Judge Bassett is a graduate of University of Florida with a Bachelor of Arts in English, 1983.  In 1985, he earned his Juris Doctor from Florida State University College of Law.  Judge Bassett was admitted to the Florida Bar in 1986 and the Washington State Bar in 1991.

 

Judge Bassett was appointed to the Kitsap County Superior Court bench by Governor Inslee in February of 2016. Prior to his appointment, he was in private practice in Kitsap County. Judge Bassett has 30 years' experience in a variety of fields.  He started out as an Assistant Public Defender and has approximately 7 years of criminal law experience, ten years as a managing attorney of a Renton, WA firm doing both bankruptcy and personal injury work, and 15 years in the field of child dependency/CPS, as both an attorney for Florida's DHRS and as parent counsel in Kitsap, Pierce and Mason Counties.  His experience also includes five years of appellate work for Florida's DHRS, and he was taught new attorneys on a local and statewide level in Florida.  In 2007, Judge Bassett was awarded the John Balikas Professionalism Award by the Miami-Dade County Courts.

 

Judge Bassett values equal access to justice and is the former President of Washington LEGALS and a former volunteer attorney for VAPWA, handling pro bono matters for people living with HIV and AIDS.  Judge Bassett is also highly involved with the community's youth.  In Tampa, Florida, he was awarded Outstanding Teen Court Judge in 2003, for his volunteer work with juvenile offenders.  He is currently deeply involved with the local acting community throughout Kitsap County as an actor, director, board member, and volunteer, activities which allow him to work with children of all ages, many of whom have been involved in the dependency system.  He has been a board member for Peninsula Alliance (formerly ARC of Kitsap) since 2018. A licensed foster parent from 2014 to 2020, Judge Bassett is an adoptive father of three.

 

For year 2024, Judge Bassett is the co-chair of the statewide Family Reunification Steering Committee and co-chair of the Children’s Justice Task Force and was named Humanitarian of the Year by the Kitsap County Bar Association.