An election ratings guide for LA's judges can’t shake bias allegations. How do you decide your vote?

Los Angeles County elections of Superior Court judges are notoriously hard to vote on, but concerns about a committee that issues ratings on each candidate are making it harder.

This election cycle, 28 candidates are vying for 10 seats on the L.A. County Superior Court, which you can learn about in our Voter Game Plan. These are people who could, if elected, end up hearing things like your divorce or traffic ticket dispute.

But it’s a race with notoriously little information, which is why the L.A. County Bar Association (LACBA) — a private, volunteer membership group unaffiliated with the state bar — assesses candidates each judicial election to help you figure out who could be fit for the bench, with ratings ranging from "not qualified," "qualified," "well qualified" and "exceptionally well qualified.”

A good rating is highly sought after and it can help a candidate get more endorsements and votes, but some candidates say a bad rating can sink a campaign before it begins.

This year, for one seat, LACBA rated both candidates running as “not qualified.” It’s renewed concerns the reviewers have a bias against attorneys with certain backgrounds, such as women, people of color and non-prosecutors like public defenders. Of the committee’s 38 members, only five have current public defender backgrounds. It leaves voters with more questions than answers.

A ‘not qualified’ candidate’s perspective

Recently, a reader wrote into us asking what they should do about the seat where both candidates were rated as not qualified.

We’ll try to answer that question in a bit, but first let’s take a look at why multiple candidates are saying LACBA’s whole review process is flawed.

You can learn more about the committee’s process here. In a nutshell, LACBA asks for at least 75 references, details about past employment and case history, and it spends weeks interviewing people who know the lawyer to determine whether they may fit within the association’s standards for judicial fitness. It culminates in an interview with the candidate about their findings before ratings are issued.

The attributes considered in the evaluations process.

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A screenshot of a LACBA presentation via chair Susan Schwartz

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Kim Repecka, one of the two candidates deemed “not qualified” in the Office No. 124 race, is a public defender who’s been practicing law for more than 11 years. According to emails reviewed by LAist, the committee told her before her interview they received information during the investigation that Repecka was “overzealous, rude to opposing counsel, the court, and court reporters, a ‘true believer’, and overly emotional.”

She later learned some of the claims came from opposing counsel and a judge during her time in criminal court.

The committee also told Repecka they had information that indicated “a limited breadth of experience” in terms of the cases. Repecka felt like she’d be able to show that she’d dealt with many different areas of law, but the other issues felt ambiguous.

“The claim of being too emotional, kind of felt like it had a basis in sexism. I certainly do sometimes feel emotionally about my cases,” Repecka said. “[But] I don't think that's a thing that people should not find desirable in judges, provided their judgment is not clouded by being emotional.”

When Repecka appealed her “not qualified” rating to the full committee, she says someone also made suggestions about her being too young to be a judge and that she may want to wait. They also brought up a 2022 Facebook post she made (at the request of her client) that included her concerns about the prosecutor’s conduct during jury selection and trial, and concerns about police brutality.

At the end of the appeals process, Repecka’s rating stayed the same, with the explanation that the rating was due to her “demeanor, judicial temperament, and professionalism.”

“If they don’t think that people should be upset when they see injustice,” she said, “if they don't think that judges or defense attorneys should be upset when they see unethical behavior, then I guess I don't have the temperament that they want.”

Laurie Levenson, a law professor at Loyola Law School who previously served on that committee, says that temperament is a legitimate criteria when looking for a good judge. Patience and the ability to listen well are key.

“We're looking for people that you think would be fair on your case,” Levenson said.

More candidates describe red flags in interviews

Repecka’s experience brings up a theme common to many concerns. LACBA’s evaluation committee is made up mostly of prosecutors and corporate lawyers, while many issued lower ratings are public defenders. The stark divide between the two is often reflected in the adversarial nature of courtrooms.

George Turner, a Black deputy public defender running for Office No. 39 who got a “qualified” rating, says his interview was “less than professional” and that questions “teetered on racism.” Two things came up about what he stands for: Turner’s desire to represent his community and to see the bench be more reflective of the people who are in courts.

“One of the interviewers said, ‘well, you know, Black people only make up about 9% of the population of Los Angeles County,” Turner recalled. “‘Are you saying that I would be a better representation because I'm white?’”

