New Superior Court Judge Sworn In

Stevens, Pend Oreille, and Ferry County’s newly-appointed Superior Court Judge Thomas Webster was sworn into office on Friday, Jan. 23. “I’m honored,” Webster said, adding that the application process was long and comprehensive. “The governor takes the appointments very seriously,  by that application process. So, I'm very honored that after all of that scrutiny, the governor felt that I was qualified to do this job,” Webster said.

Webster said that he has practiced law for 25 years. “I passed the bar in 2000 in Iowa. I went to school at Cornell College, undergrad with a degree in environmental science and a degree in history. I went to Forestry School to get my master's and determined that I'd rather go to law school. I finished about a third of the Master's International Program in Forestry and changed gears and went to law school with the intention of doing environmental law. Then I went on to Drake University in Des Moines,” he explained.  

While at Drake, Webster said he discovered his love for litigation. “After graduating with loans from undergrad and law school, it's hard to fight the good fight on environmental issues, and make enough money to pay my loans,” he said, which led him into private practice with colleagues instead. He cited criminal defense, family law, and personal injury as the primary areas of litigation he practiced.

Webster said he didn’t have career aspirations to be a judge. “Matter of fact, I had avoided it. We had a very successful practice by the grace of this community,” he stated, referring to Webster Law Office, which he opened on Main Street in Colville in 2009. Webster said he and his family moved to Colville in 2006, and he worked for McGrane & Schuerman doing mainly civil litigation work before opening his own practice.  

“I moved here to be back in this part of the country, because I grew up in Big Fork, Montana. I love the mountains. I love fly fishing, camping, and the muddy waters of the Midwest didn’t give me the same vibe as the clear, beautiful waters that we’ve got in the northwest,” he said. 

It took some persuading his wife though to make the leap from Iowa to Washington, Webster said. At the time, they had their 2-year-old daughter and were pregnant with their son, Liam. Webster explained, “My wife was a third or fourth generation Iowan and no one in her family had ever left. Her grandfather had a century farm; it was a great family life. So, it was a little bit hard to get her convinced to move all the way out here with me. She said, ‘Well, I'll entertain the idea of moving, if we go where there's family.’ My mom was here already and my sister's a podiatrist in town, Dr. McKenna. My wife and her are really good friends, and became even closer after we moved out here. So it worked out well.”

Webster expressed pride in his children’s achievements stating, “My daughter is graduating this year from Cornell College, my alma mater; she's a business major with an art minor. I’m very proud of her. And my son, Liam, just finished his first semester in the honors engineering program in Boise. He was a valedictorian and he just got highest honors in the engineering program for his first semester grades. I couldn't be more proud. My son was born here in Colville; Dr. Shannon delivered him.”

In the beginning, he did general practice, but by 2016, Webster said he settled on focusing on family and personal injury. He sold the Family Law portion of the practice to Sarah Brandon around 2022. “She’s been doing that ever since. She’s awesome; she’s already shown herself to be an asset to the community,” he said.  Webster said he was going to retire in June 2025. He sold the Personal Injury side of his practice to GLP Attorneys.

Webster discussed his retirement attempt, “I found out really quick that none of my friends are retired – I'm 51. I was thinking about real estate for a bit, and I got offered a job to guide fly fishing. I thought that would be a good place for me, but I started thinking more about it and I thought I might start hating my hobby because it becomes a job. Then I had conversations with people in the community about Judge Reeves retiring soon, and I was already stir-crazy and restless. So, when she gave public notice that she was retiring on Dec. 31, I decided to go ahead and put together the application for appointment by the governor.”

Webster explained, “Now I feel like I can focus on public service, which is what I think the bench is. This isn't about a paycheck at all. It's about service at this point and finding fulfillment. That's what I'm hoping this next and last stage of my career is – just serving the community that's been so good to me. I don't want to harp on that…but it’s true.”

He continued, “I take it very seriously, and the pressure is already there; because you want to make sure you're making the right decisions on every case, applying the law correctly, interpreting the facts fairly, without bias. When people are in court, rarely is it something nice or good. It's something that could be cataclysmic, but oftentimes, at the very least, the dark cloud of litigation is emotionally draining. So you have a judge that's the arbiter of the law, and in some situations, when it's a bench trial, they're the arbiter of the facts and the law. And that's a huge responsibility, and it has to be taken seriously. You can't do it in a cavalier manner.”  

