Commissioner, attorney and municipal judge without law degree running for Superior Court bench

You don’t need a law degree to be a judge.

David Ladenburg has proven that by serving 13 years on the Tacoma Municipal Court bench, and now he’s making a bid to do so on the Superior Court level in Pierce County.

Attorney Tom Quinlan and Superior Court Commissioner Karena Kirkendoll — his opponents in the race to replace retiring Judge Ron Culpepper — graduated from law school together at the University of Puget Sound, which was sold to Seattle University in 1993.

Instead, Ladenburg did a program with its roots in Washington’s territorial days, which lets aspiring lawyers study for the bar exam independently under an attorney.

“It predates law schools in Washington,” Ladenburg said.

Before there were schools to study law in the region, students learned, apprenticeship-style, with experienced lawyers.

Today, that four-year program is known as the Admission to Practice Rule 6 Law Clerk Program, and it’s what Ladenburg, 57, used to pass the bar exam in 1991.

Since 1984, 181 clerks have become lawyers through the program. Seventy are studying now.

The program has regular tests, and puts more emphasis on reading the history of the law than law schools do, Ladenburg said.

“I never felt less than up to the challenge,” Ladenburg said about his legal career. “I’ve never felt that I didn’t get a complete education. I would say that my career hopefully indicates that I’ve done well by it.”

If elected, he wouldn’t be the first person to serve on the Superior Court without a law degree.

Before being appointed to the state Supreme Court in 1963, Justice Frank Hale sat on the Pierce County bench with the same nontraditional legal education.

Asked if a law school education would have helped him avoid two sanctions by the state Commission on Judicial Conduct, Ladenburg said no.

“I don’t think law school would have prepared me any better,” he said.

He twice received sanctions for questioning the religious attire of someone in his courtroom.

In 2006, he received an admonishment, the least severe sanction the commission can give, after he told a Muslim woman to take off her head scarf or leave court.

In 2015, the commission gave him a more serious punishment, a reprimand, after he asked a Jewish man wearing a fedora in court to bring proof that his faith required the head covering.

Ladenburg said in both cases he did what he asks of those who appear before him in court. To “acknowledge a mistake, take responsibility, and address it appropriately, which I’ve done,” he said.

He said he underwent training related to cultural competency and ethics afterward, and in the 2006 case, apologized to the woman the same day.

“I had a very large docket that day,” he said. “I recognized that I had made a mistake.”

Asked about the benefit of a law school education, Quinlan and Kirkendoll said it teaches critical thinking skills and builds relationships through activities such as mock trials.

“You learn how to interact with your peers,” Kirkendoll said. “… There’s a structure to it that is a benefit, I believe, for young lawyers coming out.”

Quinlan said law school taught him how to research the law.

“One of the critical skills that is developed in law school is how to conduct legal research, look for precedent, analyze it,” he said.

The three candidates on the Aug. 2 primary ballot have at least temporary experience as judicial officers.

Kirkendoll, 54, has been a Superior Court commissioner for more than three years.

“I’m already down at the courthouse, and I’m working daily, handling the vast majority of the cases that come through there,” she said. “… The only thing we (commissioners) don’t do are jury trials.”

Before that, she was a state industrial appeals judge and an administrative law judge.

Quinlan, 52, is a civil trial attorney with the Smith Alling law firm, and serves as a pro tem commissioner for the Superior Court, and as a pro tem judge in local municipal courts.

He’s also been a judge advocate for 18 years in the Army Reserve, during which he has prosecuted crimes in the military and defended soldiers charged with crimes.

This story was originally published July 10, 2016 at 2:57 PM with the headline "Commissioner, attorney and municipal judge without law degree running for Superior Court bench."