Episode 2: Judge Michelle Williams Court
Serving the Community Through the Law
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Show Notes
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michelle Williams Court took a non-traditional path to the bench. Judge Court discusses her civil rights career and continued commitment to serving the community as a judge. Tune in to hear her insights on service through the law.
Relevant episode links:
Los Angeles Superior Court, American Law Institute, The Color Purple
About Judge Michelle Williams Court:
Judge Michelle Williams Court
Michelle Williams Court is a judge on the Superior Court of Los Angeles County in California and is an Assistant Supervising Judge of the Civil Division. She was appointed by Governor Jerry Brown in December 2011 and was re-elected in 2020 for a term that expires in January 2027.
Judge Court is Chair of the Los Angeles Superior Court's Technology Committee and is Vice President of the Los Angeles Law Library Board of Trustees. She has served in the court's Executive Committee and as an advisor to the California Courts Judicial Council as a member of the Commission on the Future of California's Court System, the Civil and Small Claims Advisory Committee, the Language Access Implementation Plan Taskforce, the Probate Conservatorship Taskforce and the Technology Tactical Plan Update Workstream.
Prior to joining the court, Judge Court was vice president and general counsel at Bet Tzedek (2002-2011). Her other previous roles include senior associate at Milberg LLP (2000-2002); community builder fellow and civil rights specialist of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (1999-2000); litigation associate at Litt and Marquez (1995-1999); project attorney at ACLU (1994-1995); and an associate at Gilbert Kelly Crowley and Jennett (1993-1994).
Judge Court received her undergraduate degree from Pomona College and her J.D. from Loyola Law School.
Transcript
Welcome to the show, chronicling women’s paths, journeys to the bench bar and beyond, and to inspire the next generation to consider various opportunities in their careers as well. I'm welcoming Judge Michelle Williams Court from the Los Angeles Superior Court. Welcome, judge.
Thank you for having me.
I wanted to start from the very beginning in terms of how you decided that you wanted to go into law, practice law, go to law school. What gave you that idea?
My path to law and to the bench is very non-traditional. I was in college in the mid to late ‘80s. That as all of us remember was a time where we were experiencing another global virus that was scary and the people were dying from AIDS and HIV. I wanted to do something to be part of the solution, to the kinds of things we were seeing in society.
Initially, I had thought I wanted to go to medical school because I love Science and Math. I was very into that, but I realized that there were many different ways to be able to be of service to the community, going to medical school was not the only option. Being a seventeen-year-old with limited experience in the world, I didn't know what the options were.
I decided to take some time off. I knew I was going to go to graduate school, but I was considering a lot of different things. I thought about academia, medicine, going into medical research, law and social work as well. I was fortunate enough to be hired by Aids Project Los Angeles, where for the very first time, I saw the value of wraparound services and the community and the difference that can make in a lot of people's lives. I decided that the best path for me, based on what my goals were, was to go to law school. I went to law school with the intention of becoming a public interest in civil rights attorney. That's what I ended up doing.
Can you talk about that a little bit? You were in private practice and also your role at Bet Tzedek as well.
My path to the bench is a very non-traditional one. The things that we were always told, at least when I was in law school was you go to work for a big defense firm, district attorney's office or the US attorney's office. You stay there for at least a decade, and then you apply. I tried lots of different things because I never intended to become a judge.
I worked for the ACLU right out of law school. I also worked in private practice on a defense side law firm here in Los Angeles, which was an amazing experience because I got lots of opportunities to go to court and take depositions. I learned the nuts and bolts of litigation. I also worked for a boutique civil rights law firm. I did a policy fellowship at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development and Civil Rights. I was 1 of 6 community builder civil rights specialists in that fellowship program that was run in conjunction with the Kennedy School at Harvard.
Tell me about that. That's interesting.
It was a tough decision for me because I loved litigating. I loved being in court and the thought of taking two years off from litigation to engage in policy work was a little bit scary. I was concerned that I might not be able to get back into litigation after that fellowship, especially because of the focus of my fellowship, I traveled all over the United States, but it was mostly in DC. I was concerned that I would lose my connections to Los Angeles because I always intended to come back here.
