Stockwell Law Firm 2.0 [Now with More Terrifying Practice Skills]
SLF is up and running again. After two years as a prosecutor at the city attorney's office here in Seattle, I'm salty and ready to tear up some of these cookie-dough civil defense attorneys. When I left, I went largely to gain much-needed jury trial experience. And I got it in larger quantities than I imagined possible.
I did a baker's dozen of trials over there. The thing to understand about the Seattle City Attorney's Office (SCAO), Seattle Municipal Court (SMC), and the Department of Public Defense (DPD) is this, in my humble opinion, each is out to eat your lunch it its own specific way. SCAO, Criminal Division, (where I worked) in my opinion, burns its newer prosecutors out through a process of offering them up as cannon fodder for DPD and SMC to shoot at. SMC, has some good fair judges, and in my opinion, several that put prosecutors in their crosshairs for fun. (See this recent Reddit board for some people's reactions to Judge Pooja Vadaddi (https://www.reddit.com/r/SeattleWA/comments/1bh3m57/shes_a_radical_seattle_city_attorneys_office/) DPD, (see in my opinion grooms Ivy League true believers that are young and inexperienced enough to be susceptible to indoctrination. For that matter, the population of Seattle, does not really care about misdemeanor crime as the citizens appears to be in a race to out leapfrog each in order to win the title of most sensitive citizen.
In other words, city prosecutors in Seattle face: a largely annoyed bench at SMC; a defense bar at DPD that spends its days and nights plotting the demise of the entire system; superiors that view you as expendable; and an apathetic jury pool that disbelieves that crime exists at all in Seattle.
In short, I've spent the last two years going to trial at least once every other month. I've been proving cases beyond a reasonable doubt to jurors that don't care, against weaponized defense attorneys, and in front of judges that salivate at the proposition of seeing the prosecutors fall on their faces. To put a bow on top, there are jury nullification advocates at the front door of SMC every trial morning trying to brow beat potential jurors into acquitting before they've ever heard one piece of evidence. That is the steepest of steep slopes. I'm looking forward to a nice and easy preponderance of the evidence burden of proof, and facing civil defense attorneys with little to no actual jury trial experience.
At this point, I believe I can prove any case in a civil trial, even a weak one, and I'm dying to take one to trial and get a seven-figure verdict. Game on employment defense bar.
Christopher J. Stockwell has been one of the best employment lawyers in Seattle for nearly a decade representing workers in a wide variety of employment claims and disputes, primarily discrimination and wrongful termination actions. Call for a free consultation.
