Experienced
The Madsen family (left to right) Beau, Sam, Rob, Hillary, Barbara, Don and Eleanor.
Biography
Barbara A. Madsen was popularly elected to the Washington State Supreme Court and sworn into office on January 11, 1993. In 2009, she was unanimously elected by her peers to serve as the 55th Chief Justice of the Washington Supreme Court.
To view the live footage of her 2009 swearing-in as Chief Justice on TVW, follow the link: http://www.tvw.org/media/mediaplayer.cfm?evid=2010010051&TYPE=V&CFID=6648768&CFTOKEN=88823519&bhcp=1
A native of Renton, Washington, Barbara grew up in unincorporated King County with four brothers and graduated from Hazen High School. Family lore has is that Barbara did not speak until she was three because her brothers did all of the talking for her. Once she found her voice, Barbara was quick to stick up for others and to lend her voice to marginalized people in our community.
After graduating from the University of Washington and Gonzaga School of Law, Justice Madsen worked as a public defender in King and Snohomish counties. As a public defender, Barbara quickly learned that more than the criminal charges they faced, many of her clients were in desperate need of housing or other social services, but lacked the skill to access the system. In 1982, she joined the Seattle City Attorney’s Office where her common sense approach earned her the appointment as Special Prosecutor. There she developed the child abuse component of the Family Violence Project at a time when “domestic violence” was an unfamiliar term. In 1988 Mayor Charles Royer appointed Chief Justice Madsen to the Seattle Municipal Court bench. She was the first person to ever serve two consecutive terms in that role. Her concern for victims of violence and their families continued as the Presiding Judge when she worked toward the development of a Domestic Violence Coordinating Committee.
In 1992 she was elected to the Washington Supreme Court. She currently chairs the Supreme Court Personnel Committee, co-chairs the court’s Internal Rules Committee as well as the Budget Committee, the Administrative Committee, and the Washington Court Reports Commission. In addition, Barbara is the chair of the state’s Gender and Justice Commission.
Barbara and her husband Donald live in Pierce County where they raised four children: Sam, Hillary, Eleanor and Beau. Last year, son-in-law Rob joined the family through marriage to Hillary. Their youngest, Beau, will be a freshman at the University of Washington this fall.