An interview with King County District Court Judge Michael Finkle
By Sunitha Anjilvel
At a time when faith in and respect for our justice system is ebbing, I was honored to interview King County District Court Judge Michael Finkle. Before we get to the interview, I want to share explanations of two terms of art used by Judge Finkle, “access to justice” and “therapeutic justice.” The National Center for Access to Justice defines “access to justice” as: “… when people encounter life problems that touch the law, they will be able to understand and assert their rights in a neutral process pursuant to the fair rule of law and enforce the result.”1 Therapeutic justice has been defined in the National Institute of Justice Journal as “an option that promotes health and does not conflict with other normative values of the legal system.”2 Judge Finkle adds to this understanding of therapeutic justice with follow-up questions:
- Is there an impediment to the individual’s ability to follow the law (and to lead a better life)?
- If so, is there an option that offers a reasonable likelihood of removing or reducing that impediment?
- If so, then the court should implement the option.
What follows is an edited transcript of my interview with Judge Finkle.
Q. How did you come to develop your insights about the connection between principles underlying therapeutic justice and access to justice?
A. As I started looking at things we were doing in therapeutic courts, I thought of how they could be applied more widely. We talk about “taking to scale,” which involves integrating ideas from the therapeutic justice model to the non-therapeutic justice model. Those ideas include eliminating impediments to those accessing the court system as well as expanding the notion of access to justice beyond decision making to include procedural justice.
Q. In the presentation you give on therapeutic court principles, you have described impediments to include barriers with respect to language, culture, understanding of the proceedings, lack of time with the judge, and belief that the judge does not care. What do you as a judge do to mitigate or eliminate those impediments?
A. I always start my calendar by saying “hello” to those in my courtroom. The simple act of saying “hello” is humanizing and shows defendants that the court notices them. I pay attention to the names of those individuals in front of me by asking simply, “How do I pronounce your name?” and I work to get it right. I had a person who spoke Mandarin who told me that I pronounced his name better than his wife did! My goal for defendants is for them to understand what is happening to them in court. Defendants will notice if you treat them like they matter, and if you treat them like they don’t.
Q. What about the notion of procedural fairness and its connection to access to justice?
A. Access to justice is more than providing resources to people; it’s also about enabling people to understand the legal process and how judges make the decisions that they do. It’s about engaging defendants and litigants with the process and providing appropriate validation to them. This ties in with promoting respect.
Q. Can you talk a little about respect?
A. If I treat someone with respect who has never before been treated with respect by anyone in the legal system, I may have started to heal a rift between that person and the system. I always say that my court is a “respect zone.”
Q. Is this connected to civility?
A. Yes, if I as a judge am not civil no one else in my courtroom can be.
Q. In your presentation, you talk about importing some non-treatment components of therapeutic justice to our general court system, such as explaining the process (and law, if necessary), connecting with litigants by talking with them, not at them, and engaging in at least some conversation with each party. You also talk about judges and lawyers taking the time they need to do this, and your presentation delves into an interesting discussion about how to approach the concept of time. Can you elaborate on this?
A. Typically when judicial resources are allocated, they are done so according to a formula that allots a certain amount of time per case. It has become a “rocket docket” mentality which values speed in getting through cases at all costs. But what if we adopted a different approach? What if we looked at the value of time in a case from an access-to-justice perspective? That value cannot be quantified in a traditional sense and we need to look at that. We in the judicial system currently serve two masters: efficient time management of calendars versus access to justice for real people. We need to change this.
Q. What message would you give to lawyers and legal professionals about this model of access to justice?
A. It does not take away from your case to give your clients more time to understand the legal process they face. Patience will result in better outcomes for your client and greater client satisfaction.
Michael Finkle has served as a judge of the King County District Court (KCDC) since March 2010. He currently presides at the KCDC Issaquah Courthouse. In addition to previously serving as a criminal trial judge, Judge Finkle has presided over the district court’s Regional Mental Health Court and Regional Veterans Court. He is a member of the Washington Supreme Court’s Gender and Justice Commission, the judicial member of the Washington State Bar Association’s Well-Being Task Force, and a board member of the Joint Minority Mentorship Program. Judge Finkle also chairs the statewide subcommittee that is responsible for creating and maintaining standard form orders for criminal cases in which defendants have a mental illness that might interfere with their ability to proceed.
About the author
Sunitha Anjilvel is the 2024-2025 WSBA president.
NOTE
1. “What is Access to Justice? Protecting Rights and Securing Basic Needs,” National Center for Access to Justice, https://ncaj.org/what-access-justice.
2. David Rottman and Pamela Casey, “Therapeutic Jurisprudence and the Emergence of Problem-Solving Courts,” July 1999, National Institute of Justice Journal, www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/therapeutic-jurisprudence-and-emergence-problem-solving-courts.
This article is reprinted from the February, 2025 issue of Washington State Bar News with the permission of the Washington State Bar Association. Any other use of this material without the express written permission of the Washington State Bar Association is prohibited.