Update & Editor’s Note: Justice Barbara A. Madsen (2026). When the profile below appeared in the October 1993 Bar Bulletin, Justice Barbara A. Madsen was described as a rising jurist whose “meteoric rise” from Seattle
Municipal Court to the Washington Supreme Court reflected hard work, risk-taking, and quiet determination. More than three decades later, that early promise has become a defining judicial legacy.
Justice Madsen has announced she will step down from the bench on April 3, 2026, though her current term does not expire until January 2029. In her public statement, she reaffirmed that her “commitment to the rule of law and to the future of our outstanding judiciary” remains as strong as when she first took the bench 38 years ago, adding that it is time “to pass the gavel, making way for new ideas and the next generation of great judges.”
First elected in 1992 and sworn in the following year, Justice Madsen became the first woman ever to be popularly elected to the Washington Supreme Court. She was re-elected to the bench five times, served as Chief Justice from 2010 to 2017 and was the first woman selected by her colleagues to serve two terms in that role. She chaired the Washington State Gender and Justice Commission for more than 20 years, overseeing groundbreaking work addressing gender bias in the court. Justice Madsen currently serves as co-chair of the Supreme Court Commission on Children in Foster Care and chair of the Judicial Information System Committee.
As Justice Madsen prepares to conclude her extraordinary service, we invite you to take a trip down memory lane and revisit the October 1993 profile that first chronicled her remarkable rise. What was once described as a “meteoric” beginning has become a distinguished and enduring judicial legacy. We hope you enjoy this brief journey back in time and the opportunity to reflect on the lasting impact of her service to Washington’s courts.
The BAR BULLETIN October 1993
Justice Barbara Madsen
By Justice Faith Ireland (Ret.)
By 1997 Justice Barbara Madsen will have spent just nine short years traveling from an appointment as Seattle Municipal Court Judge to Chief Justice of the Washington State Supreme Court. Because of the rules of succession of Chief Justice, Madsen will follow Justice Barbara Durham, who will serve as the state’s first female Chief Justice beginning in January 1995.
Justice Richard P. Guy, appointed to the Supreme Court in 1989, will follow Justice Madsen as Chief Justice, according to the current line-up. He is enthusiastic about her leadership. “Justice Madsen has already had a great deal of experience as an administrative judge and will be an excellent Chief Justice.” Madsen’s leadership was recognized when she was the first to be elected to two consecutive terms as Presiding Judge of Seattle Municipal Court, the largest municipal court, and as she describes it, “the busiest court” in the state.
Those who know Barbara Madsen well say her meteoric rise through the ranks of Washington’s judiciary is the product of hard work, boundless energy and risk-taking.
A native of Renton, Madsen received her undergraduate degree in political science from the University of Washington and her J.D. from Gonzaga University School of Law in 1977. While at Gonzaga, she helped to develop the law school’s legal assistance clinic.
Public Defender
Madsen first became interested in the law in junior high school, but as the end product of politics rather than with the thought of becoming a lawyer. She had no early political ambition for herself, but saw herself working on legislation to benefit the community: A passing interest in journalism faded in the harsh reality of deadlines. “Law provided me with an opportunity to do for people on an individual basis what I had originally set out for in politics.”
Poverty law was Madsen’s first choice. In the face of cutbacks in legal services in the civil sphere, the role of public defender provided that opportunity. Her legal experience is balanced between criminal defense and prosecution. She worked as a criminal defense attorney in Spokane, Snohomish, and King Counties. Her most difficult legal challenge came when she and co-counsel Mark Mestel took a gamble in a death penalty case. Her client pleaded quality and she challenged the death penalty as unconstitutional. The risk paid off when that death penalty statute was found unconstitutional in another pending case.
Since the birth of her first child, Madsen, now the mother of four, has successfully managed a delicate balancing act between career and family. Her first-born son was premature and weighed only two pounds. To meet his needs she had to find a part-time job. She began her prosecutor career in night court in Seattle. She stayed for three years, working extensively on family violence cases. “As one who had defended with fervor for justice,” Madsen says, “it was not easy to jump the fence.” Defense attorney Mestel, formerly the head of the Snohomish County Public Defender agency, takes issue with that statement. As an associate in the public defender agency, Madsen had a reputation as a “put the prosecutor to the proof” litigator, says Mestel. However, it was annoying how quickly she made the switch, he added. Madsen concedes she soon learned that prosecutors have the power to see that justice is done as well, in the power to dismiss unsubstantiated cases.
Lives on the Line
Madsen describes her most stressful family violence prosecution as one where the victim’s husband put what the victim believed was a loaded shotgun between her legs and pulled the trigger. Madsen had to agree not to ask for jail time in order to have the cooperation of the frightened victim and a prosecution. Three homicides were committed against clients of her office while she was a prosecutor. “It adds to the stress of the job when you know that lives are on the line,” she says.
She joined the Seattle City Attorney’s office as a staff attorney in 1982. Her specialty in family violence intervention continued when she was appointed a Special Prosecutor to develop the child abuse component of the City Attorney’s Family Violence Project.
