1987.

Garrett J. Beyer

Mr. Beyer focuses his practice primarily on international and domestic tax planning and structuring of complex transactions, foreign investments, and business development in the U.S. and abroad. Mr. Beyer represents clients in the organization, operation, reorganization, and acquisition and divestiture of multi-national corporate and pass-through entity structures, inbound and outbound investment structuring, domestic and multi-national estate and succession planning for individuals and closely held business interests. Mr. Beyer routinely advises domestic and foreign clients on general corporate governance matters, choice of entity and formation issues, company acquisitions, divestitures and combination issues.

Education:

• University of Puget Sound, BA (Business Administration) 1988;
• Gonzaga University, Master of Business Administration, 1989;
• Gonzaga University, J.D., 1993;
• University of Washington School of Law, L.L.M. (Federal Taxation) 1997.
• Admitted to bar, Washington State, 1994; Federal District Court, Eastern District of Washington, 1994.