Superior Court Prepares for a New Year
By Richard Eadie
Judge Michael Trickey, currently assistant presiding judge, has been elected by the judges of the Superior Court to be presiding judge for the 2006--07 term. In addition to being the assistant presiding judge, Judge Trickey has been the chief judge at the Regional Justice Center for the past year.
Judge Michael Spearman will be assistant presiding judge beginning January 1, 2006. Judge Spearman had been serving in the Unified Family Court Department at the Regional Justice Center but has returned to the King County Courthouse where, in addition to his duties as assistant presiding judge, he will be a member of the Criminal Department.
The judges of the Superior Court also decided to transfer a position from the Civil Department in the King County Courthouse to the Unified Family Court. Judge Steven Gonzalez will fill this seat. This will bring our Unified Family Court Department to seven full-time judges.
Judge Paris Kallas will transfer from the King County Courthouse to the Regional Justice Center in November and Judge Carol Schapira will transfer to Juvenile Court in January, with Judge Suzanne Barnett leaving Juvenile Court and returning to the Civil Department in the King County Courthouse. There will be other transfers from the Civil Department to the Criminal Department effective January 1, but primarily within the respective courthouses and without change in assigned civil cases.
My term as presiding judge will end on December 31. I am looking forward to returning full time to my position as a trial court judge and continuing in that role for many more years. As presiding judge, I have come to have a greater appreciation of the importance of our work as lawyers and judges to provide a legal system that is fair, effective and efficient and that also enjoys the trust and confidence of our citizens and, importantly, of our other branches of government.
As I write this, I am hearing from some of those who have just passed the bar, sharing in their relief and happiness. As law students, there is a tendency to focus on important details such as reading the cases for the next class, passing the required courses, graduating, studying for and passing the bar. The next step is to be employed and then to understand the real world of practicing law; going to court and trying not to ask a question that causes everyone to break-out in laughter (I have asked that question).
The point is that we focus so much on the specific task in front of us that we sometimes fail to recognize the greatness of the legal system of which we are a part and the importance of our individual efforts to the health of that system. Professor Daniel Coquillette of the Boston College of Law, in the introduction to his book on history of American law, passed on this observation that you might consider:
As a law school dean, I have met with literally thousands of lawyers, at every stage of their careers. As diverse and multifaceted as these careers were, one simple distinction could usually be made. Some graduates were having fun being lawyers, and many were not. Those that genuinely enjoyed what they did usually had a perspective that gave their daily work meaning on a grander scale. These were the lawyers who implicitly understood their role in the vast, ever-shifting backdrop of the developing law; who could see and understand the connections that span the generations and the centuries.
Richard Eadie is the Presiding Judge of the King County Superior Court.
