Orange County, California Superior Court Judge

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Orange County, California Superior Court Judge Adrianne Marshack joins host MC Sungaila to discuss her career trajectory from teaching to BigLaw to the bench, and explain how she handles her current assignment in family law by expanding her legal expertise and making sure that those going through turbulent family law proceedings are treated with dignity and respect. She also explains the importance of being flexible, listening to your intuition, and getting advice from trustworthy mentors in navigating your career.

Relevant episode links:

Orange County Superior Court in California

About Adrianne Marshack:

Judge Adrianne Marshack was appointed to the Superior Court of California, County of Orange, by Governor Gavin Newsom on March 14, 2022. She is currently assigned to the Family Law Panel. Prior to her appointment to the bench she practiced complex civil business litigation primarily at large law firms, including most recently at Goodwin Procter LLP and Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP. Judge Marshack graduated from UCLA School of Law in 2007 and was Order of the Coif. Prior to going to law school, Judge Marshack taught elementary school in Los Angeles Unified School District. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film and Television Production from New York University after which she moved to Southern California in search of some sunshine.

In this episode, I'm very pleased to have joined us on the show, Judge Adrianne Marshack from the Orange County Superior Court in California. Welcome.

Thank you much for having me, MC.

Your story as an addition to the bench will be a good counterpoint to some of those who have been on the bench for a long time and were appointed in a different period and also your career in law firms prior to coming to the bench. You have all of that varied careers and different insights to share in both of those settings with the readers. Before I get into those details, I wanted to start with the beginning, which is how is it that you became interested in studying the law and going to law school?

The idea was planted when I was teaching. Before I went to law school, I was an elementary school teacher in South Central, Los Angeles. What I was seeing in a school that was a Title 1 School was the majority of the students qualified for free and reduced lunch, came from economically disadvantaged families and were also largely Spanish speaking. The difference that I saw between the students that were doing well and were not was the level of parental involvement. Not so much even being able to assist their children with school work but instilling in the children that, “You need to take school seriously. Do your best. Try hard.”

I went to law school with the intention of doing educational policy when I got out. That was the impetus for me to apply, to be somewhat of a policy walk and try to make a difference in education but when I got to law school, the only lawyers did was on television. I was exposed to a lot of different areas of law. Litigation interested me and I ended up taking the path of least resistance when the big law firms came on campus with their high salaries. I was married when I was in law school. I was a little bit older when I went back. I had life goals that having the big law firm salary was going to allow me to fulfill. That's the path that I ended up taking but have circled back to public service in a way.

There are a couple of different pieces in that. One is you can go to law school for one reason and come out doing something very different but with that initial interest, you need some reason for being in law school and staying there because it's a challenge even if you end up not doing what you originally went to law school for. I went to law school because I was going to be an international law person and that has happened in specific cases but no because it wasn't what I thought it was going to be. It was different. It was at least an impetus to go and carry through. There's value in that, even if you end up not doing it.

There's value in going and being very open to the experience. You never know where you're going to end up and what might spark your interest that you could never have imagined.

Being open to other things then narrowly focused on your initial idea for why you went. The second thing that resonated with me was this concept that I've heard others talk about, which is I saw a problem and I thought that the law could help me solve the problem. That's with regard to the education policy, “This is a bigger problem than something I can solve where I am and the law will allow me to be more of a problem solver.”

You might be doing what I wanted to do originally though it may have taken me into the political arena. It's harder to do what you want to do there.

There are many other moving parts to it once you realize, “Even there, I might have a voice,” but there are many other voices involved. Seeing how this sausage is made here, may not come out the way. I hoped.

It’s not. One of the benefits of being in the judiciary is that I get to make decisions.

For people who are used to being an advocate, that can be a challenge like, “I'm making the decisions instead of advocating for a particular outcome.” You went the law firm route. Tell me about your experience in litigation.

I started at a huge international law firm, Morrison & Foerster. I had somewhat of a unique experience. I came out in 2007 and in 2008, we had a downturn in the economy. I was in the Orange County office of Morrison & Foerster, which they closed in 2008. That also coincided with when I was having my first child. Life circumstances took me to a smaller firm for a little while until I rejoined my Morrison & Foerster colleagues at another large law firm, Manatt, Phelps & Phillips.

