Four sitting judges are vying to keep their seats on the bench for the Montgomery County Circuit Court in the Nov. 5 general election.
Judges Marybeth Ayres, Jennifer Fairfax, Louis Leibowitz and J. Bradford McCullough are running unopposed for the four seats and are seeking election to 15-year terms. A challenger, Rockville attorney Marylin Pierre, did not win one of the available nominations during the May primary.
In addition to the judges, voters can cast ballots for three seats on the county school board, the U.S. Senate, Congressional Districts 6 and 8 and the U.S. president. Early voting runs from Oct. 24 to 31. For more information on the local races, check out the MoCo360 2024 Voters Guid
The Circuit Court at 50 Maryland Ave. in Rockville serves Montgomery and Frederick counties, according to the court’s website. Judges assigned to the court determine the outcome “in serious criminal matters, substantive civil cases, domestic cases, and child support cases.”
In Maryland, Circuit Court judges are vetted and appointed by the governor. After they are appointed, judges are required to run for a 15-year term in an election, according to state law. The law allows any lawyer older than 30 years of age who is a state resident, has lived in the circuit for six months and is a member of the Maryland Bar to run for election to the circuit court bench. Vetting is not required.
Why do judges run for election?
That process is now coming into question. A judicial workgroup is recommending that Maryland end contested elections for its 175 Circuit Court judges, saying the process presents ethical problems and poses a risk to judges’ safety in the current political atmosphere.
Instead of standing for reelection every 15 years in a campaign in which they could face challengers, the workgroup said Circuit Court judges should face voters every 10 years in a retention election, where voters have a simple yes-or-no choice of whether to keep the judge on the bench.
Instances of Circuit Court candidates bypassing the vetting process and winning a judgeship as a challenger were nearly unheard of until 2000. Since then, about a dozen judges initially appointed by the governor have been ousted by general election challengers, with about one-third of those races in 2020.
In 2020, Montgomery County, the state’s largest jurisdiction, was the site of a hotly contested general election for Circuit Court judge when Pierre unsuccessfully challenged four incumbent judges previously seated on the bench via gubernatorial appointment.
In the May primary election, Pierre again fell short in her bid to win a seat on the bench for the fourth time in six years. Her unsuccessful bid to garner one of the four available nominations is likely to result in the all-but-certain election of Ayres, Fairfax, Leibowitz and McCullough on Nov. 5.
Here are the four county candidates
Marybeth Ayres
Ayres, 52, was appointed in 2022 by then-Gov. Larry Hogan (R). Before her appointment to the bench, she was an assistant state’s attorney for the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office from 2004 to 2008 and 2011 to 2022.
In her candidate questionnaire submitted to the Voters Guide, Ayres said she loves justice and “doing what’s right.”
“I think I see [being a judge] as being a servant. I’m serving other people as a judge, and I also felt that way when I was a lawyer,” said Ayres, who did not specify where she lived on her questionnaire.
In this election, Ayres believes the most important issue is to have a judge “who listens and has impeccable qualifications.”
Ayres said her ability to speak Spanish and experience while working at the state’s attorney’s office – “trying many, many murder cases” – has prepared her and made her comfortable in the courtroom.
Jennifer Fairfax
Fairfax, 52, of Silver Spring was appointed by Gov. Wes Moore (D) in 2023. Before becoming a judge, Fairfax founded and ran a law firm from 2008 until 2023.
In her MoCo360 candidate questionnaire, Fairfax said she left her job to pursue the courtship and had worked toward that goal “for quite some time.”
She said her experience with litigating cases in Washington, D.C., and Virginia and arguing in courts including the Maryland Court of Appeals (now called the Supreme Court of Maryland) prepared her for the role.
“So I certainly know how to read and apply the law, I know the rules of evidence and I know the rules of procedure, which are incredibly important when you’re a judge,” Fairfax said.
Louis Leibowitz
Leibowitz, the youngest of the four sitting judges at 49, was appointed by Hogan in 2022. Before becoming an associate judge, Leibowitz was a solo practitioner of the Law Office of Louis M. Leibowitz in Rockville from 2011 to 2022.
“We do so many different things,” Leibowitz said of his job in his candidate questionnaire. “Even if you aren’t personally before the court ever, it’s almost a certainty that you know somebody who will be or who has been. It’s an important part of our democracy for everyone to be able to have their disputes resolved in a peaceful, fair way, according to the law.”
Leibowitz, who lives in Rockville, began his career as a public defender. He said “being a father and handling over 6,000 cases” during his career prepared him to be a judge.
“People come before me who are in all different situations and I try to lean on my experience as a parent to understand where people are coming from,” he said.
J. Bradford McCullough
McCullough was appointed to the bench by Hogan in 2022. Before his judgeship, McCullough, 58, was a commercial litigator and appellate attorney for the Bethesda-based Lerch, Early & Brewer law firm. He lives outside of Rockville.
McCullough said it was important that judges have integrity and good temperament. “[As a lawyer], I did a good job representing my clients, but I did it in a way that was collegial and civil,” he said. “When you see people who have had that experience as a practicing lawyer, that usually translates really well onto the bench.”
McCullough said working on appellate cases in the last 15 years of his practice helped prepare him for his seat on the bench.
Doing that appellate work “shows that you’re willing to jump into something that you may not have seen before. And you have to be willing to do that. You have to almost relish it,” he said.
Louis Peck, who writes about politics for MoCo360 and Maryland Matters, contributed to this story.