You lose the California mojo having to go back to depositions or something like that after policy. That would seem pretty jarring.
There are many different ways to be able to be of service to the community.
It was a good decision. I'm glad I did it because I had never done anything like that before. I stepped completely out of my comfort zone. I learned a lot that I was able to apply in practice once I did get back to litigation.
Is that similar to like a White House Fellowship or something like that? It's for people who have some experience in practice and then get some experience policy-wise? Do you have a special project that you are intending accomplish during that time?
It's similar to a White House Fellowship. In that most of the people who were in the program, some people had different specialties, other specialties and some were generalists. There were six of us were civil rights fellows. Of the civil rights fellows, I think the median number of years in practice had to be about twenty.
At that time, I was about 10 or 12 years out. I was among the least experienced lawyers in that fellowship program. We did work on policy issues. One of my areas of focus was on housing policy that affected farmworker communities in the central valley. Also, out in Riverside County, we did a lot of work in the Coachella Valley and worked collaboratively with the USDA, other federal agencies, as well as local municipalities and getting infrastructure and support to solve some of the issues concerning substandard housing conditions for farmworkers.
That gave you a lot of experience with different stakeholders and I would assume that had an impact on your role as the aesthetic leader. You have to work with a lot of different elements of the community.
I joined Bet Tzedek as one of the deputy directors of litigation. I was there for nine years and it was an incredible opportunity to work with some very talented public interests, whereas dedicated their entire careers to serving, underserved communities and low-income people. In addition to that, it was a great way to work in partnership with lawyers who were in law firms that wanted to do pro bono work.
It was the best of both worlds. I had the opportunity to work with lots of people from different constituencies and trying to bring together people to help solve some of the issues that we're facing people who are living in Los Angeles County. One of the other things that we did when I was there was the creation of the Holocaust Survivors Justice Network, which gave us another opportunity to partner with social service agencies all around the country in assisting survivors applied for the reparations payments if they were entitled to from some Eastern European countries.
That's such a great program. I know they've done some prominent work overtime, and in Holocaust areas including. I know some amicus briefs that I work with them on in some Holocaust cases. A dizzying array of experiences, Michelle, and all over the place different ways to have an impact on various communities. You're at Bet Tzedek, is that your last place before you join the bench?
That's where I was when I got appointed.
What made you think that the next thing is to apply to become a judge?
Even when I was at Bet Tzedek, I wasn't thinking about becoming a judge. That literally wasn't something in my mind until a couple of years before I decided to apply to the bench. The reason that I eventually got to that place is because I like to volunteer and to work on boards because that's how we met through some of our community work together.
Every once in a while, the state bar would send out a request for people to volunteer for different committees. When they sent the request out, it was in 2005 or somewhere thereabout, for people who were interested in serving on the JNE Commission, which is the commission on judicial nominees’ evaluation, which is responsible by statute for vetting people who want to become judges, I thought, “I would bet there's nobody like me on that commission.”
I looked up the membership and sure enough, there were no public interest people or civil rights people on the commission. I thought that was something that I could add value to the commission with because of the perspective that I had had throughout my career. As a litigator, I had a vested interest in making sure that there was a diversity of experience of people who were appointed to the bench, still not thinking that was something I would want to do.
I applied to serve on the JNE Commission. Because people knew that I was on the commission, people would ask me questions about what they should be doing if they wanted to get appointed. Pretty soon, people started asking me, “Why don't you apply to become a judge?” It hadn't occurred to me up until that point. I started thinking, “That is a great way to be of service to the community.” That's why I decided to apply.
You get a perspective being on that evaluations committee to see the range of people who are applying and who are going through the process and probably a sense of what are good experiences to have to become a judge and maybe feel a little more comfortable with that saying, “I have some different experiences I can share with the community and the bench. I can do that.” That's my experience with doing judicial evaluations as well.