I left and came back but that's where I was for the majority of my career. I both loved being at a large law firm and was frustrated at times being at a large law firm. It was wonderful in terms of training. They had extremely high expectations of associates and our work product. Clients are paying a lot of money for us and we have to deliver. That was fantastic. The exposure to many areas of law was awesome because I wasn't just confined to the areas of law that the partners in my particular office practice. I could determine what areas interested me to find a partner in the firm that did that and try to take on a case. That was fantastic.

I was able to grab the bull by the horns and have the career that I wanted but there were also challenges because when I had my first child when I was a first-year associate and trying to balance the expectations of the workload with being a mother was tough and sometimes more tough than others. I would assume many people going to law school are by nature high achievers who want to do well and want to please their superiors. The tendency to take on too much and burn yourself out is real. It’s a constant attempt to find balance. That was a struggle. The more senior I got in my career, the easier it got quite frankly but it's never easy.

Having the opportunity to set your schedule that gets a little bit better as you become more senior in a firm but there are still significant time requirements. That doesn't go away. Flexibility within that of when you can do things.

I do think that once you have a positive reputation in a law firm for doing good work and being reliable, then you're not scrutinized so much in terms of when are you in the office or what times of day are you doing your work. As long as you can be accessible and you do good work timely, it can be very flexible. Certainly, it’s much more flexible than my schedule now.

That's something we can talk about because the realities of that on the trial bench, trial and the court happen in certain hours and days. It doesn't happen as the judge does. That's different in that regard. Within the day, you have a set timeframe. Tell me about your interest in joining the bench and becoming the decision-maker in particular cases and stuff, the advocate. How did that come about?

It may be odd coming from a litigator but by nature, I'm not a particularly confrontational person. I am a much more peacemaker. I like to be a problem solver. As a litigator, I would advocate for my clients but I would typically take a very pragmatic approach to things. A lot of judicial officers appreciated that clients would appreciate it too. It's more suited to my personality to be the problem solver or decision maker as opposed to just an advocate for one side. You are a more effective advocate when you can see both sides. That skill was something that I honed. I decided that's what I would like to do, to be able to be the one making the decision so I went for it.

In California, it's largely in most cases and in your case, an appointments process, not an election elected process. I mentioned that because it varies from state to state. I feel like there's this civics lesson from the show because each judge in different states and jurisdictions is like, “Here's how you go to the bench.” In some courts, even at the state supreme court level, in large part, they're elected to that court, not appointed. That's different from California but largely, unless there's some unique circumstance, you go through the appointments process, which you did. Tell me how it's been. How long has it been?

I am brand new. I was appointed on March 14, 2022 and sworn in on April 11, 2022.

Somehow, COVID time and post-COVID time are all different. I somehow felt that was longer. I was thinking about all the time with the appointments to the bench. I thought certainly it must have been longer.

Sometimes it felt that way but it doesn't. I can't believe how fast time has gone.

This is very new. You're assigned to an area that is not something that you did a lot of work in previously.

I did zero work in Family Law with the exception of my divorce.

You have this personal experience to bring to it.

In terms of knowledge of the law, it's something that I'm having to learn as I go. I'm finding that the best way to learn the law, I have a general idea but is on a case-by-case basis. Learning in context has been helpful because then it sinks in. When you're reading the Rutter Guide or statutes not in context, they're not sinking in. Maybe you'll get a general idea but applying them is when it's sinking in for me.

The best way to learn the law is to study it in context. If you just read them instead of applying them, they might not sink in.

Experiential learning is very good. That's why clinics are good in law school too. It's a good opportunity. One of the things I've heard from business litigators and even criminal prosecutors in the federal system who've become trial judges in the state system and have gone into the Family Law division, they've said that they've found amazingly, certain things that they did before that translate well like Judge Tjuana Byrd in LA said, “I enjoy the Family Law assignment and I found that my review of difficult financial documents from my white collar practitioner days, both as prosecutor and defense lawyers, are very helpful in the Family Law context because there's a lot of financial information, math and all of that stuff to do.” It's been able to translate skills that she didn't know would come into play. I don't know if you've found the same thing.

