Hard-working Judge Ernest Kollra deserves your vote

Judge Ernest Kollra has been a Broward Circuit Court judge since 2016 and there’s no reason voters should boot him off the bench.

Kollra is 65, which seems to be the primary reason attorney Alan Schneider decided to challenge him in the Group 8 race.

Kollra “has only served two years and he’ll be a one-term judge,” said Schneider during a Sun Sentinel endorsement interview. “I’ll have the time to implement things.”

Schneider is 52. Florida law doesn’t allow anyone to run for a judgeship if he or she can’t complete two-thirds of the term by age 70.

Kollra, who was appointed by Gov. Rick Scott, appears to be a vigorous 65-year-old jurist. He said during the interview that he gets up at 4:30 each morning and is one of the first people to arrive at the courthouse.

Being properly prepared for each case is essential, he said. “Judicial temperament is determined by preparation. I want to know everything about a case.”

Kollra said he runs a no-nonsense courtroom and expects attorneys appearing before him to be well prepared, too.

Kollra serves in the criminal division and, like many of his colleagues, he is dismayed that the court system is so overwhelmed. The state, he said, simply does not provide the courts with enough money.

“We need more judges,” he said. “We’re supposed to have one judge for every 10,000 residents of the county. We have one judge for every 34,000 people.”

Schneider agrees the legal reform and more resources.

“The rehabilitation component seems to have been virtually abandoned by the system,” he said.

But Schneider does not appear to have the experience needed to improve the courts. The bulk of his 27 years of experience as a Florida lawyer have been in real estate and business transactions. During the real estate boom, he ran a thriving title insurance business, he said.

After the market cooled, he handled family law cases but stopped taking them in 2015.

“I found myself up at night frustrated with the tactics of some opposing counsels and professionally paralyzed by being unable to properly represent people as the cost system needs to do so is beyond abilities,” he said.

Schneider graduated from Carnegie Mellon University and got his law degree from the University of Florida in 1991. He is engaged to a schoolteacher and has his law office in Hollywood.

Kollra graduated from the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania with a degree in classical language and earned his law degree from the Shepard Broad College of Law at Nova Southeastern University. He is married and lives in Plantation. most folks’ financial

Editorials are the opinion of the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board and written by one of its members or a designee. The Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Rosemary O’Hara, Elana Simms, Andy Reid and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson.