By John R. Hall

Joe Bush is a person who knows that time is money – his clients’ money – and he wants them to have the opportunity to have their experience in the Muskegon County courts to be efficient and fair. He should know; Bush has been an attorney with 19 years of experience in many different areas and he has always been concerned about the welfare of his clients. He now wants to expand that care for clients into his campaign for Muskegon County Probate Court Judge.

“One of the important issues of my campaign is to make sure people don’t spend unnecessary court expenses,” he said. “I will be an efficient arbiter of justice and ensure that people who are spending money on an attorney will have their day in court without too much unneeded costs. There are times when judges don’t necessarily remember that people pay for lawyers and they should have their cases heard in a timely manner.”

Wasting resources is just one of the issues that Bush will take on if elected. He also believes that people need an experienced judiciary – a judge that can meet the needs of people in different areas of law. “We are a smaller jurisdiction with four judges,” he said. “Some of the workload has to shift from probate court to circuit court and this requires having a judge who is experienced in different areas.”

Speaking of different areas, Bush’s experience covers criminal & family law, employee litigation, wills &;trusts, and real estate/business/commercial/probate litigation. “This is significant because I believe I have the broadest experience than the other candidates for probate judge,” he said. “Most attorneys typically practice in one or two different areas.”

Bush is also an advocate for making the judicial process more paperless – something that can save everyone time. “There should be a system of filing court forms online,” he added. “Paper forms have to scanned and sent, which is an added layer that can be eliminated by filing out online forms. This way, when a case comes up for a hearing, the judge should be able to pull everything he needs online.”

The underlying theme for Joe Bush’s court – if elected – is obvious. He wants to try each case in a timely, efficient manner while using technology to make burdensome paperwork a thing of the past. And that should be combined with an experienced arbiter.

While these are good issues to base a campaign on, Bush believes some candidates don’t often get the opportunity to “make their case.” “A lot of people don’t know the candidates,” he said. “They often rely on what other people say and recommendations from peers in the candidate’s field “Martindale-Hubbard does a blind peer review where attorneys are asked to rate their peers [information at www.martindale.com]. I was given the highest rating from my peers. This is a great criterion when deciding on the best judge candidate.”

Bush connects to his clients and the Muskegon community via his Facebook page:

www.facebook.com/bushforjudge. For more information visit www.josephbushforjudge.com.