King v. Pierce County Superior Court

I've been to both in the last week for settlement conferences, neither of which resulted in settlement.

Here's the breakdown:

Pierce County Superior Court--110 miles roundtrip, 4:00 pm settlement conference two counties away

King County Superior Court--42 miles roundtrip, 1:30 settlement conference

Pierce County Superior Court--$2.50 to park for 2 hours

King County Superior Court--$14.00 to park for 3.5 hours

Pierce County Superior Court--judge is a criminal judge, has not had a civil trial in 5 years

King County Superior Court--ok actually it was a District Court judge, but still valid for this since it's in the same building. She does civil trials.

Pierce County Superior Court--sad concrete building, unfriendly and definitley not helpful security staff, one of whom thought I had a tape measure in my bag after it went through the scanner. I didn't, but are those not allowed?

King County Superior Court--gorgeous downtown building with automatic revolving doors and circular marble lobby for the elevators.

Pierce County Superior Court--arrive in the courtroom, which is empty except for plaintiff and his attorney, and the clerk. Judge not there, and my defense counsel nowhere to be found. Sit down awkwardly alone in one of the rows and realize my shoe is broken.

King County Superior Court--arrive with our defense counsel, having met at his office and walked over (doubly nice because I didn't have to figure out where to go in the courthouse cause he knew). However, sat through 30 minutes of random district court crap. Name change, name change, bench warrant, restraining order, bench warrant, bench warrant, name change, non-English speaking name change that has to be rescheduled, and a guy coming too late to be heard. Finally get to the settlement conference 1/2 hour late.

Pierce County wins for ease and cheapness of parking, and speedy realization that the case isn't going to settle so let's all go home. Loses for judge who doesn't know civil cases well, and sheer distance and maddening traffic.

King County wins for beautiful surroundings and an excuse to get downtown. Also for friendly, patient judge. Loses for parking nightmare and wasting my time watching them deal with mundane civil and criminal stuff before they get to me.

Here's the parking situation today. I was running late, traffic had been bad, and I got confused as to which side of the library the office is on. So I decided I should just park, and it would be easier to find on foot. Pull into a garage, and have to park on the roof. The floors are lettered, starting with A, and I had to park on P. I had to go up that many ramps and circle each floor. Ugh. Then, to get out there's a sketchy elevator that ends down at a sketchy deli.

On the way out, I accident went down the up ramp. Could have been killed if someone was coming the other way. Lucky for me it was late in the day and no one was probably very interested in parking on the roof. But I had to take a picture of the arrows on the ground, because they were distinctly unhelpful in helping find the exit.

Luckily I made it home, to dance class, to the grocery store and home again without further incident.