You see your range of practices, experiences and levels who are going through the process and that depending on what a particular experience you bring to it, it's much better to have the committee be very well-rounded in that regard, an appellate practitioner like me, a defender, a DA or something so that we have different things we can evaluate when we're looking at nominees. You put your name in the hat. How long have you been on the Superior Court?
It was many years ago. The day before Christmas Eve is when I got the call.
That’s like a Christmas Eve gift. Tell me how that experience has been and how different it is, maybe than what you expected or similar. What kinds of assignments and different cases that you've been dealing with over the past years?
When I first joined the bench, I was assigned to a family law assignment and I was there for four years. I had absolutely no experience in family law. I was very nervous because I didn't know the law. I didn't know the procedure, even though the same rules of evidence and civil procedure apply. Family law is accorded in equity. It's a little bit different from what I was used to, but it was very challenging. The cases are incredibly important to the litigants, and there's a lot at stake.
There's a reason that people become so emotional around family law cases, because usually not are they on the divorce cases, that there's the issue of the breakup of the relationship, but also if there are children, then you're adjudicating the two most important things to people, their children and finances. That affect their life and their life lifestyle in a very big way, so there's a lot at stake.
Another thing that is challenging about that docket is the fact that most litigants are self-represented. There are other considerations and running the calendar that you have in family law or other courts of equity that you don't have in other areas of the law. Because we're in Los Angeles, I've lost track of the number of languages that are spoken. I don't think a day went by when I was in Family Law that I didn't have at least one matter where I needed the assistance of an interpreter. That makes things much scarier for the litigants. People are nervous about the process. They're concerned about what the outcome is going to be.
I was able to draw on the experiences that I had in working with different constituencies and getting into a mindset of being open and asking questions and not making assumptions based on my life experience if I'm seeing something that doesn't necessarily mean that it means what I think it means because that person is having a different experience.
You can learn so much just from listening because people have different experiences.
That was good training for that. I've been on a civil assignment for a while. I was in the personal injury hub and now I'm in an independent calendar court on unlimited jurisdiction, where I handled cases from filing all the way through trial. It's a mixed bag of kinds of cases. It's very challenging. It's extremely interesting and rewarding.
From your time in family law with those experiences, did you have some different ideas about how to be more transparent and increase access? Sometimes we think about ways that would be helpful to litigants to make the courts more accessible, but you can't fathom what all those ways might be until you're there in court.
In the family law, I have the luxury. Because it is accord in equity, I could do things as a judge and family law that I can't do in my civil assignment. One of the things that I did was I spent a lot of time explaining in plain English what was happening in the cases so that people would feel a little bit more comfortable about at least understanding the procedure. I also worked very hard to alleviate any anxiety people had because of limited English proficiency.
Every once in a while, I could have a litigant who clearly English was not their first language, but they felt like they had to conduct the hearing in English. I could tell, they were not understanding. Rather than putting the burden on them to ask, I would say I would be more comfortable if we had an interpreter, “Ma'am would you mind waiting for about fifteen minutes so we can get an interpreter here so that you can testify in your first language?”
I would try to take the burden off of people in that way. When I was in family law, and it was happening again because of my assignment as an assistant supervising judge in a civil division. I'm 1 of 2 judges in my courthouse that's responsible for the name change petitions. On any given week, I have 15 to 20 name changes and requests for their gender identity markers to be changed on their documents.
I tried very hard to ensure that the transgender litigants feel seen or heard for who they are and who they present themselves to be without putting the burden on them, to have to ask for something. I take on that responsibility because it's important to me to know that they see that I believe that they have the same access to justice as everyone else.
That's because you are empathetic and that's helpful in this role. We don't think, as lawyers, especially with this self-represented how important that is to be transparent about the process, but what's happening in the implications of what's going on today, tomorrow and the next phase of the case, and to explain that in plain English in a way that doesn't require them to ask that you're volunteering. That’s important.
