M. Brett Buckley
Brett Buckley JD ’80 is the recipient of the 2019 Washington State Bar Association’s (WSBA) Outstanding Judge Award. Buckley is the presiding district court judge for Thurston County. “I am proud to contribute to and be a member of an organization that has a laser focus on its mission of ‘Serving Justice through Serving People.’ That mission statement served as an impetus for our procedural justice initiative in which we invited out-of-state evaluators to observe how judges and staff relate to all community members, with the aim of uncovering any problematic overt or implicit bias issues,” he says. His court recently created another program, the Court in Schools Initiative, that schedules actual small claims calendars in Thurston County high schools with the goal of showing students how the judicial branch operates. The court is also working to live stream all its proceedings. “The public is better served when the people doing the public’s work do so in the most transparent manner possible,” says Buckley.