Joel C. Koury

This commissioner runs his courtroom like a third-world country. He boasts about himself talking about how he has been in law 35 years - I can only imagine how many people he has screwed over as a lawyer and now he has even more [Redacted by Ed.] powers as a judicial officer. LA courts is a dump of the worst judges.

Avoid and ask for another judge! In my interactions with Commissioner Koury, I found his demeanor to be abrasive and unnecessarily short-tempered in the courtroom. He should not be serving on the bench but I guess LA County is desperate to appoint anyone to the bench due to its massive shortage of judges and large caseload backlog. Joel Koury is very offensive on the bench and tilts the case based on his personal liking of the parties over the factual issues. Rather than fostering fairness, his attitude often felt dismissive and brusque, leaving litigants and attorneys alike feeling rushed and undervalued. I also felt that some of his rulings and courtroom conduct came across as unnecessarily rigid and lacking transparency.

He takes underhanded actions if he knows a party. He doesn’t follow the law and has a very short temper. His level of patience is one of the shortest I have ever experienced in civil litigation hearings. He signed an order in violation of the statutory requirements and later admitted to doing so without correcting the error.