You have significant leadership prior to joining the bench in terms of your rights work, policy work and your work with the JNE Commission. What does leadership look like when you're on the bench? You have leadership abilities and you might be constrained about what you can do in that regard, more constrained in different ways when you're judged and when you're not?
My leadership work before I became a judge consisted in a large part of service on boards and being out front on certain issues in the community. I can't do that as a judge, but what I can do and what I have done is serve the community in other ways. I'm the Vice President of the Board of Trustees for the LA County Law Library, which is because first of all, I love the library. If I could retire and move into the New York Public Library, I would be a happy girl. More to the point, the LA County Law Library has significant partnerships with public interest organizations throughout the state and is a leader in providing self-help services to self-represented litigants.
I'm very proud of the work that the library has done. I've also sought appointments to various judicial council committees. The chief justice appointed me to work on The Commission on the Future of California's Courts. I'm very proud to have served as the chair of the self-represented litigant subcommittee of the civil working group and 3 of the 4 recommendations that the chief justice pulled out of The Futures Commission report to focus on were recommendations that came out of my subcommittee to the benefit of self-represented litigants throughout the state. That's a nice way to fulfill that need to be of service.
It's amazing that you can see that you're like, “That came from our working group, those exact prescriptions to pursue.”
There are those kinds of opportunities. They're not highly visible opportunities like when I was in private practice, but I know that I added value there. I've also held leadership positions within the court. I served on the executive committee of the LA Superior Court. I'm the chair of the technology committee. As you know, we've been doing a lot of heavy lifting using technology in order to ensure continued access to justice. I also worked with retired justice square as a member of the language access workgroup for the judicial council. There are a lot of opportunities to continue to serve the community. They're just not the kinds of opportunities. They're not the same as the opportunities that I had when I was a lawyer.
They're important to the functioning of the judicial system. You can have an impact in a way that you couldn't have not being on the bench. You're involved with American Law Institute as well.
If I could live in the library, I would. I'm a complete law nerd. I work with ALI. My focus is on the restatement of children in the law then I've also been working on a couple of projects concerning data privacy. As you know, the ALI is another way to meet people that you would never meet ordinarily in practice, to sit and have very substantive conversations about the law and the development of the law. I'm guessing you feel about your service on ALI the same way I’m feeling.
People are from law professors to all different forms of practitioners, judges from all over the country, and you can discuss these issues where's the law and where might it be going in an interesting way on some cutting edge areas like data privacy. They remind me of the rammed for it in the same way that we want to have perspectives of all different perspectives. We're looking at all aspects of who the law could impact in this regard.
It's a rare opportunity to have productive, very civil discussions with people from professors to the plaintiff's defense, but for when we're sitting in this room talking about restatement and ALI matters, we're looking for the benefit of the law going forward, all of us together it's nice to have that opportunity. It didn’t seem to have that many opportunities to come together these days.
Especially with ALI, but for all, this goes for any community worth than anyone does. It's interesting to hear the perspectives of other people and other points of view. Every time I go to the ALI annual meeting, I learn so much just from listening because people have different experiences.
The implications of a particular rule, you wouldn't sometimes think, “I never thought of that. I didn't even realize I would be an issue,” but we need to consider that for going to have this role. That's neat. What's your favorite thing about being a trial judge, like being on the bench? What's the thing you most enjoy?
Hopefully, I'm not deluding myself, I enjoy feeling like I'm making a difference, that I am a part of providing justice to people because I think that the law is the glue that holds our society together. I feel good every day when I leave the courthouse because I try to bring my best self to work every day. My favorite part of the job is feeling like I'm making a difference.
That's what I think you've done throughout your career. It's all in different ways. I want you to talk a little bit too about mentors and sponsorship throughout your career, but also in terms of applying to the bench. There's always some person or little angel who comes to help us at key junctures. I was wondering if you had an experience like that when you were applying for the venture or even going through your career, people who encouraged you and recommended opportunities?
