This profile is part of "The Record Stands," a TROH special series.

Every TROH profile is independent commentary assembled from public records. Subjects are not contacted and have no knowledge of these articles. Nothing here predicts or comments on any ruling in any case.

Ask the average Washingtonian how a court commissioner gets the job and you will get a shrug, or worse, a guess about elections. The confusion is understandable. The word "commissioner" is shared by two completely different offices, and a local blog has spent months profiting from the mix-up.

So let us walk through how the process actually works, using the appointment the Clallam County Superior Court announced on September 24, 2024 as the working example. Every step below is drawn from the public record.

Step One: Understand the Office

Brian Parker was appointed Family Law Court Commissioner for the Clallam County Superior Court in Port Angeles. That is a judicial officer position inside the court system. It has nothing to do with the Clallam County Board of Commissioners, the county's elected executive body.

The county's elected commissioners are Mark Ozias, Randy Johnson, and Mike French, per the [county's official roster of elected officials](https://www.clallamcountywa.gov/DocumentCenter/View/14265/Elected-Officials-and-Department-Heads). Parker's name appears nowhere in the [county's election records](https://results.vote.wa.gov/results/20241105/clallam/), because the office he held is never on a ballot. Court commissioners in Washington are appointed by the Superior Court judges themselves. They do not campaign, they are not elected, and they cannot be recalled by voters.

The distinction matters every time you read a headline about "Commissioner Parker." The blog counting on your confusion will never explain it. We just did.

Step Two: The Judges Choose

When the family court commissioner seat came open in 2024, the decision belonged to the Clallam County Superior Court bench. Per the Clallam County Bar Association's [appointment announcement](https://clallamcountybar.com/brian-parker-appointed-as-new-family-law-court-commissioner/), the court announced its selection on September 24, 2024, and Parker took the bench on January 13, 2025.

One detail in the announcement tells you nearly everything about how the bench approached the choice: the judges selected an outside candidate with prior commissioner experience rather than a local insider.

Think about what that sentence implies. There were local applicants, lawyers the judges knew personally, people with existing relationships around the courthouse. The bench passed on all of them and chose a candidate from Snohomish County whose selling point was that he had already done the job, roughly two years as a part-time commissioner pro tempore covering domestic, civil, ex parte, guardianship, probate, child support, and protection order calendars.

Judges who hire for their own courtroom are hiring a colleague whose work they will review and whose calendars they will depend on. The incentive runs entirely toward competence. A bad appointment lands on the bench's own desk, in the form of backlogs, appeals, and administrative headaches. The Clallam judges chose the resume over the rolodex. That is what a merit decision looks like from the outside.

Step Three: Read Criticism of the Process at the Right Target

The Olympic Herald published complaints about the hiring process, including a waived probationary period and missing interview notes, in its [timeline piece](https://www.olympicherald.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-former-commissioner/). Those complaints deserve accurate attribution, so here it is: they concern decisions made by then-Presiding Judge Brent Basden and court administration. Whatever one thinks of those decisions, they do not describe any act by Parker. The applicant does not set the interview policy. The applicant does not waive his own probationary period. Complaints about how the court ran its hiring belong to the court, and aiming them at the person hired is a category error the blog never corrected.

Step Four: What the Record Shows About How the Chapter Ended

Honesty requires the full timeline, so here it is. The court confirmed on February 10, 2026 that Parker was "no longer employed," per the [county bar](https://clallamcountybar.com/bar-news/). No official reason or misconduct finding was released publicly. The only attribution of cause comes from the blog itself, and this series does not print blog attribution as fact. We will state what the record states: the court announced a personnel change without public explanation.

The court subsequently appointed Lorraine Rimson, a judicial officer with more than 30 years of experience who serves as a commissioner in Jefferson County, as the new Family Court Commissioner effective June 1, 2026, [reported neutrally by MyClallamCounty](https://www.myclallamcounty.com/2026/05/26/court-names-new-clallam-county-family-court-commissioner/). Note the pattern: for this seat, the bench once again chose experience. Institutions show you their values through repetition.

It is worth pausing on how ordinary that successor coverage reads, because it shows what appointment news looks like when a real newsroom writes it. MyClallamCounty reported the calendars attached to the seat, the incoming commissioner's credentials, and the effective date. No insinuation, no anonymous sourcing, no villain arc. The contrast with the blog's treatment of the same office is the cleanest illustration in this series of the difference between reporting and campaigning.

Why the Appointment Model Is Worth Defending

The appointment system asks the people who work alongside judicial officers, every day, to choose them. Judges read the applications, weigh the experience, and live with the result. The alternative, an elected commissioner, would put family court calendars under campaign pressure: rulings graded by donors, temperaments tested at rallies rather than in hearings.

Washington chose the appointment model for this office, and the 2024 Clallam County selection shows the model working as designed. A bench with a seat to fill looked past geography and familiarity, and picked the candidate whose prior commissioner service best matched the calendars waiting to be run.

The Bottom Line

No campaign. No ballot. No recall mechanism. A bench of judges, choosing from applicants, selected an outside candidate with documented prior commissioner experience, announced the choice on September 24, 2024, and seated him on January 13, 2025. The process complaints that followed belong to the administrators who made them. The qualifications that earned the seat belong to the record.

How are commissioners actually chosen? By the judges who have to work with them. The record stands.