Board of Directors
Betty Hansen Richardson
Betty RichardsonHastings 1982Betty is of counsel with Richardson & O’Leary, PLLC in Boise, Idaho. She focuses her practice on appellate law and mediation, with an emphasis on state and federal Constitutional issues.
In 1993, President Clinton appointed Betty to serve as United States Attorney for the District of Idaho, a position she held until 2001.
After leaving office as U.S. Attorney, she was the Democratic nominee for the United States House of Representatives for Idaho’s 1st Congressional District. She then served two years as a law clerk to the Honorable B. Lynn Winmill, Chief Federal District Judge for the District of Idaho.
From 1991-93, Betty was appointed by former Idaho Governor Cecil D. Andrus as the attorney member of the Idaho Industrial Commission. She was elected Commission Chair in 1993.
Prior to 1991, Betty engaged in private legal practice. Immediately following graduation from law school, She clerked for the Criminal Division of the San Francisco Superior Court, and then returned to Idaho to work as a judicial law clerk for former Idaho Supreme Court Justice Robert C. Huntley, Jr.
Betty has taught American National Government, Family Law, and Constitutional Law at Boise State University and served as staff attorney for the Idaho Law Foundation’s Continuing Legal Education Program. She is also a regular panelist on Idaho Public Television’s public affairs program “Idaho Reports.”
Betty is a 1982 Tony Patiño Fellow from Hastings College of the Law. At Hastings, she was a teaching assistant for the Legal Education Opportunity Program and wrote for the Constitutional Law Quarterly.
Betty has served on the Board of Directors for many years and currently serves as a member of the Fellowship’s Selection Committees at Hastings and the University of Chicago, and is Chairperson of the Renewal Committee at all three law schools.