New Washington State Judicial Outreach Liaison Named

Olympia, WA – The Washington Traffic Safety Commission is proud to announce the Honorable Adam Eisenberg as the new Judicial Outreach Liaison (JOL) for Washington state. In this part-time role, Judge Eisenberg will provide peer-to-peer judicial education on legal issues related to impaired driving for trial court and tribal court judges in Washington.
“I am very excited to work with judges throughout our state,” Judge Eisenberg explained. “Sadly, we continue to be plagued by impaired driving, and each passing year brings an increase in the number of DUIs and collisions caused by drivers under the influence of multiple substances such as cannabis, fentanyl, methamphetamine and other drugs.”
As the Washington state JOL, Judge Eisenberg will update judges on changes to evidentiary rules and legal procedures that affect how blood results and other forensic evidence is introduced in court. He will also provide information on evidence-based sentencing practices, assist trial courts that operate DUI-focused calendars, and serve as an educational resource for the 29 in-state tribal courts.

Judge Eisenberg follows in the footsteps of the Honorable Scott Bergstedt (retired), who served as the previous Washington state JOL.

Judge Eisenberg grew up on a small cattle ranch outside Boulder, Colorado. After earning a journalism degree from the University of Colorado, he worked for seven years as a Los Angeles-based entertainment journalist. There, he interviewed a variety of filmmakers and celebrities including George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Sigourney Weaver, Tom Cruise and Harrison Ford; and his writings appeared in newspapers and magazines in the United States, Japan and France.

A career change led him to law school in Seattle, and he earned his Juris Doctor from University of Washington in 1992. Since then, he has served as a criminal prosecutor, a civil trial attorney, a court commissioner and an elected Seattle Municipal Court (SMC) judge from 2017 to January 2023.

While on the SMC bench, Judge Eisenberg was the judicial sponsor for the Domestic Violence Intervention Project (DVIP), a collaborative, community-based program that serves as an alternative to jail by providing individualized treatment to break the cycles of abuse and trauma. He was also co-director of the Seattle Youth Traffic Court, a restorative justice court in which high school students hand down sentences for teens who have gotten tickets in Seattle.

Currently, Judge Eisenberg is an associate teaching professor and Director of the Externship Program at the University of Washington School of Law. He teaches a variety of courses including Museum Law, serves as a judge pro tempore for the Tulalip Tribal Court and municipal and district courts in King and Snohomish Counties, and is the author of the nonfiction book, A Different Shade of Blue: How Women Changed the Face of Police Work.

The Judicial Outreach Liaison program began in 1998 as part of the American Bar Association’s efforts to provide trial judges with access to current and evidence-based practices to assist them in their work on the bench. The program consists of three National Judicial Fellows and regional and state JOLs. More than 25 states have Judicial Outreach Liaisons.