Webster stated that he has a lot of support from the other local judges, as well as the community of judges around the state. He reported that he started last week with juvenile and civil dockets. When asked how it was going, he admitted, “It’s stressful, to be honest.” Discussing the transition from litigation to judging, he said, “The role's different, and there's no school for judges. I'm going to Judicial College, which is a week long, but I'm not getting a degree in ‘judge advocacy.’ There is no such thing. So, it's an unusual role in our justice system. You build; you use the experiences of your career and your understanding of the law as you develop that throughout your career. Then, when necessary, you do research just like an attorney does, to check the law and the facts and see how they marry up with the research that you do. You take into consideration both sides, legal and factual arguments. And when you take that all into consideration, you try to come out with the right decision.”

Webster said he aims to be good at what he does, within the confines of the rules of ethics. “As far as what we need in our counties – we’ve got three of the poorest counties in the state. I think Ferry County is ranked number two, last I checked, Pend Oreille is seven and Stevens is nine. We’re at the bottom 10, as far as socioeconomic financial issues in the counties. I want to continue to see that we’re making sure that those who don’t have access to justice – because of socioeconomics or rural living – have just as much access as those with money. I think the biggest challenge we’ve got in our three counties is access to justice,” he said.

He said he aspires to make judges available to the community with informal forums, where judges will be able to answer general questions possibly twice a year, or more often depending on availability. “Most people in our community aren't gonna be in front of a judge in their entire life. The courts are boring and scary. So having the judges be accessible, I think is a potentially very important role that they could play as well. But, I want to emphasize, I do not know how that's going to work. I have to speak to the other judges and talk about how we can make ourselves available in some sort of forum like that,” he said.

Webster shared, “I was always somewhat intimidated by the bench and going and talking to a judge personally about concerns or questions. I want the legal community to know that attorneys should be able to email me and be able to make an appointment and come see me in chambers if they have questions. I'll be open to those, especially as I'm learning how to do the role.” 

He also said he would like to establish mock trial programs in local schools.  “I don't know how they'll map out yet, but I was a mock trialer when I was in law school – thoroughly enjoyed it – and I think that [local schools] could use those programs. I don't know what my scheduling or time permits are gonna be, but I'd like to see if those kind of programs can't be developed.” He explained from personal experience how valuable these programs can be, “The idea of mock trial is to hopefully inspire some of these kids to get involved, and then you're surrounded by peers that are interested in their own futures. And you've got adults around them that can help give them a pathway and guide them and give them inspiration. The beautiful thing about our country is these things are possible. And I'm an example of that. You add all those things together and you're not just doing a mock trial competition where these kids can get some confidence in winning a sport, if you will. You're giving them some life skills. You’re giving them some hope, and that's what I love about that idea.”

Webster conceded, “But, I’m a baby in this whole position. They could be pie in the sky, but those are a couple of things where I thought I could actually affect some change off the bench.”  

Webster also described his personal philosophy regarding his new appointment, “It's a nonpartisan position, and I'm adamant about the fact that it's going to be a strict interpretation of the law, not for any partisan gain. Politics should not enter into the equation. That's the legislative process that should change things…and until they change it, I'm going to be going off of ‘stare decisis,’ which is, the law that's already been laid out in common law. And, the statutory law.”

He continued, “There’s a large part of the population that probably think that judicial activism is the way to see change. I don’t. I think that should be squarely on the shoulders of the legislators. But it's so polarized right now. As far as my job goes, it's not to wade into politics; it's not to wade into partisan politics, especially. It's to apply the law and the facts in a way that's unbiased.”  

Addressing the division in the country, Webster said, “Almost everything I see out in the news is prefaced with, ‘This was a Biden appointed judge,’ ‘This was a Trump appointed judge.’ And it's lending itself towards partisanship and judicial activism potentially. 

“I think people out there are worried about judicial activism, or they're worried that a judge has the power to do something that he doesn’t. And that's where I think judicial activism is wrong. I think that people, in general, should believe that their judges are accountable to following the law.”

Webster said he will be up for re-election in November, stating that he hasn’t run a campaign for himself before, but did work on a grassroots campaign with other parents for school board members in 2020. “That gave me some nuts and bolts into how the political process and campaigns work, but I haven't run one for myself ever. I've never been involved in politics. 

“So, that'll be a little bit new to me, but I'm confident we can run a campaign…I’ll run in 2026, again in 2028, and then I’ll be on for four years, if I am successful,” he said.