Teaming up for Justice

Neighborhood district attorney Brenda Allen has reputation for getting convictions

By Mara Stine

The Gresham Outlook, Oct 27, 2006, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Carole Archer / The Outlook

Brenda Allen is happy to be at work as Gresham’s neighborhood district attorney. While most attorneys strive to move to a job with in a bigger city, Allen says neighborhood legal work is her passion. Colleagues say she brings energy, experience and determination to her job.

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It’s amazing the turns a life can take because of just one person.

Gresham resident Brenda Allen was studying journalism and criminal justice administration in Missouri when a law professor suggested she turn her focus to law.

Now, after an impressive 12-year run in the district attorney’s office in downtown Portland, Allen is Gresham’s new neighborhood district attorney.

Nathan Vasquez, Gresham’s other district attorney dedicated to Project Safe Neighborhood, said Allen is known for her high-quality work, no-nonsense attitude and her ability to get convictions that include substantial prison and/or jail time.

All of which thrills Police Chief Carla Piluso. Not only is Allen a highly experienced team player who gives 110 percent, she already has working relationships with Gresham police officers from working local cases with them before starting her new job in September.

“She is such a high-energy individual who chooses to not have her work limited to an office,” Piluso said, adding that Allen has been busy meeting with neighborhood and community groups for a tutorial on local issues. “She came here and hit the ground running.”

Allen grew up in Missouri and earned her undergraduate degree in journalism and criminal justice administration at Central Missouri State University.

She moved to Oregon in 1991 to attend law school at Lewis & Clark College intending to become an environmental attorney. But she missed the criminal justice side of law, enjoyed trial work and applied for legal internships, “hoping for the public defender program,” she said.

Instead, she ended up interning for the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office doing legal research and conducting misdemeanor trials.

She was hooked.

When Allen graduated two years later with a law degree, the district attorney’s office snatched her up. As a deputy district attorney, she handled misdemeanor cases at Gresham’s circuit court and has worked felony drug cases, property crimes, robbery and vehicular homicides, domestic violence assaults and served on the white-collar crime unit.

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