The answer is blurry because it all revolves around the same point in time. Before I went into my Hug Fellowship, I had a mentor who encouraged me to do that. I was not sure if I should do it and she was the one who told me about the fellowship. I had worked with her before she knew that I was a litigator and loved litigation and that going into policy work would be a difficult choice for me, but she encouraged me to do it because she said to me and she was right, is that I'm going to gain more experience and tools for my toolkit if and when I go back to litigation, that I would be able to use those tools and I did in a very big way.
When I was coming out of the fellowship, I was concerned going in that it was going to be hard to get back into the Los Angeles Legal Community. That's when I discovered the Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles, which is where you and I first met. I thought, “I don't know people very well now. It's been a couple of years. I need to get back into the legal community and start networking.”
Be responsive and respectful. We do see lawyers who are not respectful. Usually, it's to the opposing counsel and judges don't like to see that.
I went to a luncheon and walked into this room. It was at the LA Athletic Club. I didn't know a soul, not one person. I'm standing by the door. I noticed across the room that there was a woman who was looking at me from across the room, noticing that I was by myself. She makes a beeline over to me, introduces herself, and then introduces me to five other people.
That person was Holly Fujie, who you also know and I'm sure many of the people reading this show know, was my mentor for many years. After that, we applied to become judges together and we got appointed at the same time. If it weren't for Judge Fujie, I don't think I would have been as involved in some of the community work related to the Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles as I was. I felt so welcome because of that one kind gesture.
It also impressed upon me the importance of being a mentor to other people, so now that's something that I tried to do, because if it weren't for her reaching out to me, I don't know where I would be. I'm going to reach out to others. I encourage my colleagues to become mentors, and attorneys who want to become judges to seek out a mentor. That's a good life lesson for women in any profession. It's important because that's a part of how your networks are formed and how you get the support that you need in order to move to a place in your career that you'd like to move to.
I was hoping that you would mention Holly. I was certain she would come up in that regard. I didn't realize how early you had met her in your time with the Women Lawyers Association. Women lawyers of LA is another one of those unique organizations. I'm sure there are others like them around the country, but where you meet women from all areas of practice that you just wouldn't need. It's similar to ALI in that regard, although it's a different purpose.
You can so easily feel like you're steeped in the community because if you were doing civil litigation, you would just meet the business litigators or whatever. You wouldn't meet the DAs, public defenders, city attorneys, all of the US attorneys, all the other people who are active in the board and woman lawyers and just active and woman lawyers. Generally, I felt like it was a nice little microcosm of women in many different areas of practice and on the bench in Los Angeles that made me feel like, “There's some nice community here. I know lots of people and it doesn't have anything directly to do with my practice. That's great.”
The nice thing about doing work like that on boards like Women Lawyers of Los Angeles is that the people who are on those boards are also on other boards. There's a lot of cross-pollination. I became introduced to and involved in other bar associations that I didn't even know existed because of the connections that I made on the Women Lawyers Board.
Active people will serve in multiple ways across multiple organizations. I have the same experience, “Have you heard of this? This would be an interesting thing for you to become involved in and makes it much more easy to find opportunities when you have that as well.” Your story with Judge Fujie is such a great one because of having you join the bench together and have that continued support and collegiality and serving as colleagues is great.
You do pay it forward. It comes from the heart and that's the only way we can ever pay the people who help us back is to pay it forward to others and to be that person for them that somebody wants for us. There are many other people, probably, you don't even know who helped you. At certain points, people probably spoke up for you in a room you weren't in or something else that gave you that extra push to move forward and all the opportunities that you've had. There's a lot of secret ones you may not even know about.
Every once in a while, I'll get a call to be asked to speak on a panel or to serve on a committee. It's somebody that I don't know. I know they don't know me, so I know that somebody recommended me. We all have those allies precisely because they want to be of service and want to help people. You're never going to know who they are because they're not going to come knocking on the door for payments or recognition. They're doing it for the right reasons.
