He has never shied away from a fight.

	Rebecca Droke, Post-Gazette Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge R. Stanton Wettick, Jr. Click photo for larger image.

R. Stanton Wettick, Jr., the judge who handed down the decision today throwing out Allegheny County's use of the base year for its assessments, was a controversial figure even before he was on the bench.

As a judge, he's known for his intellect and his work ethic.

"He's very bright and he grasps the issues very quickly," said President Judge Joseph A. James. "He can summarize the lawyers' positions and can focus the issues quickly."

In 1970, as the executive director of Neighborhood Legal Services, Judge Wettick studied the courts and found that poor defendants suffered harsher penalties than those with private attorneys, concluding that the public defenders assigned to the indigent were not as successful in "judge shopping" as defendants whose attorneys had better connections.

He fought welfare rules that would not pay for indigent women to obtain abortions and won. A win that has since been reversed.

He represented a Braddock woman in the lawsuit that ultimately lead to the creation of the Woodland Hills School District and closed the General Braddock schools.

In 1976, when his nomination to the bench was put forth by Gov. Milton J. Shapp, it was initially blocked by Senate Majority Leader Thomas M. Nolan, a Democrat from Wilkins. because of Judge Wettick's involvement in the General Braddock case.

"I have 22 boroughs and townships in my district" Nolan was quoted as saying at the time, "and Wettick has caused me problems in 11 of them."

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The senate reconsidered the vote days later and in, July 1976, Judge Wettick was sworn in as a Common Pleas Court judge.

While on the bench, he has stayed in the trenches. He was the administrative judge of the Family Division before moving over to the Civil Division, where he handles complex litigation. For the last two years, he has been the administrative judge of the civil division.

On Friday afternoons, he hears civil motions, calling cases himself and sitting where the clerks usually sit. He does not wear a robe and conducts the court informally, talking to the attorneys about their arguments.

The goal is to keep the civil dockets moving by having a judge available every Friday to handle pre-trial disputes.

On the Friday before Memorial Day, he whizzed through case after case as attorneys who had requested hearings did not appear. For those who did show up, in less than 30 minutes, he handled questions about cases on insurance malpractice, tax assessments, personal injury and resolved a dispute over the process of discovery in a lawsuit. He flipped through legal papers as attorneys spoke, seemingly in motion the entire time he was sitting.

There isn't another judge around who handles cases by sitting at a low desk talking to lawyers, said Tom Hollander, a retired attorney who has known Judge Wettick since the early 1960s.

"There's not a pompous bone in his body," he said.

Judge Wettick's influence has extended across Pennsylvania because of a single ruling in which he dismissed a case because neither party had acted in two years and the plaintiff didn't have a good reason for failing to do so. The judge ruled that if there was no action in two years, there was no reason the case should be allowed to continue. The state Supreme Court agreed, making the two-year rule state law.

He was raised in Sharon, Mercer County, graduated cum laude from Amherst College in 1960 and from Yale Law School in 1963. He worked in a law firm for his first three years as a lawyer but moved to Neighborhood Legal Services Association as executive director in 1966.

Wendell Freeland, an attorney who was the chairman of Neighborhood Legal Services Association when Judge Wettick was the director, said that Judge Wettick was a good administrator and changed the focus of the organization by taking on governments and winning.

Now, as a judge, Mr. Freeland said "he takes the tough cases and he really is interested in the ideal of justice. He's not afraid to do battle with the forces of evil."

One reason Judge Wettick is effective handling complex cases is that he can look at the key two or three issues in a case that, if resolved, will make the others all disappear, Judge James said. "He's very pragmatic."

For instance, in product liability cases, traditionally the cases have been tried so that if the liability is determined, then damages can be assessed. Judge Wettick has turned that on its head with the understanding that if damages are determined and they are low enough, the attorneys on the case will settle without a trial.

"He's creative," Judge James said. "He doesn't have to go to trial a lot."

Mr. Freeland noted that when Judge Wettick does take a case to trial, and makes a ruling, he is rarely reversed on appeal.