[WSBAPT] Note about King County Ex Parte - Regular vs Expedited service

[Brent Williams-Ruth]

Greetings List Members -

Just wanted to share a recent experience I had and talk about Ex Parte Via
the Clerk in King County.

I filed an Ex Parte request opening probate on Monday the 21st (the Will
previously delivered and showed up in KC Script). I just got the email back
from the Clerk's office.  A judge signed the order on Tuesday the 22nd, it
was received and stamped filed by the Clerk on the 23rd, and I got the
Letters Testamentary stamped filed today, the 24th.

I am not complaining, just showing the timeline.

Now, this was sent REGULAR service, not expedited.

For those who do not know, Expedited is NOT WORTH THE MONEY and can
sometimes lead to actual delays.  Allow me to give a very simplified
explanation as to how it works (as told to me by a Clerk's office
employee).

When you submit regular Ex parte, all of the documents, files, etc. go into
a single pile....Judges, Commissioners, anyone who has time to help bring
that pile down (in addition to those scheduled to work it) can simply log
into the system and run through as many orders as they have time for.  This
recent case of mine was signed by Judge Kristin Ballinger who is in Kent on
the "General Trials" docket. My guess is she had time on Tuesday afternoon
and so she just went to work to help clear out some Ex Parte things.

Now, what happens with Expedited is that the PROMISE FOR SERVICE is only
that the Clerk will deliver it to a Judge within 15 minutes of being
received. That is it. There is no guarantee that the judicial officer will
get to it.  Real story of mine (and why I called to learn about this) is
that I had a year-end probate and a client wanted to get it going before
they left for the start of new years. So I paid the fee for expediting. It
was taken to a Judicial officer that didn't get to it and then went on
vacation.

Why is this a problem? Because my case was NO LONGER PART OF THE GENERAL
STACK available for anyone who may have time - and my request SAT on that
desk until said judicial officer returned from their time off.

All this to say - I have never used expedited since that time and I
actually did a calculation of total days from submission to return of
Letters since January and the average was 3.7 days.

I wanted to share this just in case anyone out there had a misconception
(like I did) about what expedited service meant and the potential
drawbacks.

*Brent Williams-Ruth* (pronouns: he/him)
*Attorney-At-Law*

*Law Offices of Brent Williams-Ruth, **a division of BWR Consulting, PLLC*

*Physical Address: 500 S 336th Street, Suite 214; Federal Way, WA 98003*

*Mailing Address: **PO BOX 3319; Federal Way, WA 98063 *

Office/Scheduling Phone: (253) 285-7751

For All Meetings & Scheduling: info at williams-ruthlaw.com

e-mail <Brent at Williams-RuthLaw.com> / website
<http://www.williams-ruthlaw.com/> / facebook
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