The King County District Court will soon be changed. By statute, the King County District Court must lose a judge. There are currently 22 judges, but one judicial position must be eliminated this election cycle. The decision will be made by the county, but the KCBA has one vote on the districting committee. The real question was whether the reduction would come from the East or the South District.
The Board appointed a committee to make recommendations. The committee was composed of Joe Bringman (Seattle), Loretta Story (East District) and Mark Hillman (South District). The committee studied a substantial amount of material and its members unanimously concluded that the reduction should come from the South District.
The committee based its recommendations on several factors. The number of available facilities did not support eliminating judges from the East District and the number of case filings is higher in the East District than the South for almost all case types. Approximately 63 percent of cases are filed in the East District versus 28 percent in the South District.
When all factors were considered, the committee unanimously recommended that the KCBA position should be that the number of judges in the East District should be protected and that if another judicial position is removed, it should be in the South District. The committee did not look at the Shoreline or West districts and took no position concerning those courts.
The Board accepted the recommendation and designated Bringman to represent the KCBA at the April 28 redistricting committee meeting. At that meeting, however, the redistricting committee voted 18-13, with KCBA against, to eliminate a judicial position in the East District. The proposal now goes to the County Council.
Voter Education Web Sit
The KCBA is part of a coalition of groups that will be sponsoring a Web site that will provide voter education for judicial elections. This site is part of the follow-up from the bill passed this legislative session to limit judicial campaign contributions. The bill, however, does not limit the campaign activities of third parties, such as PACs, and the campaign rhetoric already has been harsher this year.
The Web site is intended to assist voters in making informed decisions and to be a clearinghouse with objective information about judges and judicial candidates. A uniform set of information categories would be available for each candidate. The proposed site is based on a model that is currently in existence in Chicago, www.voteforjudges.org.
New Policies
The Board adopted two new policies of interest.
One governs awards made by the KCBA. The new policy prohibits the KCBA Awards Committee from conferring awards on any trustee or any nominee for trustee who is standing for election. This change was made after a situation arose this year, where the Awards Committee conferred an award on a person who also was nominated to be a candidate. Although each determination was made independently on the merits by different groups, the Board felt that the combination could create an appearance of fairness issue. The Board adopted the policy weeks before ballots for the election were counted.
The second new policy pertains to the Lawyer Referral Service. The new policy allows the Lawyer Referral Service Committee to remove an attorney from the lawyer referral panel if the attorney is likely to bring discredit or disfavor on, or otherwise adversely affect, the Lawyer Referral Service. This change was made for prophylactic purposes. There has not been a problem that gave rise to this policy.
This article discusses selected issues that were before the Board of Trustees at its April 10 and May 3 meetings. Complete minutes of these and other board meetings are available from the KCBA office. n
Mark Weiss is KCBA secretary/trustee. Weiss practices family law in Seattle. He can be reached at 206-622-6707.
