Centralia Chronicle

Endorsement

Lawler best qualified to be new
Superior Court judge in county

Saturday, October 20, 2007 — Centralia attorney Jim Lawler, 50, of Adna, and Chehalis attorney Sherry Peterson, 52, of Centralia, are competing for the Lewis County Superior Court seat vacated July 31 by Judge H. John Hall, who has retired.

The position is a four-year term and is nonpartisan. The pay increased in September to about $140,000 annually.

Our Editorial Board in a unanimous vote strongly recommends the election of Lawler.

Lawler, who grew up on a peppermint farm in Snohomish County and is a graduate of Washington State University and the Willamette University law school, has been a resident of Lewis County for 24 years. During that time, he has been affiliated with the highly respected Centralia law firm of Olson, Althauser, Lawler, Samuelson and Rayan.

He has considerable experience also as a pro tem judge and commissioner for the Superior Court, District courts and all five municipal courts in the county.

He has much longer experience working in the county courts, including handling numerous felony and civil cases in jury trials as an attorney and as a pro tem Superior Court commissioner, than his opponent. He has dealt with every aspect of law that comes before the Superior Court.

David Draper, who retired as Lewis County Superior Court judge in 2005, presided over numerous criminal and civil proceedings in his court in which Lawler was involved as an attorney. He cites Lawler’s preparation, diligence, knowledge of the law and fair, even-tempered approach, an assessment of Lawler shared not only by his senior law partners whom he credits for very useful mentoring, but also widely in the local legal community and among clients Lawler has served. Add to those qualities high integrity.

He has outstanding job references, comes highly recommended for the position.

Lawler is better qualified to be on the court for his overwhelming edge in experience, judicial qualities cited and also his extensive volunteer involvement with his community, including coaching youth sports, through which he has traveled to, made connections with and gained knowledge of people and communities throughout the county.

Peterson, by comparison, while she has practiced law for 17 years, has done so in this county for only six years and just recently moved to Centralia from Thurston County.

Peterson’s life includes a compelling story of survival as a teen-age runaway and her struggles as a single mother on welfare who worked while attending the University of Washington and then the Harvard Law School. Her choice to succeed despite the obstacles facing her and her successes speak highly of her drive and character.

However, in her campaign for judge, Peterson has engaged in questionable tactics and complaints against Lawler.

An example is the advertisement in this newspaper by the Lawler campaign that Peterson claims made some deliberate misrepresentations about her.

But Peterson was clearly informed by The Chronicle after the ad ran that it was not proofed by Lawler prior to publication. The first to complain about this unproofed ad was Lawler himself, who called the ad agency that had prepared it. The agency immediately notified The Chronicle about this oversight.

Despite this explanation, Peterson continued to trump the charge that Lawler wrote and approved the ad with errors in it. This is untrue and does not appear to us to be judicial-like conduct on the part of Peterson.

Lawler has handled himself properly and impressively during his campaign.

Again, we believe his strong background of legal and judicial experience and strong job references from the local bench-bar community who have worked with him and from highly respected community leaders easily most qualifies him to be the new Superior Court judge for this county.

VotingforJudges.org, P.O. Box 1460, Silverdale, WA  98383
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