Judicial Questionnaire – 2026 Revision
Candidate Info
Candidate Name: Mike Diaz
Position Sought: Washington Supreme Court
Are you an incumbent for this position? Non-incumbent
Home Legislative District: 43rd
Campaign Info
Campaign Manager or Point of Contact: Will Kelly
List social media sites: judgemikediazforjustice on FaceBook and Instagram
Part I – Candidate Background
1. Please describe your qualifications, education, employment, past community and civic activity, as well as any other relevant experience.
By way of summary, I earned my bachelor’s degree magna cum laude from the University of Notre Dame. I then was a graduate student at Princeton University, studying classical philosophy for two years. I earned my law degree from Cornell Law School, where I served on the Cornell International Law Journal, was an officer in the Public Interest Law Union and Latino/a Law Student Association.
I began my legal career in private practice, first as an associate at the international law firm Fulbright & Jaworski LLP in Houston, Texas, then at the litigation boutique in Seattle, litigating complex commercial and white-collar criminal defense matters. I did significant pro bono activities at these firms.
Heeding a call to public service, I then spent a decade as a federal civil rights lawyer at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Seattle (“DOJ”), where I founded the office’s Civil Rights Program and investigated and/or prosecuted a wide variety of civil rights matters.
Notably, I was, from its inception, the lead line attorney in the investigation, negotiations, and implementation of the “historic” consent decree involving the Seattle Police Department (SPD), which we found had engaged in a pattern of constitutional violations. Through groundbreaking developments in policy, training, and oversight mechanisms—while respecting labor rights, this case revolutionized the manner in which the City of Seattle oversees its officers’ use of force and non-biased policing practices. This process has and will continue to result in a safer, fairer Seattle.
Among the honors I received while at DOJ, I received the EOUSA Director’s Award for “extraordinary professional achievements and excellence,” among the highest awards given to the nationwide United States Attorney community; the Thomas C. Wales Performance Award, the highest award given at the Seattle U.S. Attorney’s Office; and the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Division’s Distinguished Service Award, among the highest awards in that Division.
In 2016, President Obama nominated me to be a U.S. District Court Judge for the Western District of Washington, which sat dormant and was returned to the President in January 2017 without U.S. Senate action.
In January 2018, Governor Jay Inslee appointed me to the King County Superior Court, where I presided over approximately four dozen trials in all types of criminal, civil and domestic matters. I also served a term as the Chief Judge of King County’s Patricia H. Clark Children & Family Justice Center, and served on the Court’s Executive, Budget, Rules and History committees.
In 2022, Governor Inslee then appointed me to my present position on the Washington Court of Appeals, Division I, where I have authored over 200 opinions in all types of matters.
I am also an Adjunct Professor of Law at the Seattle University School of Law, where I currently teach a course on Washington Constitutional Law, have taught a civil rights course, and supervised independent studies students and externs. Until recently, I was on faculty at the DOJ’s National Advocacy Center, the Washington State Judicial Institute, and the Washington State Judicial College.
I am also currently the co-chairperson of the Washington State Supreme Court’s Interpreter and Language Access Commission and am a Member of the Washington Commission on Judicial Conduct.
As an attorney, I regularly volunteered at the King County Bar Association's Neighborhood Legal Clinic Program's Spanish Language Legal Clinic, which I later helped merge with the El Centro de La Raza clinic. I served on KCBA's Pro Bono Service Committee, was Chair of its Neighborhood Legal Clinic Program’s Advisory Committee, and Chair of its Spanish Clinic Subcommittee.
2. What prompted you to run for this office?
I immigrated from Lima, Peru to Seattle as a child. My parents, five siblings and I settled in the welcoming and then-working-class neighborhood of Ballard and, in middle school, moved down to the White Center/Burien area. My family spoke Spanish exclusively at home. I was the first lawyer in my large Latino family, which includes around 60 first cousins and dozens of nephews and nieces. I believe the rule of law underpins the opportunities my family benefited from.
I want to perpetuate and improve upon the lynchpin of our justice system: ethical, objective, and fair arbiters who are entrusted to resolve our gravest and most intractable disputes. I hope to apply the law fairly and vigorously to build the kind of community I grew up in, where all people have opportunities to flourish.
3. What do you believe are the most important qualifications for a judge or justice?
I appeared before huge variety of federal judges, am myself in my ninth (9th) year of judging, and appreciate the following: (1) “smart” judges who can issue spot quickly; (2) hardworking who read everything who the parties present to them; (3) collaborative judges who work with the parties or even their fellow judges to resolve disagreements practically; (4) by temperament calm, respectful, patient, in a word courteous, in a way that makes people feel heard and getting the best out of people, while still; (5) following the law and ruling decisively. Finally, I also appreciate judges who give back to the various communities we serve.
