By Amy Roe
It is 9:07 on a late November morning and Judge Andrea Darvas is wondering whether she’s just presided over her final trial as a King County Superior Court Judge.
Maybe, she muses, there will be time for one more, a jury trial, rather than a bench trial like the several construction-related matters she’s presided over this year. Bench trials are fine, but “watching good lawyers try their cases to a jury, that’s fun.”
After two decades on the King County Superior Court bench, Judge Darvas still loves the work, doesn’t feel burned out, isn’t tired. But she wants more time with her granddaughters who live two doors down and are ages five-and-a-half and two-and-half years old, respectively. She’d like to work in her garden, “and not just on weekends.” There’s also hiking, cycling, a February cruise to Antarctica, and a Beauceron puppy she plans to raise.
To do any of these things amid the long, stressful hours and perpetual preparation required of a trial judge is difficult. That’s to be expected, Judge Darvas added: “What we (judges) do is so consequential in the lives of other people.”
Judge Darvas didn’t have childhood dreams of the courtroom. No one in her family was a lawyer and the thought of sitting around studying statutes—what she imagined law school was like—struck her as “incredibly boring.”
She graduated from the University of Michigan, where she earned a Bachelor of Science in Zoology. After graduating, she decided to get a teaching certificate, since then as now there was a need for science teachers at middle schools and high schools. While getting her teaching credentials, she began a relationship with a student who was starting law school, and she started reading some of the case law books he had.
“I was hooked,” she said. The relationship with that law student didn’t last, but she found a love for the law. She attended the University of Michigan law school, where she met her husband, David Heller. After graduation she joined a commercial law firm, which brought her to Seattle. A little over a year later, she moved to a smaller law firm where she had more responsibility. She started doing tort work with Jimmy Rogers (the Seattle attorney James S. Rogers), which she loved because it meant working with individuals and helping them to achieve justice.
Although long interested in civil liberties, Judge Darvas characterizes her turn toward public service as an “evolution.” In her 22 years as a trial lawyer, she accepted assignments as an arbitrator and as a hearing officer for the Washington State Bar Association. She enjoyed being a neutral and was drawn to the opportunity to advocate for justice and for the right outcome under the law and the Constitution.
She went through the judicial candidate evaluation process and received an “Exceptionally Well Qualified” rating from the King County Bar Association. She turned in her application and spent some time on Governor Locke’s shortlist for judicial appointments. After a couple of years she grew tired of waiting, and when four seats opened on the Superior Court bench in 2004, she decided to run for the one being vacated by Judge Tony Wartnick, who was retiring from Superior Court after nearly 25 years on the bench.
At first, she was a bit intimidated by the idea of campaigning. But Judge Darvas was grateful for the opportunity to hear from people from all over King County, about their life experiences and their concerns about the courts. She is certain the election process helped her to become a better judge.
“We get people coming into our court from all corners of the community,” she said. “The better we understand them, the better we can serve them.”
Judge Darvas said that over the years, judicial officers have become better educated and more aware of the challenges and life experiences of diverse populations in our communities. “People often assume that their experiences are shared by everyone,” she said. “Learning about the lives of others, discovering that there are other ways of looking at an issue, at a problem, is really powerful.”
One experience that deeply affected Judge Darvas some fifteen years ago was learning about the Myth of the Colorblind Judge—a 2009 study published in the Washington University Law Review (in St. Louis), which showed that African American judges as a group and white judges as a group perceived racial harassment differently, but that judicial panels that included judges from diverse racial backgrounds were substantially more sensitive to and understanding of racism in society and the workplace. One of the authors of the study was Professor Robert S. Chang (formerly of Seattle University, now at UC Irvine). There have been numerous studies since, with similar findings.
Hearing from Professor Chang and others is part of the continuous learning that comes with being a judge, she said. “It’s hard to look outside your own experience. One of the sayings I like is that fish don’t know they’re wet.” Judge Darvas observed that “because judges rely on lawyers to inform their decision making, the increased diversity of the bar has improved outcomes, and helps judges make better decisions”
As committed as Judge Darvas has been to learning, colleagues say she’s equally generous in sharing what she knows.
Judge Jaime Hawk said after she was appointed to the bench in 2023, she was quick to invite Judge Darvas to coffee and lunch, peppering her with questions, case after case. “I just wanted to soak her up,” Judge Hawk said. “I basically asked her to adopt me.”
