Partner Wendy Olson Receives Idaho Business Review 2023 ‘Women of the Year’ Award

BOISE, Idaho—Stoel Rives LLP is pleased to announce that partner Wendy J. Olson has been named an Idaho Business Review 2023 Women of the Year honoree. The recipients of the award were chosen for their impact on Idaho’s economic and community well-being through their outstanding leadership, mentoring efforts, and community involvement. Olson and the 49 other honorees, who were selected from more than 120 nominees, will be celebrated at an awards event September 14, 2023, at the Boise Center.

Olson, who joined Stoel Rives in 2017, has been a powerful asset to the firm’s litigation team. A former U.S. Attorney for the District of Idaho, she is among Idaho’s most respected attorneys, renowned as a formidable litigator who is engaged in many of the state’s most significant criminal and civil cases. Olson has more than two decades of experience prosecuting white-collar crime cases along with criminal civil rights violations, child sexual exploitation cases, and Idaho’s only federal death penalty case.

Olson also has an extensive pro bono practice, which includes recent high-profile, high-impact civil rights cases that are affirming important constitutional protections in Idaho and nationwide, such as voting and disability rights. Among her cases this year, she represented clients in two lawsuits related to the murders of four University of Idaho students and represented a drag performer in his defamation lawsuit to stop a highly organized hate and disinformation campaign targeting Idaho’s LGBTQIA+ community. Olson is three-time recipient of Stoel Rives’ Andrew Guy Pro Bono Award.

In 2023, Olson was named one of “America’s Leading Lawyers for Business” by Chambers & Partners USA. Since 2017, she has been a board member to the Women’s and Children’s Alliance in Boise, one of Idaho’s longest-operating shelters and crisis centers for survivors of domestic abuse and sexual assault.