Intellectual Property Law

Seattle Times Features Western District Judge Marsha Pechman

By Michael Atkins

It’s not a trademark story, but the Seattle Times today has an in-depth feature on Western District Judge Marsha Pechman and how she is likely to run her courtroom in the City of Seattle v. Professional Basketball Club LLC trial — the case that will decide whether the Seattle Supersonics will immediately be moved to Oklahoma City. The article contains good insights about a judge who also decides plenty of trademark cases. Indeed, Judge Pechman was assigned seven new trademark cases in 2007 alone.

Here are a few highlights:

• Judge Pechman, 57, was appointed by President Clinton in 1999, after serving as a King County Superior Court judge for 11 years.
• Before serving as a judge, she worked as a prosecutor, public defender, and partner in a law firm.
• She is a stickler for courtroom efficiency.
• Chief Judge Robert Lasnik is quoted as saying that Judge Pechman sees judges, not lawyers, as the ones responsible for running cases in their courtrooms.
• She often divides trial time between parties, tracking time spent with arguments, witness testimony, and objections down to the minute.
• One attorney who served on the bipartisan panel that selected her for the Western District is quoted as saying: “First impression, people say she’s tough, but my feeling is ‘God love her’ — everybody is going to be held to the same standard.”
• Another attorney who served on the selection panel stated: “She can come off as stern. I don’t think she is stern at all, but she has a sense of decorum and no patience at all for people trying to showboat. She thinks of the courtroom as a very serious place.”
• Judge Lasnik added that no one works harder than Judge Pechman, and no one is “more committed to getting to the right answer.”

Full post as published by Seattle Trademark Lawyer on June 15, 2008 (boomark / email).