Meet Communications and Legislative Affairs Director Robert Oftring

The Los Angeles County Superior Court’s Presiding Judge, Samantha Jessner, and Court Executive Officer, David Slayton, are each now well into year two of their respective offices. With sea legs fully acquired and priorities firmly established, they have resolved to further professionalize the operations and functioning of our leviathan court. The reader will recall (as if I could let you forget) that ours is the largest trial court in the U.S., has some 580 judicial officers (but with a troubling number of vacancies currently), more than 5,000 employees, serves more than ten million Californians, and operates with a nine-digit annual budget (although by all conventional metrics, we are still materially underfunded relative to our responsibilities.) A public institution of this scale with these responsibilities, seeking to bring its A-Game to the fore every morning, needs an A-Game communications and legislative affairs operation. And a leader who reports directly to the CEO. I hereby introduce you to that person: our newly-installed-after-a-wide-ranging-search A-Game Director of Communications and Legislative Affairs, Robert (“Rob”) Oftring. We will meet Rob in a moment.

You ask: Director of Communications and Legislative Affairs? The LASC? What’s up with that? Such great questions! The big picture: to accomplish its ends, the court needs to obtain and process communications from, and to create and transmit communications to, almost every conceivable element of society. These include community members who want (or maybe don’t want) to interact with the court in a hundred different ways (e.g., jury service, traffic tickets, divorce proceedings, small claims, evictions); our colleagues in County and City government whose missions overlap with ours in both obvious and subtle ways (e.g., jail overcrowding, homelessness, mental illness concerns); the legislature that funds our operations and promulgates bills that may become laws (and about which the court, with its unique expertise, may wish to express a view); the media who wish – and have their own mission – to report on court proceedings of public concern and to pose penetrating questions to important public institutions; civic and bar groups such as the Los Angeles County Bar Association, the Association of Southern California Defense Counsel and the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles (which have their own interests and points of view as our court’s operations); and professional and higher education institutions (which implicate, for example, our cooperative ventures with Stanford University and the National Center for State Courts). There are more, but this paints the picture.

On a moment’s thought you surely realize that an A-Game communications and legislative affairs operation of this scope and aspiration must create and maintain standards and quality control of the internal and external communication streams. It must ensure consistent alignment with the court’s vision and mission. It must speak clearly, reliably, and honestly. The boss of such an undertaking has a big job, to say the least. Let’s meet him.

Q: Rob, you’re an East Coast guy who worked in the Massachusetts Legislature, in Governor Deval Patrick’s administration and, later, for MOSES. Were you always destined to work for law-givers?

A: (Laughs.) So much in that question to unpack. Yes, I’m originally an East Coast guy; Worcester (pronounced “wu-ster”), Massachusetts was home. Then an Urban Studies degree from Fordham. My first taste of legislative communications was for a state representative in Boston in 2009. Then a big step up to a state-wide office in 2013 where I served as the Legislative Director and interim Communications Director for the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development in Governor Patrick’s administration. Then came “MOSES,” which stands for the Massachusetts Organization of State Engineers and Scientists. I was the Director of Government Affairs. I then made a family-related move to Los Angeles in 2017 at which time I joined the LASC as Legislative Analyst. My experience in those roles is that law-givers, as you put it, often do not have divine inspiration and that they can use some help from various constituencies, including their partners in sibling branches of government, as they craft laws under which we all then must live. There is an art and a craft to communicating with lawmakers. I find it fascinating.

Q: Rob, the 15-second elevator ride where a member of the public asks, “what do you do around here?” Your response?

A: Hmm. What I and our team do does not lend itself well to an elevator speech but since we are communicators, let’s give it a try. An accurate statement is, “I manage the court’s relationships with the media and elected officials by promoting the court’s key priorities and successes, educating them on our operations and challenges and fostering open lines of communication to facilitate answers to questions and build productive, collaborative partnerships.” But that’s a bit bureaucratic, wouldn’t you say? So, I’m going with, “I manage a great group of people whose jobs involve listening to and communicating with all kinds of people and institutions who have a stake in the LASC achieving its mission.” If there were time for a “follow-up” (as we say in our business), I would explain that the mission includes “equal access to justice through the fair, timely and efficient resolution of all cases.”

Q: One doesn’t normally think of a communications operation in those terms. Care to expand?

A: Sure. Let’s look at some of the key concepts: “equal access,” “fair,” “timely,” and “efficient.” While those words apply directly to what happens in courtrooms, they also apply to the court’s interactions with the press, the legislature and other policy makers, and civic and professional organizations. At least I think they do. A principal element of our work is to protect the media’s right to access court proceedings and court documents by ensuring appropriate access and providing timely and accurate answers to their questions. That furthers the idea of “equal access” – certainly to information. Another is to instill trust and confidence in our institution with the legislature which may fall under “efficiency.” Last Spring, for example, we hosted an event for our state legislative delegation, including the then-Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to let them see for themselves what we do and some of the challenges we are up against. We all walked into family law, civil and criminal courtrooms conducting their calendars then into our downtown Self-Help Center, which serves thousands of self-represented litigants. Everything was in full swing. The Communications team planned and executed that event (with great help from others). I think it was tremendously informative for the legislators and will help them help us in meeting our mission goals.

Q: Do others within the LASC understand your team’s job?

A: I think so but in the way of the allegory of the three blind men understanding an elephant: you know, it’s like a snake; no, it’s like a tree; no, it’s like a wall.

Q: Huh?

A: If you’re a judicial officer sitting on the ninth floor of the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center [interviewer’s note: “the ninth floor” is code for the location of multiple courtrooms where many serious felony trials occur], or a reporter covering a high-profile trial, you might think that our team’s main role is to facilitate media access for such cases. If you’re a Court Operations Director with opinions on pending legislation, you might conclude we mainly focus on policy analysis. If you’re a legislative staffer looking to resolve a constituent issue, you might think we mainly focus on constituent services. If you’re a court employee assisting in the development of the next issue of the Court’s internal employee newsletter – On the Record – you might think our office mainly focuses on internal communication. If you work in Finance for the court and are trying to understand the latest iteration of the state’s budget proposal, you might think we focus on the mechanics of the state budget process. Shall I keep going?

Q: No, I got it. You arrived at the LASC in 2017 but recently became the Director of Communications and Legislative. How did that happen?

A: My first job at the court was as a Legislative Analyst in the Management Research Unit. I was promoted to the Communications Office in 2017 as Principal Legislative Affairs and Communications Analyst where I took on both media and legislative affairs-related responsibilities. A great job that played to a lot of my experience, but I also learned a ton more. In mid-2023, the job of Director of Communications opened, and I stepped in in an interim capacity. Over the next six months, I became deeply engaged in planning and executing comprehensive communications and events related to bail reform, the court reporter shortage crisis, National Adoption Day, The Care Court implementation and more. Then, in November 2023, I was appointed Director.

Q: You have been clearly successful working for the LASC. What advice do you have for others working for our court who are seeking to further their careers?

A: I think it’s all about work ethic and producing results. Maybe it’s the New England in me. Working for and with elected officials and the media my whole career, I think that putting in that extra effort, anticipating needs, identifying solutions, and producing results, perhaps helped me move up in responsibility. I would tell anyone to bring leaders solutions, not critiques or meandering “what-ifs.” Help them do their jobs and they will remember you for that.