4. What priorities are you seeking to address with your campaign?
I want to improve the access to justice for all persons. There are many structural barriers to some people’s entry into our justice system. I enforced various federal laws requiring equal access to the judicial system itself. Specifically, my office reached agreements to improve the Snohomish and King County Superior Courts’ disability and interpreter programs, respectively. The agreement with King County resulted in over 400 persons, who were limited English proficient (LEP), receiving interpreter services (in a sample 18-month period) who otherwise would not have. Similarly, we investigated and identified obstacles to the deaf and hard of hearing’s participation in hearings in Snohomish County. We created policies and practices to ensure those important members of our community could fully participate. We then built off our experiences with those courts to make material amendments to the State’s general rules covering persons with disabilities (GR 33), and to help develop model LEP policies. It was literally my career as a federal civil rights attorney to identify and correct such injustices in our system of justice.
Another injustice is the prohibitive cost of civil litigation. We must ensure that pro se individuals have the time and available resources to pursue their actions. We must be efficient courts, which permit the parties to resolve their disputes expeditiously. And we must advocate for additional funding for civil legal foundations. I can commit that I will continue to do so, if elected as a justice.
Finally, outside the courtroom but still law-related, I believe that the events from Ferguson, Missouri (in 2014) to Minneapolis (in 2020) have shown that the most significant barrier to access to justice today may be the initial point of entry to the criminal judicial system: the misunderstandings, complexities, and injustices of some individual police encounters with racial minorities. I believe my years of experience and work with the SPD as a federal civil rights lawyer have given me unique insight to this barrier. I understand, in a visceral way, the perceptions and obstacles the police and diverse communities face in engaging in productive dialogue. As an attorney, I worked with both law enforcement and leading members of the affected communities to improve policy, training, and oversight mechanisms, which have made this initial point of contact in many ways more fair, safer for all involved, and ultimately more appropriate for the aspirations of our justice system. As a trial court judge, and chief of the juvenile division, I continued to bring together, e.g., law enforcement, prosecutors, and juvenile justice advocates to continue that conversation, now at the earliest point of possible intervention. We saw remarkable reductions in detention and outcomes generally.
5. What is the code of conduct for your campaign?
It's multi-prong. We commit to create a workplace that is free of harassment, bullying, and intimidation; that is respectful of the dignity of each person; that is truthful in all our communications; and that never forgets it is the mission to support our republic and our state.
Part II – Access to Justice
1. If elected, how will you work to improve access to justice, particularly for communities and constituencies that do not understand the American legal system?
As a judge, I have sought to improve systemic access to our state judiciary through my work as Co-Chair of the Interpreter and Language Access Commission (ILAC) and a Commissioner on the Minority and Justice Commission, whose mission is to improve access to the Courts for those persons who are limited English proficient and to eliminate bias in the court system, respectively. ILAC recently drafted and successfully advocated for a statute (HB 1174) which modernizes courts’ interpreter practices. I would continue to Co-Chair ILAC.
As to my “day job”—first as a Superior Court Judge and now as an appellate court judge—my first duty is to resolve disputes before me substantively and procedurally fairly by following the law. But, of equal importance, in each of the many small and big decisions I make, I try to ensure the parties feel heard, regardless of their race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation. Procedural justice enhances equal access to justice for all. However, given my work as a federal civil rights attorney, I am sensitized to circumstances in which full equity in access is lacking. I attempt to ensure fairness consistent with the law, whether that means securing a competent interpreter for immigrants, ensuring access to assisted listening devices for persons with disabilities, or explaining matters to all parties simply and clearly.
Outside of court, judges have an opportunity to teach, mentor, and meet with students and community groups to advance the discussion. Productive collaboration and dialogue are essential to enhancing equal access to justice.
2. Is Washington relying too much on court fees to cover the cost of operating our judicial system? How do you believe our courts should be funded?
Washington has made great progress in this regard, minimizing court fees and eliminating nearly all discretionary legal financial obligations in criminal matters. However, more work is needed because the cost of participating in the court process including especially civil litigation is a serious risk to the legitimacy of the courts. We must ensure that pro se individuals have the time and available resources to pursue their actions. We must be efficient courts, which permit the parties to resolve their disputes expeditiously. And we must advocate for additional funding for civil legal foundations. I intend on working on all these matters, if I am lucky enough to be elected a justice.
