Robert G. Kochems, assistant district attorney and private practitioner, is running for Mercer County Common Pleas Court judge on the Republican and Democratic ballots.

"I have been a lawyer who has helped people solve their personal legal problems in the family law, real estate and estate planning areas my entire 25-year career, as well as being a public servant in the criminal arena as a prosecutor and formerly as a public defender," he said.

Kochems is a cum laude graduate of John Carroll University, where he was president of Alpha Sigma Nu and the Jesuit National Honor Society. He received his law degree from St. Louis University School of Law, where he was an associate editor and contributor to the Law Journal.

He was an assistant public defender in Mercer County for more than 10 years and is a graduate of the National College of Criminal Defense. He has been assistant district attorney for more than 12 years and is law enforcement coordinator for the Sharon/Farrell Weed and Seed.

"The job of a judge is to make the best decision for the people involved in a case based on the spirit and letter of the law," he said. "These decisions can only be based on experience. I have that experience. Last year, I had to make such decisions after meeting with victims, police and defense counsel in 225 preliminary hearings, 341 adversarial hearings, like those involving parole, and 48 juvenile cases in the criminal law area. I have done that over 3,500 times in the last 10 years and over 5,000 times in my over 25 years of practice.

"Additionally, in my private practice I have opened over 1,000 family law files and participated in the numerous judicial hearings and settlement negotiations they require. Criminal law and family law are the areas of law that most judicial activity takes place in Mercer County and they have been where I have concentrated my practice along with wills, estates and real estate law over the past 25 years."

Kochems is a solicitor for a number of boroughs, townships and Mercer County Regional Planning Commission.

A member of the Mercer County and Pennsylvania bar associations and a past member of the American Bar Association, Kochems has been involved in a number of significant appeals to Pennsylvania's appellate courts. He is also licensed and has practiced in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania.

Believing that any system can and should be improved, Kochems has served Mercer County's legal system as co-chairman of the Juvenile Court Advisory Committee's subcommittee that developed the Court-Appointed Special Monitor Program, which gives the judge an independent view of juveniles appearing before Mercer County Juvenile Court.

He was co-chairman of the committee that developed the Mercer County Sexual Assault Response Team/Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner Program (SART/SANE) to support victims of rape by providing for mutual cooperation and assistance between the police, AW/ARE, the district attorney's office and all three of the county's hospital systems.

Kochems was supervising attorney of the District Attorney's Child Abuse Prosecution Unit, which increased child abuse investigations and successful prosecutions in the county by 500 percent, and is a member of Mercer County's Child Death Review Committee.

Kochems has taught paralegal degree classes at Shenango Campus of Pennsylvania State University and political science at Grove City College.

He is a frequent presenter to groups on a variety of topics, including family law, rape investigation and trial procedure, child abuse investigation and prosecution.

Kochems was a director of the Transfer Harvest Home Association, a third-degree member of the Knights of Columbus and a member of the steering committee that drafted the resolution endorsing municipal cooperative planning recently adopted by Mercer County commissioners.

Kochems has been named an "Outstanding Young Man in America," listed in Who's Who in American Law, seventh through 11th editions, and Who's Who in America, 2003 edition.

"I have been a lawyer for people my entire 25-year career and I would be honored to be a judge serving people for the balance of it," he said.