Four local attorneys have applied to occupy the Grays Harbor Superior Court position that comes open when Judge Mark McCauley retires at the end of the year.
Candidates who put their names forward to Gov. Jay Inslee, who will make the appointment, are Jean Cotton, Ray Kahler, David Mistachkin and Andrea Vingo.
Taylor “Tip” Wonhoff, deputy general counsel for the governor’s office, said the process kicked into gear Wednesday, when all four candidates were interviewed.
“The governor’s general counsel and I went to Montesano and met with the county prosecutor, the three current Superior Court judges, and each of the candidates,” he said. “We will be conducting reference checks and making other calls over the coming weeks. We expect to bring in a finalist or finalists to interview with the governor at the end of October or early part of November.”
When McCauley announced his retirement July 31, the the Governor’s Office placed a notice of judicial vacancy, seeking applicants to take over in January 2018. Applications were due by Sept. 15. Those application packets were then distributed to members of the Grays Harbor County BAR Association for review.
“Part of our organization’s role in the county is to report to the Governor’s Office the views of the local BAR on the qualifications of judicial candidates,” said Jason Quackenbush, Secretary of the Grays Harbor BAR. “We are currently gathering evaluations of four candidates and our members have until Oct. 6 to postmark their return evaluation forms.”
The form, said Quackenbush, “is a multiple choice evaluation on a variety of traits outlined in the association’s bylaws. We also provide members with the resume materials sent to us by the candidates to assist the members in evaluating the candidates’ level of experience.”
Once received, the forms are tabulated by an ad hoc committee — a committee formed for just that purpose — of active members of the Grays Harbor BAR.
“Once we have a result we will be sending that on to the governor to aid in his evaluation of the candidates,” said Quackenbush. “We will also issue a public press release regarding the results, but the association has yet to vote on when that will happen.”
The information sent to the governor is an aggregate of the answers received for each candidate, said Quackenbush. As an example, “Candidate X’s Legal Ability: 15 of 50 respondents said they were exceptionally well-qualified, 10 said they were well-qualified, five said they were qualified, 10 said they were not qualified, and 10 said they had insufficient information.”
Each evaluator will also rank the four candidates, said Quackenbush, and the BAR will report the number of first through fourth rankings each candidate receives.
A little about the applicants:
Jean Cotton is a private practice attorney in Elma. Her primary practice areas include family, guardianship and estate planning. She was appointed Elma municipal court judge in 1995 and served for about two years.
Ray Kahler lives in Aberdeen and is a personal injury attorney with the Stritmatter Kessler law firm in Hoquiam. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law in 1996.
David Mistachkin of Central Park was appointed Grays Harbor District Court judge in 2014 and served there until he was defeated in the 2016 election by Kyle Imler. He graduated from Willamette University College of Law in 2003 and practices primarily as a criminal defense attorney.
Andrea Vingo lives in Montesano and has been staff attorney at the Washington State Department of Health since September 2015, after serving as an assistant attorney general the previous seven years. She graduated Seattle University Law School in 1996.
