Lawyers Club Endorses Goodman for Judge

[Kate Moser]

A candidate vying for an open seat on the Alameda County Superior Court bench picked up an endorsement from a roomful of attorneys in Oakland this afternoon.

After its candidate forum, the Alameda County Democratic Lawyers Club endorsed Hayward criminal defense attorney Louis Goodman. He beat out John Creighton, a prosecutor in the Alameda County district attorney’s office, and Victoria Kolakowski, an administrative law judge with the California Public Utilities Commission.

The candidates' comments were pretty generic judicial campaign material – with Creighton playing up his prosecutorial experience (“I’ve tried 65 felony cases to jury verdict.”), Goodman emphasizing his experience defending a range of people (“I’ve represented everybody, thousands of people.”), and Kolakowski emphasizing what makes her different from the other two candidates.

A transgendered lesbian who stressed her complex civil litigation experience, Kolakowski, who placed third in the 2008 judicial election, said the bench could use both diversity of practice experience and gender. On the subject of what the three candidates have in common, though, she said:

“All of us are married to wonderful women.”

Meredith Brown, president of the Alameda County Democratic Lawyers Club; Louis Goodman; Victoria Kolakowski; John Creighton; and Guy Bryant, treasurer of the Alameda County Democratic Lawyers Club.