JULY 31, 2012 – I APPLAUD LAWYERS ROLE AS OFFICERS OF THE COURT AND URGE WE NOT LET JUDGES ATTEMPT TO MARGINALIZE US
Lawyers, you are smart enough to know when the system wants to marginalize someone. Before you let them succeed at marginalizing me, you might want to read this letter I prepared to send to the Washington Bar Association and/or Washington State Association for Justice back in April asking lawyers to consider running to be judges. I never finished the letter, because I decided to jump into the race when none of those lawyers I believed were qualified showed any inclination to do so. I submit this letter to you now, months later, so you can evaluate the concerns which have caused me to run for Supreme Court, position 2: April 3, 2012 DRAFT Gentlepersons: Several years ago I went to a CLE [Continuing Legal Education class] where Judge Pechman, Judge Lau, and a state district court judge spoke. The only thing I remember about the CLE is the audience of attorneys was told by the judges that judges “talk about attorneys” and “attorneys should fear judges saying bad things to one another about an attorney.” At first I could not believe what I was hearing. The judges were telling attorneys that they thought the judges’ collective opinion of the lawyer was more important than the merits of a client’s cause. Last week the Supreme Court decided a case, which tacitly accepted the notion that information shared by judges about their experience with lawyers was a legitimate consideration to take into account when deciding a client’s case.[1] Now I don’t know which judge or … Continue Reading