Judge Michael J. Oths
Seventeenth District (2021 – 2024)
Magistrate Judge in Boise, Idaho
University of Oregon, JD, 1982
Judge Oths serves as Magistrate Judge in Boise, Idaho, having been appointed in January 2003. He presides over a criminal trial calendar.
Prior to his appointment to the judiciary, he was Idaho’s Bar Counsel from 1986 to 2003, serving as general counsel to Idaho’s Board of Bar Commissioners and Admissions Department as well as the chief disciplinary counsel and ethics counsel. He served as President of the National Organization of Bar Counsel in 1998-1999, and as President of the Fourth District Bar Association in 2007-2008. Judge Oths is a past President of the Idaho Magistrate Judges Association. He served as an adjunct faculty member at Concordia University’s School of Law, teaching ethics and professional responsibility, from 2014 through its demise in 2020.
In 2017, he was elected to a 3-year term as a Commissioner of the Idaho State Bar, serving as its President in 2019-2020.
Prior to his service as Bar Counsel, Judge Oths served as County Counsel/Deputy District Attorney for Morrow County, Oregon from 1983 to 1986.
A native of Ohio, he received his BA from the University of Dayton in 1979, with a degree in English and History, and his JD from the University of Oregon in 1982 and is admitted to practice law in Oregon and Idaho.
Judge Oths is Idaho’s state bar delegate in the ABA House and is in the second year of a three-year term as a member of the ABA’s Standing Committee on Professional Regulation. He currently serves as Chair of the Supreme Court’s Misdemeanor Rules and Infractions Committee. He recently completed a 9-year term as an appointed member of the Ada County Historic Preservation Council and is a long-time volunteer for the East End Neighborhood Association.