After her appointments as magistrate, court commissioner, and judge of the Municipal Court, this domestic violence work continued. Madsen was an important participant in the coordinated multi-agency family violence prevention program which has become a national model.
As Presiding Judge of Seattle Municipal Court, Madsen also helped to promote diversity on the court through its hiring practices and promoting opportunities for minorities and women to serve as judges pro term.
The late Barbara Yanick, Seattle Municipal Court’s first female judge, was an important person to Madsen on her way to the judiciary. “When I encountered her as a litigator I saw that she had a sharp tongue, was bright, tough, competent and still caring about the litigants. I came to know her, not as an idol, but as a real person.” Much as she admired her as an attorney, once on the bench, Madsen and Yanick did not always agree. “She could be difficult as a colleague, but she was probably my most important influence.”
“Go for It”
Madsen counts as her greater professional achievement her election to the Supreme Court. When asked how she got the nerve to take such a risk, she answers in her typical unpretentious way. “It was not a hard decision to make,” she says. She is married to Associated Counsel for the Accused attorney, Donald Madsen, and posed the question to him, mildly. “Donald, what would you think if I ran for the Supreme Court?” His response? “He thought I was crazy!”
Her driving force was not so much a personal ambition as a certainty that there needed to be more women on the Supreme Court. Before entertaining the race with two well-known male judges, former Chief Justice Keith Callow and then King County Superior Court Judge Ed Heavey, she checked with other potential female candidates. She inquired of the women on the appeals court and the superior courts who she thought might be contenders. Many of them encouraged her to “go for it.” The election with Tacoma trial attorney Elaine Houghton was close, and Houghton was subsequently appointed by Governor Mike Lowry to Court of Appeals Division II.
King County Superior Court Judge Norma Huggins, a close friend of Madsen’s, says she is sure that many are surprised by Madsen’s ascendance from Municipal to Supreme Court. When she first heard that Madsen, who succeeded her on the Municipal Court, was going to jump into the Supreme Court race, she was distressed. “I was afraid she would be chewed up by the wolf that politics can be.” Huggins has known Madsen since Huggins first moved to Seattle and joined Associated Counsel for the Accused. “She befriended me and helped me learn how to try a case. I knew her as a person of perseverance and extraordinary self-confidence. She didn’t just acquire those qualities when she became a candidate for the Supreme Court. She had a plan and worked it tenaciously to victory. We shouldn’t have been at all surprised.”
Not to Advocate, but Understand
The worst of the campaign trail for Madsen was “encountering the kind of sex discrimination around the State that we forget about in King County where women routinely hold positions of power.” The absence of women from the editorial boards, county elected officials, Chambers of Commerce and even the judiciary outside of Seattle disheartened her, and let her know that there is a lot of gender work yet to be done in Washington.
The best of the campaign trail was listening to the stories of women and minorities which has helped her to understand their point of view. “I take this with me to the Supreme Court, not to advocate, but to understand.”
The personal philosophy which guides Madsen can be best summed up in her statement, “I have to answer to myself.” For a woman with a professional spouse and four young children, it is as astounding a statement as it is simple. “I knew I wanted a family to be fulfilled. A career would not be enough for me. I want to be a professional and contribute, but I am determined to do so without the sacrifice of my family.”
A major adjustment for Madsen has been going from “an outgoing but essentially private person to a much more public one.” She says that her early months on the bench have required long hours during the summer when at times she might be the only Justice in the building. When asked by the administrator or clerk to greet groups of people visiting the Temple of Justice she readily agrees, even though it interrupts her work. “I feel this obligation to the people who elected me. I don’t have any presumptions that I am more special than they are. I’m just like them. I’ve just had interests and opportunities that they didn’t have. It’s hard to share myself with strangers, but I owe it to them.”
Justice Durham says of Madsen’s tenure on the bench since January, “She is very smart. She reads every last morsel on a case, but has an ability to cut quickly to the meat of the matter. Besides being totally prepared, she is a very pleasant person to be around. She isn’t caught up in the power and is just herself.” Justices Durham and Guy admit to being in awe of Madsen’s ability to mesh the challenge of life on the Court with family demands.
Making Choices
Donald Madsen says the biggest adjustment since the campaign ended has been relocating the family. The Madsens moved from their home in West Seattle to the Fircrest community of Tacoma. Donald bears the brunt of the commute, but he says the kids like it because the neighborhood is filled with children. He misses West Seattle a lot. Unlike Municipal Court, he says, “The work comes home with Barbara, by the armload.”
How to do it all becomes the dilemma, acknowledges Supreme Court Justice Barbara Madsen. For her, it comes down to a daily process of making choices between responsibilities. “I feel lucky to have had the freedom to be able to make the choice to begin with. Women have not traditionally had such luxury. I don’t have to answer to anyone, and there is no one else to blame or hold responsible. I answer to myself.”
This bio was updated to reflect Justice Ireland’s current position: Justice Faith Ireland (Ret.) is a highly regarded former King County Superior Court judge and Washington State Supreme Court justice now working as a mediator and arbitrator with JAMS: Mediation, Arbitration and ADR Services.
