SNOHOMISH COUNTY—When Mary Anderson, candidate for Snohomish County Superior Court Judge, was a young girl two bail bondsmen broke into her home indicating that they saw someone who they were looking for run in. Her mother, being of Mexican descent and struggling with English at the time, was pushed to the ground and Anderson was left, watching in horror, wondering how these individuals could have entered their home without a warrant.
That experience has been seared into her mind all of these years and is one of the greater reasons she decided to practice law.
“I promised myself I would never let this happen to another family,” Anderson told the Lynnwood Times.
Now, after over a decade of practicing law under her own firm, the Guidance of Justice Law Firm, 15-years of real estate experience, and three successful businesses, she plans to take her fight for justice to the next level: As Snohomish County Superior Court Judge.
If elected Anderson’s vision for the Snohomish County courts is a judicial system that serves everyone. As a judge, she promises to provide balanced and informed decisions, rooted in her extensive experience in a variety of legal areas.
An example Anderson gave the Lynnwood Times on how she would make the courts more accessible is to provide more financial assistance to jurors so that everyone can participate in their civic duty regardless of socioeconomic status.
“[Sometimes a] Judge would have to excuse people based on financial hardship where they couldn’t afford to sit on a jury or they had child care and couldn’t afford the child care,” Anderson told the Lynnwood Times. “My thought process is: if we have the same people thinking the same way how can we really make honest, systemic, changes to the judiciary?”
Anderson’s solution is to go to the legislature, if a juror makes less than $40 thousand a year, to request their rate be $100 a day instead of $10 a day, and if they need assistance with childcare request a voucher.
“Right now, the big corporations pay their employees to sit on a jury, to do their civic duty,” said Anderson. “Other people want to do their civic duty they just can’t afford it – they don’t have the resources.”
This results in a jury that doesn’t often reflect the individual being tried, Anderson continued.
“It boils down to diversity of thought. When you see what you want to see you can’t see at all, which is a problem because we want to make sure everyone sees everything from every perspective,” said Anderson. “I really want to be educational and really thoughtful when I become the next judge to make sure everyone is seen and heard, and we have a court system that they trust – just be that bridge to the community.”
Speaking of diversity of thought, Anderson says she is the candidate with the “most diverse experience” representing individuals in civil cases, which encompass more than 66% of Snohomish County court cases.
Through her decades-long law practice most of Anderson’s cases have been civil; from real estate law to consumer protection, to civil rights, class action, personal injury, bankruptcy, and family law.
“We want a judge to have the most diverse experience so that judge can articulate to the attorneys that came before us why we may be ruling the way that we’re ruling,” said Anderson. “And it’s easier to do that when you have diverse, extensive, civil experience like I do.”
In addition to her civil experience Anderson has had her share of criminal matters as well, as a Rule 9 Prosecutor for the City of Seattle and presiding over criminal matters as a Judge Pro Tem in Snohomish County District Court.
Before beginning her practice in law, Anderson worked in the real estate industry for 15 years in various roles including a mortgage broker, realtor, mortgage underwriter, and loan officer. Similar to how the experience of having people break into her home drove her to a career in upholding justice, she informed the Lynnwood Times her interest in real estate stemmed from her parents, both minorities, being unable to purchase their own home in the 1970’s when they relocated to Washington State from San Diego, California.
She told herself, in that moment, that she would purchase her own home. She purchased her first home at the age of 20. After accomplishing this dream she decided she would get into real estate to educate others in how to purchase their home as well, in order to build generational wealth.
Mary Anderson graduated from Seattle University School of Law in 2011. She received her undergraduate from Central Washington University and attended Edmonds College.
She is licensed to practice in Washington State courts, the Western District of Washington, and the United States Supreme Court and is also a founding Board Member of Northwest Consumer Law Center.
Anderson is a former member of the National Association of Consumer Advocates and a past eagle member of the Washington State Association for Justice.
She has had the honor of arguing before the State Supreme Court on two occasions. One of those occasions was a direct review by the court when she was just two years out of law school. The court ruled unanimously in her client’s favor in a 9-0 opinion.
Anderson and her husband of 30 years are proud parents of Navy veteran daughter. When she’s not spending quality time with family she enjoys hiking, cycling, step aerobics, and volunteering at the Housing Justice Projects, the Snohomish County Legal Clinic in its Family Law Clinic, and as a board member with the YMCA/Snohomish County Big Brothers, Big Sisters – Youth Leadership.
Anderson will be speaking about her platform at three upcoming events: at Project Girl Mentoring in Lynnwood on Wednesday, June 26, at 4:30 to 6 p.m., at Luna Mexican Grill in Everett on July 17, from 6 p.m. until 7:30 p.m., and Everett Public Library Evergreen Branch in Everett, on Wednesday, August 14, from 5 p.m. until 6:30 p.m.
Anderson will also be in the upcoming Everett Fourth of July parade and is looking for volunteers to walk with her.
If interested in this opportunity, or other volunteer opportunities for her campaign, visit: https://www.electmaryanderson.com/.
Author: Kienan Briscoe
