Biography:

          Judge Eric Commer is currently the Division 28 Judge of the 18th Judicial District Court. He was appointed in 2008. Before winning primary and general elections in 2008, Judge Commer practiced law in Wichita for 28 years. His practice emphasized family law cases. He also handled criminal, juvenile, adoption, civil and traffic cases from inception to completion. From 1984 to 2004, he volunteered on the Wichita Bar Assoc. Ethics Committee investigating complaints of ethics violations filed against attorneys. 

          Judge Eric Commer currently serves as one of five judges assigned for major civil litigation. In his first 13 months in this assignment, he relished the challenge of presiding over jury trials including claims of breach of an employment contract, Kansas Consumer Protection Act violations, wrongful death, hazardous waste ground contamination, medical malpractice, attorney malpractice, breach of warranty of habitability and negligent retention of an employee who electronically solicited a minor. In two of those cases, the juries returned verdicts in excess of one million dollars.

          From 2013 through 2016, Judge Commer served as Presiding Judge of the Family Law Dept. In 2011 and ’12 he accepted assignment to the Criminal Law Dept., presiding over criminal jury trials and other criminal case hearings. From 2009 to 2012, Judge Commer was the sentencing judge for more than 400 felony defendants.

After election in 2008, his first two years were in the Family Law Dept. where he rendered decisions in 104 trials in those two years alone. During the same time, Judge Commer also heard and decided well over 1000 Family Law motion hearings.

          Judge Commer was one of the lecturers for both the 2009 and 2010 Kansas Bar Association Family Law Institutes. From 2007-2013, Judge Commer served on the Access to Justice Committee for the Kansas Supreme Court. Since 2014, he has led the Supreme Court’s Language Access Committee on Interpreters.       

          Judge Commer is a 1973 graduate of Wichita H.S. South and received his undergraduate degree with honors from Sterling College, Sterling, Kansas in 1977. He is a 1980 graduate of Washburn Univ. School of Law. He relishes the continuing education that occurs by handling cases across the vast breadth of civil litigation and through numerous hours of CLE and CJE, including previously “banking” credits toward a Masters of Judicial Studies degree through the National Judicial College.

          Judge Commer is a member of the Wichita Bar Assoc., Kansas Bar Assoc. and Christian Legal Society (for which he served as a past president of the local chapter). Judge Commer is married, is a life-long resident of Wichita, Kansas and is a regular member of a local church congregation.

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