photo by: Contributed

Judge Krishnan Christopher Jayaram

Updated at 6:20 p.m. Monday, July 13

Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly on Monday appointed District Judge Krishnan Christopher Jayaram to serve as a justice on the seven-member Kansas Supreme Court.

Jayaram, of Lenexa, was among three finalists to fill the open seat created by Justice Marla Luckert’s retirement on March 28. The other two finalists were District Judge Carl Folsom III, of Lawrence, and District Judge Robert James Wonnell, of Olathe.

Jayaram has been a district judge in Johnson County District Court since 2021. He currently presides over disputes in the Civil Department. He previously was a lawyer with the Horn Aylward & Bandy and Smith Free Heald & Chock law firms. He graduated from the University of Kansas with a bachelor’s degree in environmental science and from the Northwestern School of Law at Lewis & Clark College.

“Judge Jayaram has extensive experience as a trial attorney and on the bench, which makes him well-qualified and well-prepared to step into this role as the next Kansas Supreme Court justice,” Kelly said in a news release Monday. “I am confident that he will be a steady voice that upholds the rule of law and acts with the utmost degree of impartiality.”

In addition to his professional activities, Jayaram is involved in his community by serving as a competitive youth soccer coach for Toca FC and is a member of the Saint Thomas the Apostle’s Episcopal Church in Olathe, according to the release.

Jayaram said that he had “big shoes” to fill in replacing Luckert and that he was “profoundly honored and humbled to have been selected from the group of incredibly distinguished and capable applicants for this position on the Kansas Supreme Court.”

“I look forward to completing my work at the District Court over the coming days and joining my new colleagues at the Supreme Court thereafter,” he said in the release. “As I did at the District Court, I pledge to serve all Kansans in this new role through the fair, just, and impartial application of the law to cases that come before the Supreme Court.”

Jayaram was also a finalist for a Supreme Court seat last year after the late Evelyn Wilson stepped down. Kelly chose attorney Larkin Walsh to replace Wilson.

The Supreme Court Nominating Commission gave the three names to Kelly after conducting public interviews with seven candidates in the spring. The commission is composed of a chairman, four attorneys from each Kansas congressional district and four nonlawyers from each district.

The selection process, which Kelly praised Monday, is a merit-based one that Kansans voted to add to the Kansas Constitution in 1958. Kansans will soon decide whether the state Constitution should be amended so that justices would be elected rather than appointed by the governor.

This is Kelly’s fifth appointment to the high court. Her other appointees were Wilson in 2019, Melissa Standridge in 2020, Keynen “K.J.” Wall in 2020 and Walsh in 2025.

To be eligible for a seat on the court, a nominee must be at least 30 years old and admitted to practice in Kansas and engaged in the practice of law for at least 10 years, whether as a lawyer, judge, or full-time teacher at an accredited law school.

Every justice must stand for a retention vote in the general election following their initial appointment. If retained by voters at that time, they then face retention votes every six years for as long as they serve on the bench.