By Henry E. Lippek

Every four years, the King County Bar Association Judicial Evaluation Committee surveys practicing attorneys to evaluate the performance of King County District and Municipal Court judges, commissioners and magistrates. For the first time, this year’s survey also included pro-tem commissioners.

Surveys were mailed to 4,568 attorneys who appeared in District and Municipal Courts in King County within the past four years. Lists were provided by the Administrative Office of the Courts and the Seattle Municipal Court. The survey also was posted on the KCBA web site and e-mails were sent to all King County attorneys requesting their participation in the evaluation process. A total of 334 valid evaluations were returned and tabulated by the committee’s consulting statistician, Bart R. Salisbury, Ph.D.

Overall, the 2005 survey results rendered positive ratings (satisfactory and above) 77% of the time for individual judicial officers for decision making, demeanor, impartiality, efficiency and overall performance. A summary of the report appears on pages 8--9. The full report is on the KCBA web site at www.kcba.org.

The purpose of these surveys is to improve judicial performance, give feedback to judges and provide information to appointing officials and voters concerning individual judges and the functioning of the King County judiciary as a whole. Different lawyers evaluate each judicial officer and small differences between judicial officers are not necessarily meaningful. Thus, these surveys should not be used for comparative rankings of individual judges.

This year, the survey timetable was advanced to make results available in time for mayors and city councils to consider appointments or re-appointments of municipal court judges and to provide information to voters in those municipalities that elect municipal court judges. District court judges are elected by voters in that district. n