EVERETT — As a judge on the state Court of Appeals, Bill Baker was a man of power. In a respected career defined by his love of the law, he exercised that power in ways colleagues describe as calm and collegial.
“I’m sure he raised his voice at some point in his life, but I never saw it,” said state Court of Appeals Judge J. Robert Leach, who was appointed to replace Baker after the Everett jurist retired in 2008. “He was a very, very smart man. Part of it was his calmness,” Leach said.
Retired Court of Appeals Judge William Baker died early Monday at his Everett home. He was 70.
Baker was diagnosed more than five years ago with a rare type of leukemia, his wife Judy Baker said. Despite the illness, she said, “he had five completely normal years.” His health had worsened only in recent weeks, she said.
“He had a wonderful life and he lived it to the fullest,” said Baker, a former Everett City Councilwoman. The couple began dating when they were seniors at Everett High School, members of the Class of 1958.
Baker is also survived by their two children, Monica Janus and Ryan Baker; by his sister, Bonnie Camacho; and by brothers Steve and Scott Baker. He was preceded in death by his parents, Joseph and Roberta Baker, and by an older brother, Boyd Baker.
“He just loved the law, the whole idea of the law,” Judy Baker said.
After graduation from Everett High School, Baker went to Stanford University on a merit scholarship. Judy Baker started at Everett Community College, but transferred to Stanford. They were married in 1962 after college graduation. Baker earned his law degree in 1965 from the University of Washington School of Law.
He served as a clerk for a state Supreme Court judge for a year before coming home to Everett, where he joined the Anderson Hunter Law Firm. At Anderson Hunter, Baker became a prominent lawyer working mostly in civil practice. He served 18 years as an Appeals Court judge before retiring in 2008.
Leach, the Court of Appeals judge who is also from Everett, said that Baker would, like everyone at times, disagree with others.
“But there’s a certain power in staying calm and using logic rather than temper or anger,” Leach said. “His arguments were well-reasoned and calmly represented. He was a leader of this court while he was here. He was recognized for his very clear thinking and writing, and his scholarship.”
State Court of Appeals Judge Stephen Dwyer, of Edmonds, was elected to the appellate court in 2005. Dwyer said Baker was “an admirable colleague in that he revered the institution of the court.” He called Baker an effective consensus builder and an “educator of his colleagues on various principles of the law.”
Baker was schooled in Everett, but was not an Everett native. He was born on Aug. 21, 1940, in Nebraska. He turned 6 on the driving trip from the tiny town of Seward, Neb., to Snohomish County. His family lived first in Marysville, and then settled in a small house on Casino Road near what’s now Cascade High School. He attended Roosevelt Elementary School.
Close friend Bill Rucker has known Baker since their Everett High days. Baker, he said, was a hardworking boy from a modest background. Baker’s family ran a small farm, with chickens and a milk cow, at their Casino property.
“Bill has always been an excellent combination, obviously of intelligence but he had a great deal of common sense, and he always had a wonderful sense of humor,” Rucker said.
As adults, Rucker and Baker regularly played racquetball at the YMCA with other longtime friends. They had also played poker together for decades.
“It’s the most low-key poker group you could possibly imagine. We’ve been playing probably 40 years,” Rucker said. “The funny thing is, we play for hardly any money.”
Judy Baker said her husband cherished time spent at the couple’s cabin on Decatur Island in the San Juans. “He absolutely adored salmon fishing,” she said. He had often visited a lodge at Langara, B.C., on fishing trips.
“He was a consummate gentleman and had a beautiful legal mind,” said Jim Haley, a retired Herald reporter who covered courts for many years. “He was really well respected everywhere in the community.”
Vickie Norris, an attorney at Anderson Hunter and Leach’s wife, considers Baker her mentor. She was hired by the Everett law firm in 1981. “Bill was just a wonderful trial lawyer and a perfect example of a gracious, civil litigator. He was my role model,” Norris said.
As respectful of legal processes as Baker was, Norris said he was a very relaxed trial lawyer. She can picture him leaning back in his chair, “a classic Bill Baker gesture.”
“Life threw him a lot of punches,” she said. “He never let any of it dispossess him of his sunny disposition. He always saw the glass more than half full.”
She and her husband once took a cruise with the Bakers, and drove through the Umbrian countryside of Italy.
“I got all this mentoring from him — how to be a good lawyer, but even more how to lead a balanced life,” Norris said. “Bill really knew how to do it all.”
A memorial gathering for Bill Baker has been scheduled for 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Feb. 25 at the new Mukilteo Community Center.
Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460, muhlstein@heraldnet.com.
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