Jessica Kozma KCPAO Women in Leadership
This Women’s History Month, the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office is highlighting some of the depth and breadth of women leaders in our office as part of our “Women in Leadership” series. These profiles are only a few of the many amazing women in our office.
How long have you worked at the PAO?
I have worked at the PAO as a lawyer for 20 years, and before that I was an intern in the Tort Section during the summer of 1999.
What is your role in the PAO?
I manage the Litigation Section in the Civil Division, we have 15 lawyers including myself as well as a number of staff. We defend all manner of personal injury lawsuits against King County and its employees in state and federal courts. That includes bus drivers, Sherriff’s deputies, public health nurses and doctors — it’s a very busy practice.
What were you doing before coming to the PAO?
I was in law school at the University of Washington. Between undergrad and law school I was a program manager — traveling around the country coordinating seminars for school teachers. I had never been east of Idaho when I started the job, and since then I’ve been to 42 states!
What are some of your goals in regards to the work you do?
The primary goal is to provide excellent legal representation to our clients.
Certainly, the biggest goal this year is flexibility and the ability to adapt very suddenly to a remote work environment. We’ve had to think about our practice from top to bottom, how we interact with our clients, opposing counsel, the court. Flexibility has been the key this year.
It’s also important to me to provide support to the attorneys I supervise. This is the first time that I’ve ever onboarded an employee remotely who I’ve never actually met in person before! It’s been challenging to provide that level of support this year, but that’s certainly a goal.
What sort of obstacles have you faced in your field? What was it like dealing with those?
One obstacle is dealing with challenging opposing counsel. I do it less now as a supervisor, but carrying a full litigation caseload over the years, you come into contact with a lot of personalities on the other side.
I’ve always subscribed to the philosophy that just because we are strong advocates for our clients it doesn’t mean we can’t be civil with one another. We can do our jobs professionally at the same time as we’re advocating. My approach has been to always try and take the high road and hope that the work will speak for itself.
Also the way that litigation, specifically e-discovery, has progressed has been a challenge. We create more documents now as a County than we ever have. In the litigation section that’s meant we’ve had to adapt our practice to account for changes in the landscape of how our clients do business.
What advice would you give to other women who are considering a similar career path?
Being flexible to situations that arise, and not foreclosing any opportunities. I can say for sure that 10 years ago I never would have thought that right now I would be almost two and a half years in to being head of the litigation section. So being ready for those opportunities when they arise.
I would also say getting experience in different areas. I started out in the office as a lawyer in the transportation section, doing advising work for Metro. That advising work gave me a unique perspective and skills that I continue to use in my litigation practice.
Anything else you’d like to share?
I recognize the unique benefits of working in our office with such a great group of colleagues. I feel very lucky to manage such a great group of people.
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Catch up with the entire KCPAO Women in Leadership series on our blog at kcprosecutor.medium.com.
