By Judge Ketu Shah
Happy New Year! We begin 2025 with a sense of hope and gratitude. We are hopeful with new additions to our bench and new rotations as of January 13, we will tackle the work of the court with effort and energy and continue to provide access. Nikole Hecklinger joins our bench taking over for Judge Andrea Darvas as she retires after a 20-year career. Judge Hecklinger comes to us from a varied background. She was a public defender for over 13 years handling all manner of felonies. She then transitioned to private practice doing both family and criminal law, and most recently was a Temporary Criminal Commissioner with our court handling plea and sentencing matters, and civil protection orders. Judge Hecklinger is a graduate of the University of Washington and has a JD from Seattle University. We are glad to have her become a member of our bench and look forward to the great service she will provide to King County.
We are also full of gratitude for Judgae Darvas who I spoke of last month, and now later this month, Judge Kristen Richardson will retire on January 31. I won’t repeat all of the October profile in the KCBA Bar Bulletin but suffice it to say, she has been a tremendous colleague to many of us. She has been on the bench since 2017 and before that was with the Prosecutor’s office for 29 years. Judge Richardson has led a life of public service mentoring hundreds of attorneys and trying over 100 cases to jury, 25 of which were homicides. Before that she was a newspaper reporter for the Spokesman-Review. Judge Richardson’s willingness to help, always say yes to whatever assignment came her way, and her keen trial intellect made her a judge everyone wanted to learn from. We will miss her tremendously but happy for the freedom she will have to do what she wants to do.
As we transition to the new year, the Legislature will be in session, and we have a new governor. As the third branch of government, we will continue to work towards adequate funding of the courts. We continue to look at operations to see how we can be more efficient with limited funding, but we also must continue to insist that access to the courts and the rule of law must be maintained. I encourage all the Bar members to be vocal about these principles. We can understand, in the middle of litigation it can be difficult to imagine joining forces with opposing counsel to raise a unified voice about the importance of courts and the rule of law. But I have seen very heavy litigated cases recently, with broad implications. A multi-billion-dollar merger between grocers and an employment case involving a prominent doctor, where all sides intensely litigated their client’s positions. But at the end of the day, they were all very professional and appreciative of being able to litigate their cases in our court. There were important issues to present for careful consideration by the judge and jury. They had intense public interest and because of our adjustments from the pandemic, these cases were accessible to the public through video conferencing. The resources necessary to make this happen from licenses and IT support are costly and provide the infrastructure for the public to have trust and confidence in the rule of law. Literally, hundreds of people saw our courts in action and saw our court work its will on helping people work through disputes, present their case civilly, and respect the rule of law.
It is my hope that in this coming year, we continue to talk about how important this work is, and how necessary it is to fund our courts for our civil society. As always, we welcome feedback and conversation on how our court can serve the King County Bar and the members of our community. Please reach out to further that conversation.
