In Memoriam

Hon. James M. Dolliver

In his 1992 book, The Washington High Bench, the late Charles H. Sheldon commented, “James Dolliver, when viewed from a narrow professional perspective, seemed an unlikely candidate for the supreme court. His experience as a practicing attorney barely totaled four years.”

But from a political perspective, however, Sheldon maintained, Dolliver was a perfect choice. He served 18 years as an aide and advisory to a congressman and a governor, and was involved in more than 100 judicial appointments. He was active in all manner of civic, educational, and religious organizations, giving him what Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. called “the felt necessities of the time.”

Dolliver was the son of a lawyer who served 12 years in the U.S. House and had a great-uncle who’d been a U.S. Senator. After high school, Dolliver joined the Navy and flew rescue patrols for the Coast Guard. When World War II ended he attended Swarthmore College, graduating with high honors in 1949. Summer employment as a ranger in Olympic National Park led Dolliver to head west for law school at UW. He clerked for Justice F.G. Hanley in Olympia, and then opened a law office in Port Angeles. Within 18 months he’d run for county prosecutor, lose, and leave for Washington, D.C., to be administrative assistant to Congressman Jack Westland. Returning home, he ran for Snohomish County Prosecutor in 1962, and lost again. Then state House Majority Leader Daniel Evans hired him as a staff attorney, forming a team that lasted decades.

Dolliver strategized Evans’s campaign for governor and became the governor’s chief of staff through his three terms in office. Evans put Dolliver forward for a 1970 Supreme Court vacancy and WSBA’s selection committee found him qualified, but the Board of Governors differed and removed Dolliver’s name from the approved list. Fearing difficulty in retaining the seat at election in the face of WSBA opposition, Dolliver withdrew his name.

By 1976, however, as Evans’s final term neared an end, he put Dolliver’s name up again, this time not seeking WSBA endorsement. The Board of Governors was silent, and Dolliver took office in May 1976. He served on the high court for 23 years.

Many observers considered Dolliver the intellectual heavyweight of the Court in his time, and the justice rarely left any doubt what he thought about things. Sheldon classified him as a moderate and something of a loner who juggled the Court with his many other civic and religious involvements.

A 1993 stroke left Dolliver severely disabled and unable to stand for more than a few minutes at a time, but he battled back, recovering the ability to speak, and serving six more years before retiring in 1999. Chief Justice Gerry Alexander told The Seattle Times, “His whole professional life was devoted to public service, yet something that would have put most people into retirement couldn’t shake him of that sense of duty.”

His wife, Barbara, and six children, including WSBA member Keith Dolliver of Redmond, survive him.

James Morgan Dolliver was born in Fort Dodge, Iowa, October 13, 1924, and died in Olympia November 24, 2004.