I have found the same thing. The Code of Civil Procedure applies all of the discovery disputes and that's an old hat for me. I know those rules. There can be a lot of interesting and complex financial issues but I've been surprised by how I've had many cases with civil overlap. I've dealt with anti-slap issues and real property simultaneous civil lawsuits. I have been surprised at how my civil background has been able to come into play here in Family Law.

Family Law, by and large, is such a human area of the law, may be in juvenile but not another area where you're making decisions that fundamentally affect the core of somebody's life. Having been a teacher to young children and developing empathy and compassion to me has been the best skill that I've developed over time and have been able to use on the bench in this particular assignment.

Your work prior to coming to the law is equally important in this setting and is valuable to your assignment.

In Family Law, we have a disproportionate number of pro per litigant. Being able to deal with a variety of personalities with a variety of experience levels and sometimes, turning down the heat or explaining things to people who aren't speaking the language and trying to make it understandable and digestible for people whose first experience in court and with the law when they come to court on a Family Law matter. There's a lot of that they don't teach you in law school. Being a student of life and humanity helps.

When we talk about the diversity of experiences on the bench, it's not just your practice area experience but your life experience that contributes in different ways. It's also your prior professional experience that can help you with that. You made an important point, which is that a lot of times this may be the first or only interaction with the court system that somebody has on a personal level. That's an important responsibility too in your role.

People may not always like the decisions that I'm making but as long as they have been heard and treated fairly, that's all that I can do. That is a way to instill trust in the process.

Even if the result isn't what you want, at least you feel that you were heard and treated fairly. How do you do that? Is there anything, in particular, you found helpful?

This maybe comes from years of therapy that I've had but I do try to listen and validate what you're saying. I understand, X, Y and Z. “Here are what the court needs to consider.” I try to explain to the litigants why I'm doing what I'm doing. Even when I'm issuing a decision and the litigants have attorneys next to them, I never look at the attorneys. I'm only looking at the litigants because I'm talking to them.

It's who is going to be impacted, especially in the Family Law setting. This is highly personal.

Also, emotional. People are in these Family Law proceedings at their worst. They're going through emotional times in their lives. To be treated with dignity and respect goes a long way. Also, trying to manage the conflict. To be candid, in Family Law, the people that are coming to you for decisions often are high conflict.

They can't resolve it on their own. That's why they are there.

There’s a lot of trying to cut through all of that emotion which is not an aspect of the law you're dealing with much in civil. Certainly, not at the appellate level. It's intellectual. The people are raw when they come in.

Empathy towards them is important. Human aspects are very important to that assignment.

My proudest moment so far on the bench is I had the motion to compel where the moving party was represented by counsel but the responding party whose responses were being sought was representing himself. I gave the moving party everything they asked for. I compelled responses. I gave them sanctions because that was required under the law.

When we were done, the responding party who had everything against him said to me, “I want to thank you. I came in here. I raped. You helped me understand what was happening and why it was happening. I wanted to thank you for that.” That made me feel good that even though everything was against them, he felt heard. He was treated with respect. He understood why I was doing what I was doing and he was going to live with it.

That’s interesting that you got that kind of direct immediate feedback. You always think, “I was trying to do that. I hope that they felt heard.”

To have someone tell you that was gratifying and rare. I'm sure it probably won't happen again. If I could have comment cards when I left like, “How do you feel to make me a better judicial officer,” I would because that's the way I want people to leave feeling. I don't want the court to be a scary place. It's certainly not Family Law.

You want to encourage people to come with problems that they could not solve on their own to the court rather than finding some other mechanism to solve those which may not be as genteel as the courtroom, “We'd like to encourage you to come back here and know that you will be heard and treated fairly.” The alternative of self-help is not something we want to encourage. We want to encourage the rule of law and its application and that people feel comfortable with the system to come back to.

I don't want to encourage them to come back too much.

Maybe they can work things out. If you explain the reasons and here's my authority and all of the various things, if perhaps that litigant who said, “I understand,” maybe they're less likely to come forward with something like that again like, “Let me think about this before I come and do that because there might be things I'm not thinking about that are relevant to that.”

