LOS ANGELES – Appetizers and elections were on the docket on a Wednesday night at a Beach Cities Democrats Club meeting in Hermosa.
Among the attendees, Complex Litigation attorney Tom Parsekian. But he isn’t here to socialize, he is here to campaign.
“My name is Tom Parsekian and I’m running in seat number 150 for Los Angeles County Superior Court,” says Parsekian to the room of democrats.
A person in the crowd thanks him for coming, he is the only candidate for judgeship that has come to their meeting.
“We do not get to know them and do not know the process and I’m a firm believer that we need to change that,” said one attendee.
Parsekian responds, “Judicial candidates never come and speak to us. What is it about, when we go to the voting booth we never know who to vote for, we don’t know who this people are, and we’d like to know more about that. So it’s become a passion of mine to get out there.”
Parsekian became a member of the state bar in 1991, meeting the only requirement to be a judge in California to have 10 years of experience as a lawyer or as a judge of a court of record.
The state's appellate judges are appointed by the governor but more than 1,500 trial judges in California are elected through a nonpartisan vote. In this primary election 23 candidates are vying for nine contested offices at the L.A. County Superior Court. All offices are open seats.
“The decisions they make are going to be who can you love, where can you travel to, where can you go, what is a crime what isn’t a crime, they determine the law that affects your day to day lives,” says Parsekian.
But how do you begin to know if a judge’s rulings align with your beliefs?
You can start at the L.A. County Bar Association website, where you can find a report evaluating the candidates that submitted themselves to a voluntary screening and rating process, which grades them from not qualified to exceptionally qualified.
“I’ve been qualified by the L.A. County Bar Association to be a judge. We have to give them 75 references including judges, opposing council, co-council, clients, experts we may use” say Parsekian.
Lastly, judges rely heavily on endorsements to signal to voters that they are accepted by reputable politicians and organizations. Judges serve six year terms.
“I must tell you, I try to wake people up to the elections that come and go, please focus on judges, because they affect your day to day lives,” says Parsekian.
He will need more than 50 percent of the vote to win; otherwise, there will be a runoff in November.