First-time Candidate: Clerk's Office is Perfect Platform for Outreach

Editor's note: See our profile of Republican Candidate Margaret Rappaport.

Jason Reddish admits that unless you are getting married or finalizing an adoption, going to court is rarely a pleasant experience. And he's an attorney.

He's also running for Clerk of the Circuit Court.       

Reddish is running against incumbent Margaret Rappaport, a Republican who has held the Clerk position for 20 years. This is his first foray into political campaigning; Reddish said his activism up-to-now has been more "issues oriented," though he did campaign for President Obama.

But Reddish thinks his experience – which began four years ago after he graduated from Tulane University Law School – could be a great asset to the Clerk's office.  "You don't have to be an attorney for this position," the Democratic candidate said, "but I do think that for this position, being an attorney gives you a perspective that allows you to fill some holes."

The holes Reddish talks about are part of what makes dealing with the courts so unpleasant. Working as an attorney, Reddish said he has seen the areas where people need help, but don't know where to find it. If you need to open an estate to deal with an inheritance, where do you start? Who do you need to talk to to file for a divorce? The simplest administrative tasks can sometimes be the most frustrating. Take, for instance, a name change.

Reddish once had to help a woman in Baltimore City whose name had been misspelled on her Social Security card since birth. More than 60 years later, her children wanted to take her on a trip to Las Vegas. The woman had never had a driver's license and now she couldn't get one because her ID information didn't match.  "That's a $45 fee right there and a single document filed in court," Reddish said. "But for 65 years she went around officially with the wrong name."

In addition to help navigating the system, Reddish said that as Clerk he wants to make clear what other services are available, including free advice and representation. "Sometimes it's too complicated to do on your own, but an attorney would be prohibitively expensive."

Along with community outreach, Reddish said he has some nitty gritty experience that would be a great asset to the Clerk's office.  Maryland courts are switching to an electronic filing system, a task that will take about four years.  Reddish said that in his career, he has often taken on similar tasks and is familiar with the difficulties that can arise.

"I've worked extensively on large cases where there are millions of paper documents and we take literally rooms full of boxes and get those into digital form in a searchable, indexable way," he said.   "I've been in papercut mode. I've worn the rubber fingertips." Making sure that everyone has access to the technology necessary to file documents, and that sensitive and confidential information is secure are two difficulties of transitioning to an e-file system that he is more than familiar with.

Reddish said the transition to electronic filing was one of the reasons he decided to join the race.  "The more I looked at the position and the duties, the more I realized the skills I do have are a perfect fit for what's coming up," he said. In April he started to seriously look into joining the race. He looked at voting numbers and asked around his professional and political circles. Once he decided to run, he condensed his workweek into four 12-hour days, commuting to Washington during those days and spending the rest of the week campaigning.

"Not to be too pragmatic," he said, "but if it wasn't possible to win, I wouldn't have been able to do this."

The Office of the Clerk of the Circuit Court was established in 1658, making it one of the oldest public offices in Maryland.  Officially, the Clerk's duties include being the official custodian of land and court records as well as administering oaths, licenses and collecting money from recording land records, criminal bonds and fines and other fees.