Chief Judge Lee F. Satterfield reappointed to a second term

The DC Judicial Nomination Commission today announced that it had reappointed Chief Judge Lee F. Satterfield, a life-long DC resident, to a second four-year term as Chief Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia

“I am gratified that the Commission has shown its continued confidence in my skills and leadership as chief judge. This job is not an easy one, but it is incredibly rewarding to be able to improve the administration of justice and the services and programs we offer the residents of my hometown,” said Chief Judge Satterfield. “With the incredibly talented judiciary and court managers at the Superior Court, I am confident that we can continue to make improvements to a court that is already one of the best in the country.”

Under Chief Judge Satterfield’s leadership, the DC Superior Court --

• dramatically expanded the community court initiative, which has shown real success in reducing recidivism among misdemeanants;

• improved the jury duty program in Superior Court by implementing a new Jury Management System which has significantly improved juror yield and juror utilization rates;

• dramatically expanded services and programming for juveniles, including 3 new Balanced and Restorative Justice Drop-In Centers and a program for juveniles with mental health issues;

• expanded coverage for housing issues by establishing a Housing Conditions Calendar and assigning a second judge to hear Landlord Tenant cases;

• expanded services for unrepresented parties by creating a number of resource centers staffed by volunteer attorneys, holding two separate trainings for judges in how to best adjudicate cases involving self-represented persons, working with the Joint Committee on Judicial Administration to make changes to the DC Code of Judicial Conduct so that judges can more effectively interact with self-represented parties; and establishing the guardianship assistance program to ensure that vulnerable adults under court supervision are getting all court-ordered services and that their needs are being met;

• expanded the ‘trial date certainty’ initiative from Civil Division into Criminal Division, such that not a single Felony 2 trial was rescheduled due to lack of availability of a judge; • established a ‘High Technology Courtroom’ to evaluate the ways in which technology could assist trial procedures for judges, attorneys, parties and most of all, jurors; and,

• oversaw the implementation of the new law extending marriage license eligibility to same-sex couples, reaching out via media to ensure that the courthouse was orderly and able to handle all parties seeking licenses in the first days of the new law wherein filings were more than ten times usual levels.

Satterfield is known for seeking out comments not just from his leadership team, but from employees at all levels in settings both formal and informal, members of the public at various community events, and ANC Commissioners in periodic meetings he holds.


Biography:

In November 1992, President George Bush appointed Lee F. Satterfield to the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. He has served in the Criminal, Civil and Family Divisions, and the Domestic Violence Unit. In 1994, while serving in the Criminal Division, Judge Satterfield was one of the Court’s first Drug Court judges. Between January 1998 and December 1999, Judge Satterfield served as Presiding Judge of the Domestic Violence Unit. From October 2001 to December 2005, Chief Judge Satterfield served as Presiding Judge of the Court’s Family Division. After the enactment of the DC Family Court Act of 2001 in January 2002, Chief Judge Satterfield was designated the first Presiding Judge of the DC Family Court. In that role, he served as Co-Chair of the Citywide Truancy Task Force which launched a Middle School Truancy Court Diversion Program in a District of Columbia Public School in the fall of 2005.Satterfield became a member of the Joint Committee on Judicial Administration – the five-member policy-making body of the DC Courts in 2004. The DC Judicial Nomination Commission initially appointed him Chief Judge in the fall of 2008.

Chief Judge Satterfield was born in the District of Columbia. He graduated from St. John’s College High School in 1976. He graduated from the University of Maryland in 1980 with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and received his Juris Doctor from the George Washington University National Law Center in 1983. After law school, Satterfield worked as a law clerk to the Honorable Paul R. Webber, III, who was an Associate Judge of the DC Superior Court. In 1984, he was appointed an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Columbia. In that position, he served in the appellate, grand jury, misdemeanor and felony sections of the United States Attorney’s Office. In September 1988, Satterfield joined the law firm of Sachs, Greenebaum and Tayler. While in private practice, he handled both civil and criminal matters in Superior Court and in the federal courts of Virginia, Maryland and Alabama. In 1991, he left private practice and returned to the United States Department of Justice as a trial attorney in the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section. In that section, he handled organized crime and labor racketeering crimes in the federal courts of the District of Columbia, Pennsylvania, and Illinois. Chief Judge Satterfield has served on the DC Courts’ Strategic Planning Leadership Council and the Superior Court Rules Committee.

For over twenty years, Chief Judge Satterfield was an adjunct professor at the Catholic University Columbus School of Law where he taught Criminal Trial Practice and Advanced Criminal Procedure. He was a professorial lecturer in the L.L.M. litigation program at the George Washington University National Law Center for four years.