SALEM — As Oregon's Hispanic population has risen, so has Hispanic representation in the state's judiciary system.

Joseph Ochoa and Marco Hernandez represent the progress minorities have made since a 1994 task force report on racial and ethnic problems in the system.

Ochoa is a circuit judge in Marion County. Hernandez is a circuit judge in Washington County.

"When I started as a judge in 1995, there were issues about hiring practices in the court system, placement of judges on the bench and qualifications of interpreters,'' Hernandez said. "We have come a long way.''

But as two of eight minority judges statewide, the two also represent how far Oregon has to go.

An Oregon Supreme Court task force reported in May 1994 that minorities fared poorly in the state court system.

But the number of minority workers in the courts has doubled in the past decade. Their proportion of the state-court work force has increased from 6.3 percent to 10 percent.

But of the 169 circuit judges, only six are minorities.

In a 2004 survey of state judges by the American Bar Association, Oregon was below the national average of 10 percent of minority circuit judges.

"Minorities are still underrepresented in the legal field,'' Ochoa said.

However blacks, Hispanics and Indians are arrested and convicted in disproportionally large numbers.

Ochoa came to law as a second career. His story illustrates some difficulties outlined in the state report.

"It helps to have some life experience before going on to practice,'' he said.

His father was born in Nogales, Mexico; his mother in Iowa. He grew up in a Southern California suburb. "Everyone was rapidly trying to assimilate into America,'' he said.

Outside his home, he was discouraged from speaking Spanish. Ochoa ended up at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash.

"After a couple of trips south of the border and a stint on a pig farm in Yamhill County, I stumbled onto migrant education in Washington County, where I was a half-time teacher's aide in an elementary school,'' he said. "I decided after a couple of years that I'd rather be teaching.''

He spent time in migrant education, bilingual education and instruction in English as a second language.

He grew tired of teaching and got admitted to the Northwestern School of Law at Lewis & Clark College in Portland.

"A year and a half into it, I was horrified because law school was totally contradictory to everything I was taught about how to teach human beings,'' he said.

"When I got into clerking at the end of my second year, I started to enjoy it. I liked the day-to-day interaction with people and the actual dynamics of the practice of law.''

He spent three years with a public defender's office, then worked on civil litigation at a private firm.

"I hated that,'' he said.

Then, he was offered a job at the state Department of Justice defending the state against lawsuits by inmates.

Seven years into his new career he applied for and got a vacant judgeship in Marion County.

"I got the call on a Thursday, closed down my state practice over the weekend, was sworn in on Monday, drew an opponent on the filing deadline Tuesday and faced an election in just 72 days,'' he said.

He won and is seeking another six-year term next year.

"I cannot say I faced a lot of prejudice growing up,'' he said. "It was interesting that the first time I really heard about it was when I became a judge. A certain person who was in (television) journalism and has since changed jobs jumped me and asked why it was that Gov. (Barbara) Roberts was appointing unqualified minorities.''

Hernandez earned his law degree from the University of Washington in 1986 and worked at Legal Services for a few years.

"When I was a lawyer representing farmworkers, I drew a lot of antagonism from people who did not like farmworkers and lawyers representing farmworkers,'' he said.

"Some of that resentment toward farmworkers and migrant laborers would attach to me as their representative. But I wasn't taking that personally.''

Hernandez became a deputy district attorney in Washington County in 1989 and heard no more derogatory words.

A few years later, he was asked to join the task force being formed to study racial and ethnic problems in Oregon's justice system.

Before she left the governorship in January 1995, Roberts appointed Hernandez to a judgeship. He became a presiding judge in 2002.

"I'd been on the bench for seven years when my colleagues elected me,'' Hernandez said. "Except for me, it is an all-white bench, but my colleagues were supportive.''

Ochoa and Hernandez are among the most visible successes.

Also, interpreters are more available and better qualified.

Some court documents also are bilingual.

"It is reassuring for (defendants) to see someone who looks a little more like them and shares cultural experiences with them,'' said Judge Paul Lipscomb, who presides over Marion County Circuit Court.

"Even if nothing else is different, I think people are more satisfied with their experience here in court because it feels more familiar to them and they are a little more at ease.''