Tonkon Torp litigator Will Gent has joined the Lawyers’ Committee of the Oregon ACLU. The Committee selects the civil liberties or civil rights cases the organization will pursue in Oregon through client representation or by filing briefs as a friend of the court.
Will has a longstanding commitment to protecting civil rights. He is currently seeking to overturn a state prisoner’s non-unanimous criminal conviction under Ramos v Louisiana. Previously, as a cooperating attorney with the Oregon ACLU, he brought an excessive force case against the Portland Police Bureau in connection with law enforcement’s response to political protests in downtown Portland. During law school, Will served as a fellow in the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics, where he helped shape the Center’s programming on civil liberties, with a focus on the intersection between Due Process and national security.
Tonkon Torp enjoys a long legacy of active attorney service on the Lawyers’ Committee. Business attorney Owen Blank served for four decades, and litigator Steve Wilker was on the committee for 15 years with service as Committee Chair (2010 to 2015) and Vice Chair (2015-2017).
Will is an associate in Tonkon Torp’s Litigation Department. He represents businesses and individuals in a variety of complex civil matters, with a particular emphasis on real estate and construction litigation—including commercial leasing, construction lien, property boundary, land use, and timber trespass disputes. In addition to his real estate litigation work, Will actively appears in state and federal court in matters concerning commercial contracts, consumer protection laws, corporate governance, and shareholder disputes.