Judge Deborah Fleck (Ret.), who had her chambers just down the hall from Judge Darvas at the Maleng Regional Justice Center when both were on the bench, was struck by her “remarkable legal mind, good judgment, and work ethic.”
Her reputation for being exceptionally well-prepared and treating everyone with courtesy and respect has not gone unnoticed. Judge Darvas received the Washington State Association for Justice’s Judge of the Year award in 2017, and the Cardozo Society’s L’dor V’dor (from generation to generation) award in 2022.
“I think when she came to being a judge, her goal was to be an exemplary trial judge, not to be a chief judge or climb the ranks, but to be as good a trial judge as she can be, and consistently everybody I’ve talked to says that’s what she is,” said King County Superior Court Commissioner Nikole Hecklinger, who appeared before Judge Darvas as public defender.
Judge Fleck also said that Judge Darvas understood that the role of a judge extended beyond the courtroom. She has devoted her considerable energy to many committees that help keep Superior Court running, including the court’s Jury Committee, Technology Committee, Local Rules Committee, Personnel Committee, and its Courts &Community Committee. Judge Darvas also served on the Superior Court Judges Association’s board of governors, and its education committee, helping to organize seminars to train other judges. She also served on the board of the Public Law Library of King County.
Judge Darvas is a longtime supporter of We the People, and has served as a judge at their competitions for over 20 years. We the People trains high school students to develop critical thinking skills and a deep understanding of the Constitution. She currently serves as President of the Washington Judges’ Foundation, the only charitable organization of the Washington judiciary, which provides grants to civics programs such as We the People.
“With the population as polarized as it is, and when voting is so incredibly important, I think it’s vital that our citizens have a basic understanding of American history, of where we are and how we got here, and of how the Constitution has been interpreted by different courts,” Judge Darvas said. And while there’s been an emphasis on rights, she’d also like people to reflect on their responsibilities to one another, as members of a community.
Serving others and thinking beyond her own experience are the hallmarks of her career, so it’s fitting that Judge Darvas is departing Superior Court with the same independent spirit that brought her in, setting it up so the seat she is vacating won’t be filled by an appointment.
“A few mavericks like me end up serving out their term and not re-filing, so that’s an open seat,” she said with a smile.
Commissioner Nickole Hecklinger remembers hearing the news from Judge Darvas: “I was just floored and humbled that she would say that you are the person who should run for my seat,” she said.
Commissioner Hecklinger said she’s not a competitive person and was scared by the prospect of running a campaign. But the support and confidence Judge Darvas showed in her gave her confidence in herself, and in running for that seat she felt that she was honoring Judge Darvas’s legacy.
Those reading this are probably aware that Commissioner Hecklinger won the election (she ended up running unopposed) and will be sworn in as a judge in January 2025.
“I will be the third Jewish judge in that department (Department 23),” Commissioner Hecklinger said. “Not that there should be a specific seat, but especially during times when you see waves of antisemitism, or anti-Islam, anti-gay, anti-Black, it makes it all the more important to have judicial officers who represent diverse communities,” she said. “I think we all bring some aspects of traditions, experiences to the combined judiciary that creates a richer tapestry.”
Judge Darvas doesn’t minimize the challenges of being a trial judge and has been meeting with Commissioner Hecklinger to help her prepare for the transition. She said handling cases involving children have been the most stressful times in her career, especially in child custody cases where both parties are representing themselves without an attorney.
“The responsibility of having to make a parenting plan decision based on inadequate information is scary and difficult,” Judge Darvas said.
In retirement, she is looking forward to doing mediations, which provide an opportunity for her to listen to people who have a deep need to express what is bothering them, even though it may not be legally relevant in a trial. Until they do that, she observed, people often have a difficult time getting into a frame of mind where they are willing to think about compromise. Settlement conferences and mediations are fun, she said.
Despite all the rancor she’s observed both inside and outside the courtroom, Judge Darvas seems upbeat and unperturbed. How is this possible?
With maturity comes a sense of perspective, and “realism about what I can really do, and what I can’t,” she explained. “I think it evolves over time, as you understand more about life and people.”
It helps, she added, to take things, “One person at a time, one issue at a time, one case at a time, one family at a time.”
She uttered the same phrase used by Commissioner Hecklinger: Tikkun Olam, Hebrew for “repair the world.” To Judge Darvas, Tikkun Olam represents the understanding that each person has an obligation to do what we can to heal the world. “None of us is going to complete the work, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have an obligation to do our part.”
