The King County Bar Association has completed its quadrennial review of the bench by attorneys appearing before the Superior Court. This survey completes the cycle begun with the 2022 Survey of attorneys appearing before King County Courts of Limited Jurisdiction.
The King County Bar Association (KCBA) has conducted and published surveys and evaluations of judicial officers since 1948. The survey has changed many times. The current format was adopted in 2017 and significant changes were made in 2021.
The KCBA judicial survey’s primary function is to obtain information from individuals who have observed the judicial officers being evaluated during the relevant period. Rather than attempt to survey all members of KCBA or all lawyers practicing in King County, only attorneys who were identified as having appeared before any of the sixty judicial officers up for evaluation on this survey were invited to participate. And only a subset of those attorneys chose to respond.
The survey provides important information to the public, the legal community, and the bench about attorneys’ evaluations of the local judicial branch. But the survey results must be viewed through an appropriate lens. The survey results reflect some practicing attorneys’ personal assessments of the judicial officers who hear and decide their cases. The survey should not be treated as a rigorous, scientific, opinion-gathering process or a ranking, and it does not account for many complex issues that could impact the responses. I encourage you to review the entire report online at https://www.kcba.org/judicialsurvey, and to consider the survey along with judicial candidate ratings, debates, and other efforts the legal community makes to offer as complete a picture of judicial performance as it can.
This year, there were 7,396 Participants invited to participate in the online survey, and there were 1,063 recorded responses, including 927 completed surveys and 136 partial responses. Data collection and analysis was performed by Information Insights, a research-based consulting firm.
Following the American Bar Association’s Guidelines for Judicial Performance Evaluation, the KCBA Judicial Officer Survey focused on behavior-based measures. To do this, Participants who appeared before a judicial officer were asked to evaluate the judicial officers regarding specific criteria that are widely acknowledged to be qualities that judicial officers are expected to possess: Virtual Appearances, Legal Decision Making, Integrity and Impartiality, Demeanor and Temperament, and Administrative Skills.
For example, in the area Legal Decision Making, survey participants were asked to rate judicial officers using each of the following five criteria: Preparedness for court, Ability to capably identify and analyze legal and factual issues, Ability to capably apply rules of evidence and procedure, Ability to articulate rulings and grounds for rulings in a clear and concise manner, and Ability to base their rulings on the facts and the law. The rating scale used is Unacceptable (1); Below Expectations (2); Acceptable (3); Very Good (4); Excellent (5).
The Summary Table of Results for Individual Judicial Officers is printed in full and can be seen on pages 14–15 of this issue. No attempt has been made in the Survey report to present evaluation results in “ranked” numerical order and the judicial officers are listed in alphabetical order.
The 2024 Judicial Officer Survey also allowed participants an opportunity to include written comments with their responses. Participants provided 962 such comments. These comments provide attorneys with the opportunity to list specific feedback to a judicial officer. The KCBA shares these written comments with only the individual judicial officer and does not release these comments publicly.
The charts and information below provide insights regarding the attorneys who participated in the survey including the number of appearances before a Judge, years in practice and the attorney’s primary areas of practice.
- Participants reported appearing before Superior Court Judges multiple times during the evaluation period.
- 80.3% of responding participants reported appearing before a commissioner multiple times during the evaluation period.
- 49.5% of participants have been practicing for more than 20 years. Only 2.4% have been in practice for 1 to 2 years.
- The primary areas of practice are criminal law, domestic relations family law, general civil, government practice, and other.
The KCBA’s quadrennial judicial survey is an important aspect in reaching the mission of the association to achieve excellence, equity, and accessibility in the administration of justice. The committee worked diligently to review each aspect of the survey, taking a careful look at both the questions and the full report. We are looking forward to a fulsome review of the core purpose of the judicial survey, its process and impact in the coming months. Please consider reaching out to the KCBA with feedback, suggestions, and recommendations at judicialsurvey@kcba.org. The entire 2024 Judicial Officer Survey is available on the KCBA website https://www.kcba.org/docDownload/2369641.