That’s the tip of this iceberg. I see this part, but underneath probably a lot of other people. I don't know their names, but God bless them for helping at various points. Is there a judge or two who you've seen on the bench or a living judge that you admire or the aspects of their demeanor on the bench, the way they serve as a judge that you like to emulate or that you just admire?
It has to be a living person because some of the people that were my early judicial heroes when I was a lawyer, a woman of color walking into some of the courtrooms in this courthouse that I admire, they've since passed away. The person that I most admire and would like to emulate is Lee Edmond. She is the epitome of great judicial temperament. She's brilliant. She is an incredible mentor. She's one of my mentors. She is an impeccable leader. She would be the person that I would name.
She is remarkable that way. A lot of women lawyers have a Lee Edmond experience. It's always a positive one. I remember when she was a state bar president and she wanted to ask me something. I was a brand new baby lawyer. Who would want to drive two hours to come to have lunch with me to ask my advice on something? She did that. She's like, “Can I come down? I want to ask you a question.” It was some gender bias in the court's work that we were doing in Orange County.
She came down and said, “Know on your schedule what's easiest for you.” I still obviously remember this. It was impactful. She's such an elegant person and gracious. That's good to hear that she continues to be that way on the bench and the Court of Appeal. I wanted to do a lightning round of questions with a few shorter questions. We're going to try and do a quick in and out. First, what is your top tip for lawyers appearing in front of you in terms of refining and then presentation in court?
Be prepared and organized. One of the things that make my job on the bench easier is when the lawyers know what their cases are about. They have an organized presentation to give or are flexible enough if I don't need an organized presentation and I have specific questions, they're able to answer the questions precisely, to be responsive and respectful. I hate to have to say that, but we do see lawyers who are not respectful. Usually, it's to the opposing counsel and judges don't like to see that.
I'm assuming you mean respectful to both the court and counsel. Which talent would you most like to have?
I am not artistic, so I would love to be able to sketch and draw. Both of my sons are amazing at that. It's like it's their second nature. They're able to do that. I would love to be able to do that, but I can't.
I always feel like art needs creators and appreciators, and I'm in the appreciator category.
I love to look at it. I just can't create it to save my life.
What trait do you most deplore in yourself?
Sometimes I am too cautious, and that goes against the way I tried to generally live my life. I don't try to have the courage to do things that I wouldn't necessarily do or have a little bit of apprehension about. When I'm cautious, it irritates me because I should tell myself, “You're feeling cautious. This means this is something that you must do.” It takes me a minute to get there. I wish I weren't like that.
That’s a little nudge over the threshold at that point. There are some good things about being self-aware that you're like, “I've reached a point where I have a little level of discomfort here.” At least going to acknowledge that and then push it beyond it. Who are your favorite writers? That does not mean lawyer writers or legal writers.
This is an interesting question for me because I don't read a lot of fiction. I read almost all nonfiction, but my two favorite writers are fiction writers. Maya Angelou and Alice Walker, because The Color Purple is I think, the best book I've ever read. The book is amazing.
Sometimes a movie is different or has a different aspect to it, but sometimes it is like the book or the words are much more impactful. For what in your life do you feel most grateful?
Have courage and be kind.
My two sons. I'm so lucky to be their mom. I love them with all of my heart.
Given the choice of anyone in the world, who would you have as a dinner guest?
I would love to have dinner with Sonia Sotomayor.
If you could wake up tomorrow having gained one quality or ability, what would it be?
Something I know I will never be able to do but I would love to do is to go free diving and feel like I was floating through the deep ocean without any breathing apparatus or anything like that. I'd love to be able to do that because people who are professional freedivers can stay underwater for minutes for a long time. That’s something I know I'll never be able to do, but if I could wake up and only have the ability to do it once, I would love to be able to do that.
Have the experience to know what that would feel like. Finally, what is your motto if you have one?
Have courage and be kind.
That very well described you. That exemplifies you. You're doing a good job with that. You're acting that out. We're all lucky to have you joined us, talk about your journey and give some advice to others who might be interested in that. Thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you so much for having me.