The question left Turner taken aback since he didn’t mention race specifically. Ericka Wiley, another deputy public defender running in Office No. 48 who was rated “qualified,” says a prosecutor asked her repeatedly why she’s used mental health diversion in settling cases. (Those programs steer people living with mental illness and drug use issues into treatment instead of incarceration.) Wiley believes this person didn’t know what she was talking about.

“It was very frustrating for me that I was being questioned about what I do and I was going to be rated by someone who had a complete lack of understanding of what's involved in my work,” Wiley said.

Wiley and Turner did not appeal their ratings.

Former LACBA board member Merete Rietveld is also critical of the committee. She says there is an incentive for lawyers interested in being appointed to the bench themselves to join the evaluations committee, and to “tap into that network of people involved in the judicial selection process.” The evaluations committee is also not regulated by outside sources, so people can volunteer for it with only a few years of legal experience.

Did 2022 concerns change anything?

In 2022, LAist ran a story where candidates raised similar concerns of bias in the ratings process against women, people of color and non-prosecutors.

The story prompted candidate Rhonda Haymon, a deputy public defender running for Office No. 12, to ask the committee this election if they’d made any changes since then. Haymon says she did not hear back and did not submit her information for consideration. LACBA evaluated Haymon without her input, as is their rules, using whatever information they could find. The committee deemed her “not qualified.”

LAist did speak to a number of candidates who were fine with their ratings.

Office No. 130 candidate Christopher Darden, an attorney who’s worked in both prosecution and defense, was rated “well qualified.” And while he’s happy with that rating and generally didn’t have issues with his interviews, he noticed how the committee gave him, and his opponent with less experience, the same rating.

“I do have a problem with a system that equates 44 years of experience like mine with 12 years of doing nothing more than being a prosecutor,” Darden said. “I don't feel like I was discriminated against or treated unfairly but I have a concern that public defenders weren't treated the same way that deputy district attorneys were.”

Candidates for Office No. 97, former deputy public defender La Shae Henderson, who received “qualified” and deputy district attorney Sam Abourched, who received “well qualified,” also felt their interviews went normally.

LACBA’s response

LAist asked LACBA to respond to criticisms, and we received this letter from committee chair Susan Schwartz:

In line with the committee’s process, Schwartz says that she’s not at liberty to respond to specific questions on candidates, but says that their evaluations were consistent and fair. Those interviews and findings are kept confidential.

Schwartz said separately in an interview that the subcommittees which conduct the reviews don’t evaluate candidates against each other, so there can be times where both candidates get low ratings — as is the case with Office No. 124 — or when both get the same rating.

Schwartz also said after our investigation came out in 2022, the committee added another defense lawyer to its ranks and rolled out an implicit bias training.

So what can you do with your vote?

The main takeaway is to use the LACBA ratings cautiously and make your own decisions.

Our Voter Game Plan includes links to candidates’ endorsements groups like political organizations and other judges. You can look up attorneys registered to practice law in California through the State Bar website. It will show you their license status, contact information, and whether the attorney has been disciplined.

You could also write someone in. The deadline for new candidates to officially launch a write-in campaign has passed, but you can always put a name of someone you’d like to see on the bench. Unfortunately, there’s no list of “well-qualified” attorneys on standby. This will require some extra research on your part.

In the case of the Office No. 124 race, where both candidates were deemed “not qualified,” Schwartz admitted it’s going to be a hard choice for everyone. As for her, she’ll be consulting outside tools like Vote 411 to make her decision, which is a resource from the League of Women Voters.

Laurie Levenson, the Loyola law professor, says she gets questions about voting on judges all the time. As a former member of LACBA’s evaluations committee, she still uses the ratings they put out. But she says sometimes they don’t end up sharing answers voters want.

“We know that the L.A. Times does a vet and they make their endorsements. We know that newspapers will evaluate [candidates] other than the L.A. Times,” Levenson said. “For example, the Metropolitan News focuses more on the legal community, and then there's the L.A. Daily Journal.”

Levenson says there’s a few ways to think about the criteria for judges: The level of experience, openness to all members of the community, and a potential to add to a diverse bench that serves everyone’s interests.