Often in Family Law, the litigants are in the mode of trying to punish each other or they are in a mode where they can't be reasonable because they can't set aside the issues. If I can encourage them to be like, “The court isn't going to expect you to be reasonable and if you're not, you're not going to get a decision that you want,” if that's going to be the impetus for them to think twice, then it's worth it for me to take the time.

Do you have the litigants come back to you with further things in their case or would they go to another judge? In other words, would that be helpful if they could say, “If we're going to go back to Judge Marshack, she's going to have this view so we better think about that?”

The way that it works in Family Law is a judicial officer is assigned to the case, unless I were to leave the Family Law assignment, that case is mine. I will see it through to judgment and every time they come back, they would see me. You do get to know litigants. During the time I've been here, I have had many cases where I've seen them over and over again. “You get familiar with the parties and the attorneys.” After a while, you start to be able to discern if there's a reasonable or unreasonable one.

It sounds like you have a very pragmatic approach to the cases and the parties. Is there something that you think is more effective in terms of oral advocacy or in brief that is helpful to you?

We certainly see this in Family Law more than in other areas of law. One of the things that I can say is ineffective is an appeal to emotion. I don't care if, in your relationship history, one person cheated. That's not relevant. Stick to the issue. Give me your unbiased reasons why I should rule your way because I have to trim the fact a lot with irrelevant things. “Tell me what the law is that supports your position. Give me relevant facts as to why I should rule in your favor. Don't try and color it with irrelevant stuff because I'm going to see through it. It's going to get me frustrated.” This is an area where attorneys need to be able to have some client control because the client is like, “Tell the judge this.”

In Family Law you're dealing with, there's this long relationship with all of these things and to the people involved, all of that is relevant.

For attorneys, it's being able to discern what is going to be important to the judge and just focusing on that. I would rather have a succinct 2-page brief that gets to the heart of things than a long 10-page declaration that I have to spend time reading for 1 or 2 relevant paragraphs. Focusing the judge on a single 1 or 2 issues that the court needs to be deciding and then the relevant facts because often the decision will turn on 1 or 2 things.

That's a good thing to keep in mind, especially in the trial court with a very busy docket and also where you are looking at motions or decisions along the way that are very discreet. There's the whole case, “This motion is about this, not the whole case. Just this part. This is what I need to decide and here's what's relevant to that decision.”

We have a lot more evidentiary hearings in Family Law than I did in civil. I've been surprised at the number of attorneys who don't seem to know very well the Rules of Court in terms of what they need to do to have evidence admitted. For example, we have a Rule of Court in California that requires if you want to admit a video and have the court listen to the audio that you have to provide a transcript.

One of the big things we do in Family Law is domestic violence and a lot of it gets captured on cell phones. If the attorneys aren't figuring out how to get that video off a cell phone and provide me with a transcript, then I can't consider it. Certainly, it would be helpful for the attorneys to be very prepared and be able to have all of the evidence they want to present on behalf of their client to be able to do that. That seems basic but it's worth saying over and over.

It's because you've seen that be an issue.

I would expect that when there are people representing themselves but when we have attorneys, no better.

Those may not have been things you thought about before joining the bench that might be helpful tips. I wouldn't have thought that would be something to talk about. It could be helpful to someone.

Review your Rules of Court.

I wanted to ask you a little bit about mentors, sponsors and people who have supported you in the various parts of your career. If you have had mentors, what did that kind of mentoring look like? Sometimes law students in particular are like, “I've got to get a mentor,” and then they don't know what that means or maybe it just means paired with someone through some mentoring program but beyond that, they don't have a vision of what that might look like. Maybe you could share.

I did have several mentors in different ways and my most significant ones were not ones that were assigned through a program. Although, those can be helpful. They happened organically. They were partners at the law firms that I was at. One was a partner at Morrison & Foerster in Orange County. He was one of the reasons that I decided to come to Morrison & Foerster. As a personality, he was incredibly gregarious, very nurturing and almost like a father figure that wanted his people to succeed.

Even though we stopped working together after a few years of practice, we stayed in touch. He's one that I respect and would always ask about career moves, things that I was considering or when I decided that I wanted to get involved in the Orange County Bar Association. I went to him like, “What do you suggest?”

