Judge Erickson has maintained and enhanced the efficient court system we have, and Ms. Dublin has demonstrated a lack of knowledge about an important issue the Superior Court must daily address.
First, my experience of practicing law here, and in other counties, is that Clallam County has the most efficient Superior Court set up anywhere, by far.
We can complete legal cases relatively inexpensively, quickly, and with flexibility, and one example is how the judges utilize a simple speaker phone to call people when necessary.
When a client or lawyer is out of town, our judges simply pick up the phone and call so the person isn’t left out.
Other counties don’t have any call-in system, or use systems which are expensive and only offer limited phone access.
Second, at a recent candidate forum, I asked the candidates what kind of training they had to understand and manage high conflict cases.
Most of the Superior Court’s time is taken by conflict which is driven more by personality issues than legal issues, and stubborn resistance to compromise.
I have asked this question to all the judicial candidates over the last many years.
Ms. Dublin was the only candidate to ask me to define what “high conflict cases” means.
Any judge who doesn’t have a model to understand these cases is at high risk of getting them backwards and supporting bullies and abusers.
Learning about this on the job ends up causing significant trauma and destruction to families and businesses.
Mark Baumann
Port Angeles