Duana T. Koloušková
Partner
Practice
Duana Koloušková is a partner at Johns Monroe Mitsunaga Koloušková PLLC, a law firm in Bellevue, Washington, representing a variety of primarily private clients on land use, real estate, and construction issues. Ms. Koloušková represents developers, builders, property owners, and developer/builder organizations in all aspects of land use law as well as related environmental, municipal, construction, and real estate law matters. She has nearly twenty years of experience in land use, environmental and administrative law, and litigation, appearing before tribunals, boards, and courts throughout Washington.
Land Use and Environmental
Ms. Koloušková has extensive experience in land use and environmental permitting, and local administrative processes. She appears on a regular basis before municipal, county and state agencies, hearing examiners and boards on a variety of residential land development and construction issues. She practices regularly before Washington trial and appellate courts, the Growth Management Hearings Board, Shoreline Hearings Board and other administrative hearings boards. She also has broad experience representing clients in lawsuits brought under the Land Use Petition Act and related land development litigation statutes at the superior and appellate court levels.
Development
Ms. Koloušková represents clients in all stages of land development. Ms. Koloušková works regularly on a range of development projects, including small and large-scale residential, master plans, mixed-use, small-scale commercial, light industrial, and natural resource projects. A representative sample of entities she represents includes DR Horton, Pacific Properties, Lozier Homes, Conner Homes, Polygon Northwest, Pacific Ridge Homes, and Benchmark Homes. She also represents numerous medium and smaller-scale builders and developers, as well as local natural resource industries. She also has represented the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish County in a number of land use appeals and as a consultant for local legislative changes. Ms. Koloušková has also successfully represented groups of private developers and property owners in challenging attempts by local jurisdictions to impose regulations or fees that either have a disproportionate impact or artificially limit or preclude growth. She has been successful both in persuading local legislative bodies to act without appeal and by bringing formal appeals to hearing boards and Washington courts.
Background and Associations
Ms. Koloušková has been the legal advisor to the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties (the MBA) for many years. She also served as a chair officer with the MBA Board in 2011. She is active with the MBA developer/builder groups and sits on the Affordable Housing Council Board. In 2016, Duana was awarded the prestigious MBA Associate Member of the Year Award for her contributions to the land development and building industry and the organization (MBA Associates constitute the body of non-builder MBA members).
Ms. Koloušková is a member of the Environmental and Land Use Law section of the Washington Bar Association and regularly speaks at and chairs land use and environmental Continuing Legal Education seminars on a wide range of land use and environmental law topics. She is the author of the Chapter on Subdivisions in Washington Lawyer’s Practice Manual and the subdivisions chapter in the comprehensive update of the Washington Real Property Deskbook. She has co-chaired the two-day Annual Comprehensive Conference on Washington’s Growth Management Act for several years running.
Before she joined Johns Monroe Mitsunaga Koloušková, Ms. Koloušková was a Deputy Prosecuting Attorney for Snohomish County in the Civil Division. She represented the Planning and Development Services and Public Works Departments, the Hearing Examiner and the County Council in long and short range planning, environmental, and land development issues.
In her personal life, Ms. Koloušková enjoys traveling and speaks several languages. She was the 2010-2011 co-Chair of the Center for Women and Democracy, a nonprofit group focused on supporting and enhancing women leaders, locally and globally. In 2009, she traveled with the Center to Morocco on a citizen’s leadership delegation. In 2010, she helped create the Center’s biennial, multi-day women’s leadership training institute. She travels extensively for pleasure and self-education. At home she is an avid sportswoman, enjoying working with her horses as well as skiing, mountain biking and spending time outdoors.
Education
Ms. Koloušková received her J.D. cum laude from Seattle University School of Law in 1997. While pursuing her legal education, Ms. Koloušková was a moot court participant and a coach for the school’s regional moot court team. She interned for the Central Puget Sound Growth Management Hearings Board, where she assisted in writing the Board’s first Digest of Decisions.
Ms. Koloušková graduated from Western Washington University in 1994 where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in History, with an emphasis in African and Classical Studies.