3. Would you, if elected, bring restorative justice as a goal to your court room? If yes, describe how that could look.
Restorative justice is wonderful for our trial courts. As a trial court judge and chief of the juvenile division in King County, I worked hard to support diversion programs–including restorative practices–to ensure our Court deployed care teams with extraordinary experience and training and focused the attention of the Court on the most serious cases or the most challenged juveniles who persistently reoffend, in a caring, comprehensive and scientific way, with results that were at times “miraculous” (as stated by one defense counsel), in terms of the number of kids detained, the protection of public safety, and the rehabilitation of the youth. Referrals from law enforcement for juvenile crimes dropped 37% in 2020 as compared to 2016 and filings by the prosecutor were down a nearly identical margin. Admissions by judges to detention outpaced those drops, decreasing nearly 57% in 2020 as compared to 2016, without a hint of a systemic rise in subsequent referrals. In the third quarter of 2021, the average daily population of those under juvenile court jurisdiction dropped to 13.9 youth, in a county of approximately 250,000 youth. To put this in context, this drop represents a 73% decrease since 2016 and at least an 88% decrease since 2000, when the Court took over juvenile probation, and over 215 kids stayed in detention each night. Of all racial groups, Black youth experienced the biggest drop in admissions, with 55% fewer admissions to detention in 2020 than in 2019. These are the kinds of changes judges can bring by looking critically at their own processes and practices, while collaborating with all stakeholders, including in innovative restorative practices.
4. What ideas can you offer to make our judicial system more open, transparent, and responsive?
We must continue to open up the courts to all people, no matter your race, ethnicity, gender, in a way that continues to build on the progress we have made since the State’s founding. Again, I am currently the co-chairperson of the Washington Supreme Court’s Interpreter and Language Access Commission, which was created to ensure language justice in our courts. This means developing policies, training, and accountability for courts to provide interpreter and translation services in our courts, so that a person regardless of their national origin or English proficiency can fully participate in our court. There are many courts who are eager to replace human interpreters with AI translation services. My job as chair of that commission is to convene the various stakeholders: interpreters, court administrators, judges, lawyers, academics, and most importantly the end user, i.e., the person who is limited English proficient, as my parents were. We break down novel issues into component parts, analyze them, discuss them collaboratively, and work towards our shared goal of open courts accessible to all, where technology is a tool, not the end goal.
5. What are your thoughts on how our courts could permanently incorporate virtual options for court hearings?
In January 2018, Governor Jay Inslee appointed me to the King County Superior Court, where I presided over approximately four dozen trials in all types of criminal, civil and domestic matters. Two years later, I served on leadership at the court, namely, a term as the Chief Judge of King County’s Patricia H. Clark Children & Family Justice Center, just after the pandemic hit. We immediately went to nearly an all virtual court, so young people and their families did not have to risk their health in traveling to court in Capitol Hill from as far as Auburn. When the pandemic subsided, we kept virtual courts for most hearings, so the court could keep a light touch on kids, other than those who needed more attention. It is and should be an option to maximize court users' participation in our system.
6. Justice delayed is justice denied, what are your thoughts on how to catch up on the current backlog of cases awaiting trail? Additionally what changes to the current court system would you implement to ensure speedy justice?
I agree wholeheartedly with the premise of this question. As in the preceding question, following the pandemic, the court had a tremendous backlog. We worked with all justice system stakeholders and reduced the backlog by prioritizing the cases that had to come to trial. We were the first division to return to typical levels of backlog.
To ensure speedy justice, the court will have to continue to engage in a dialogue to ensure fully funding our public defense system and civil legal aid organizations. We also must train judges, as I did at King County Superior Court, how to be efficient judicial officers.
7. What judicial reforms do you support to achieve greater equity and inclusion for BIPOC individuals in our communities?
It was literally my career as a federal civil rights attorney to identify and correct the injustices in our system of justice against BIPOC communities. Again, I was, from its inception, the lead line attorney in the investigation, negotiations, and implementation of the “historic” consent decree involving the Seattle Police Department (SPD), which we found had engaged in a pattern of constitutional violations, and in particular SPD's troubled non-biased policing practices. We worked with community to develop policies, training, data collection, to improve equity and inclusion for those communities the SPD serves.
In my "free time" as an attorney, and from the moment I received my license, I regularly volunteered at our local bar association's legal clinics, and more specifically its Spanish Language Legal Clinic, which I later helped merge with the El Centro de La Raza clinic. I served on KCBA's Pro Bono Service Committee, was Chair of its Neighborhood Legal Clinic Program’s Advisory Committee, and Chair of its Spanish Clinic Subcommittee. These organizations provided free legal services to BIPOC individuals, who were struggling to access our systems.
Now as a judge, again, I am currently the co-chairperson of the Washington State Supreme Court’s Interpreter and Language Access Commission, ensuring language justice in our courts. I train judges on how to create welcoming courts for those communities, even if interpretation may show proceedings. I have helped pass state laws which improve such access, particularly since our federal government has given up enforcing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as I did as a federal civil rights lawyer.
By typing my name below, I declare under penalty of perjury the foregoing is true and correct.
Printed Name: J. Michael Diaz
Date: 05/05/2026
