Attorneys
Carla J. Higginson
Carla J. Higginson has been an attorney in Friday Harbor since 1980. She chose this location because she is from an original pioneer family who homesteaded on San Juan Island 150 years ago. 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 40 years, handling family law, real property and land use, estate planning and probate, elder law and guardianship, and civil litigation. She handled criminal defense matters for 30 years.
Ms. Higginson served as president of the San Juan County Bar Association for five terms. 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 currently serves as a governor for the Washington State Bar Association which has 40,000 attorneys.
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.
Mr. Beyer frequently speaks on the laws and issues related to domestic and international taxation at sponsored seminars and to private groups.
Education:
- University of Puget Sound, BA (Business Administration) 1988;
- Gonzaga University, Master of Business Administration, 1989;
- Gonzaga University, J.D., 1993;
- University of Washington, L.L.M. (Federal Taxation) 1997.
- Admitted to bar, Washington State, 1994; Federal District Court, Eastern District of Washington, 1994.