Henkels Law LLC

Based in Portland and Newport, Oregon, Henkels Law LLC advises and represents individuals & entities in legal issues involving juvenile dependency and parental rights, business and public contracting, tribal and Indian law issues, and energy, water, and other utility matters. Henkels Law LLC is an Oregon Benefit Company.

Diane Henkels

Based in Newport and Portland, Oregon, Diane Henkels has received a joint degree from Vermont Law School including a JD in 1997 and a Masters of Environmental Law and Policy in 1998. 

Fluent in French thanks in part to her Whitman College French Literature degree, Diane served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Central African Republic for two years, learned Sango, the CAR national language, and supported Central African medical colleagues implementing the country’s public health policies in maternal and child health and AIDS education. The experience informed Diane that law was a good fit for her career and her joint degree at VLS included field work in Madagascar supervised by a Malagasy attorney and PhD and a VLS Malagasy alum with the Development and Environmental Law Center-Madagascar. Diane researched environmental law, and modern and customary law, related to establishing an eastern cloud forest national park, working in French and Malagasy. While in law school, Diane also completed initial research and writing leading to publication on corporate-community contracts under the theme of sustainability. See Diane’s publications listed on the firm’s website. 

Diane’s began post-graduate legal work in the U.S. as an Environmental Law Clerk for the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians-CTSI, and then became Project Attorney responsible for a federal grant funded CTSI Tribal Court development project. Since then, Henkels has represented individual and entity clients, tribal and non-tribal, in tribal courts in juvenile, criminal, employment, and commercial matters at trial and appellate levels. She has served as counsel in 2007 for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation and as a Senior Policy Analyst with the Oregon Department of Energy in 2008 

Private practice with Henkels Law LLC has included significant representation of small businesses on the central Oregon coast and elsewhere. Since 2014, Henkels has been counsel for a nonprofit representing the small nonresidential customers of utilities, particularly in public utility commission electricity and natural gas related proceedings.

Henkels chaired the Oregon State Bar Indian Law Section, Sustainable Future Section, and Environmental and Natural Resources Section, received the Oregon State Bar (“OSB”) President’s Sustainability Award in 2012, serves on the Federal District Court of Oregon Rules Advisory Committee. She has taught or presented various law topics in several universities in Oregon and law schools, and is on the Oregon Criminal Defense Lawyers Association Juvenile Law Education Committee.

Henkels is rear commodore of the Yaquina Bay Yacht Club, has sailed for decades, and is racing in one of the sailboats pictured on the firm’s homepage.