Dirk Marler is a longtime advocate for unifying Washington's fragmented court system. As a Yakima County District Court judge from 1988 to 2003, Marler experienced firsthand the confusion caused by the state’s patchwork of local courts. Later, as head of the court services division at the Washington State Administrative Office of the Courts, he participated in a major early-2000s initiative called "Justice in Jeopardy", which aimed to modernize and regionalize the courts. Today, he help us parse the large issues in play as the City of Olympia and Thurston County negotiate how to combine our court systems. InvestigateWest: ‘It’s an uphill battle’: Decades-long effort to unify Washington’s court system again falls short Washington Courts: Justice in Jeopardy