3 Chester County lawyers rate ‘qualified’

Poll was conducted by Chester County Bar Association as 13 submit names for county judgeships.

Only three of the 13 Chester County attorneys who submitted their names to the county Bar Association’s judicial plebiscite for two open Common Pleas judgeships were rated as “qualified” by those taking part in the process.

In a press release issued Thursday, a spokeswoman for the bar association identified attorneys Andrea Cardamone, Charles Gaza, and Alita Rovitio as those who had been given that rating by their fellow attorneys.

The other 10 attorneys, including two sitting magisterial district judges, did not receive sufficient ballots rating them either “qualified” or “not presently qualified.”

The bar association’s Judicial Evaluation Committee sent out ballots to 922 association members, and received 343 valid ballots. Under the association’s bylaws, a candidate shall be considered as “qualified” or “not presently qualified” if he or she receives votes in those categories from a majority, in this case 173, of those voting, provided that at least 25 percent of the members eligible to vote have voted.

A candidate shall be deemed to have had “insufficient ballots cast” if he or she is neither “qualified” nor “not presently qualified” as described above.

There are two open seats on the court, for the seats left vacant by the retirements this year of former President Judge James P. MacElree II and Judge Phyllis Streitel, who continues to serve as a senior judge. There is an expected vacancy in 2019 caused by the anticipated retirement of Judge Anthony Sarcione, although his seat is technically not on the ballot for 2019.

The submission of an attorney’s name in the plebiscite is not a formal declaration of their candidacy for election, nor is it a requirement. (Common Pleas Judge Alison Bell Royer did not submit her name to the evaluation process in 2014, but was elected to he bench in 2015.) However it is a

traditional first step in the process, and a way for interested attorneys to test the waters.

The attorneys who were rated as “qualified” — Cardamone, Gaza, and Rovito — all have ties to the county District Attorney’s Office. Cardamone, 47, of Malvern and Gaza, 47, of East Marlborough, are both current prosecutors — Cardamone

as a deputy district attorney and Gaza as the DA’s Chief of Staff — while Rovito, 56, of West Goshen, worked as a prosecutor for six years before becoming a special judicial master.

Those who did not receive enough votes to be rated as “qualified” or “not presently qualified” include Magisterial District Judges Bret Binder, 39, of East Bradford, and Analisa Sondergaard, 48, of Tredyffrin.

Both have run in judicial elections in the past.

Others not receiving sufficient ballots include Mark L. Freed, 55, of Tredyffrin, a private practitioner and Tredyffrin township supervisor; Matthew Holt, 37, of Tredyffrin, a counsel for the Bryn Mawr Trust Company and also a township supervisor; Megan K. Kampf, 47, of Tredyffrin, a state deputy attorney general; Megan King, 48, of Easttown,

another county deputy district attorney; for Magisterial District Judge Daniel Maisano, 67, of Kennett; Thomas P. McCabe, 37, of Newlin. a private practitioner; Louis Mincarelli, 46, of East Brandywine, a criminal defense attorney; Julie Potts, 39, of West Goshen. a family law attorney.