Competence Is Earned: The Partnership Between Courts and the Bar
By Judge Ketu Shah, King County Superior Court Presiding Judge
As we enter the fall season, many law practices are ramping up to prepare trials and other matters to be completed before the end of the year. Our judges and staff are also preparing for the business of the fall season. Courts have the task of preparing for what comes in the door, creating systems that can handle the volume of cases that come forward for resolution. Our society depends on the systems the courts create to handle disputes that require resolution. Those types of disputes change over time. For example, what used to be tree-cutting arguments between neighbors are now disputes that are regulated by environmental statutes, land preservation statutes, and growth management principles.
As a court, we plan for those changes by talking to our communities and bar associations to learn what they expect from us. When the Uniform Guardianship Act came into effect, it dramatically changed how guardianships were handled by the courts. This significantly affected how dependency cases were handled. Our court had to reallocate judicial resources and staff to manage the new and complex nature of minor guardianships.
This learning and growth by our court comes through experience, conversations with affected parties, and hearing from our staff about what they are seeing on the ground. As we learn, we analyze what resources we have, what new resources we need, and we strategize on how to implement these changes. All of this preparation leads us to experiment with procedures, local rules, and scheduling to maximize our resources. I hear, at times, attorneys’ frustrations with local rules and how opaque and unique they are. They complain that it is difficult to navigate these rules because each county has its own rules and way of doing things. The refrain usually ends with why can’t the courts be more consistent?
We are sympathetic to these challenges, but what we are trying to accomplish is a level of competence in an area of law. Our tools include requiring filings to follow certain formats so it is easier for a judicial officer to quickly read the material on a busy calendar and limiting oral argument to maximize our capacity to hear as many matters as possible. These tools are necessary for us to utilize because we are the biggest court in the state and one of the busiest in the country.
Our clerk’s office is a technology leader in the country for the simple fact that we had to innovate in order to keep up with the volume our court faces. I recently heard a presentation by a Massachusetts court and was surprised to hear the technology they are beginning to implement for their busiest courts is technology that we have used for years. We use these tools so that we give ourselves the opportunity to be competent on every matter. It allows us to focus on the relevant pleadings, to focus on the issue at hand, and to hear multiple matters in the limited time we have.
Our capacity, and thus our opportunity to be competent, is limited by the resources available. We move resources around depending on the need but at some point, the demand outstrips the resources available. In preparing for cases entering our clerk’s office, we first assess existing resources. When we identify that the resources are inadequate but the need is critical, we go to the community, the bar, the county council, and state legislature to make the case that funding the courts is essential to our civil society.
You have heard in this space the contours of the case we are making. Many of you have recognized the essential nature of courts and that we must adequately fund them. Now, the decision point is near. The state legislature gave local authority to raise funds for the purpose of courts and other aspects for the administration of justice. Our county council swiftly passed the legislation to increase our sales tax by 0.1% to fund these institutions. And now, after a summer of conversations and careful analysis, the county executive will submit her budget proposal. The county council will debate our community priorities, and we will demonstrate the needs of our court.
I encourage you, as bar members who have a fundamental interest in competent courts, to speak to your elected leaders and make the case that court capacity must meet the needs of our community. I have repeatedly talked about how important the rule of law is and how important it is that we understand the purpose and function of our courts in our democratic system. Without adequate funding, none of those noble ideals make a difference. What makes the practical difference is funding court institutions so we can earn competence … so that we can prepare and meet the need of the bar and the litigants who come before us.
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.