He was somebody that organically took an interest in me. There have been others that I've worked with over the years who became partly sponsors at my firm because they were cheerleaders for me. I worked with them. They thought highly of me. As I was rising through the ranks, for lack of a better term, I had their support. That was important. I also learned from them by watching.

That's an important point because there's always something that anyone good at something has been doing for a while, there are things that we unconsciously or subconsciously do that we wouldn't tell someone we do because we don't think about it anymore. Being there to see someone do it, you're like, “That was good the way you did X.” You'll be like, “I did what? I didn't even know I did that.”

It’s nice to be able to see them in action in that way. Something else you said about the person who's a good sounding board for you whom you had a good relationship with is common, especially with longstanding mentors. They have this feeling of they want the best for you. They want you to succeed and do what they can to help you succeed. That's one of the common things, whether it's you personally or them in general. I want to see people do well and I want to do what I can to nurture them.

The best mentors are people who are organically invested in you for whatever reason. Maybe that comes from an unnatural pairing that becomes a natural relationship or maybe it comes from the people that you're working with and you become close. It is so important, particularly for success in big law firms because the people who are making career advancement decisions often don't know everybody.

The best mentors are those who are organically invested in you for whatever reason.

They may never have met you when they have to make this decision. They're like, “Who is this person?”

You need people that do know you, can raise your hand and say, “I know her. She is fantastic. We need to make her partner.” It's important to find that and as best if it comes organically but sometimes you have to be strategic. Look at who's on the various committees and well respected. Try to work with them so they get to know you.

The point you made about someone raising their hand in the room where the decisions are being made and saying good things about you can be important, especially at the right time when they do that. The more I've gone through my career, there are a lot of people who have done that for me and others whom I never knew about. I see how decisions are made so I know that had to happen at certain points as somebody stood up and advocated for you.

The only thing you can do in response to that because you can't even thank the people, because in many cases you don't know who they were, is to do the same thing for somebody else, pay it forward, mentor others and say things about others who deserve it at the right time. That's all you can do. A lot of the time you'll never know who the angel is who helps you.

In this process of becoming a judge, I realize there is a lot of that because the vetting process is very substantial and deep. You don't know who's being contacted, opposing counsel. I came to realize how much we are our own brand from day one, building your reputation as to doing good work, having integrity and treating people respectfully will all come back. Who knows where your career is going to take you? If you have those tenants, no door will be closed.

If you're doing it well and treating people well, all of that will come back to you. That's not the reason to do it. It's often a byproduct of that. It can leave a lot of doors open. You don't know which thing you might want to do next. The vetting process is intense in the judicial realm. You don't know who's going to be contacted. It could be, “We will contact someone who isn't on any application or anything at all. They happen to know this person and wonder whether they know you. This is your life process.”

I'm the kind of person who if people ask, “Where do you envision yourself in five years,” I'm like, “I don't know. I have no idea. I don't have a 5, 10 or 20-year plan. I'm going to go in whichever direction looks in where there's an opportunity and looks interesting to me at the moment.” Being very authentic allows that to happen because doors aren't going to close.

That point of sometimes people think, “If I'm going to apply to be a judge, I had to have thought about it for my whole life and done everything towards that goal.” If I haven't done that, it's not going to happen. For you to say that because it can happen in several different ways, maybe you don't know that's how you would be best positioned to serve until you've developed more skills or learned more about where your strengths are and things like that. You don't have to do it from birth or at the beginning of law school. It's okay if you recently came to this idea. You should still apply if you're interested in it.

If you didn't take an opportunity to try and clerk after law school, that doesn't mean you're not going to be able to be a judge. There's no one path which is great and that adds to the diversity on the bench. All of us with divergent experiences enrich the bench.

Particularly in law school, there is so much of, “Here's this path and the next thing.” If you don't do any of those things, there's always this fear of, “Everything will be closed if I don't do this and this.” It's important for you to say that out loud. I feel like it's exemplified through the show and I'm trying to convey that message through all the different varieties of experiences that people have brought to the bench. Sometimes it's good to come out and say it.

In law school, there's often an unhealthy competitiveness. You're looking at what is the person next to you doing, “I got to do law review or I'll never get a good job.” There are a lot of ways to skin a cat at whatever part of life.

Everyone is nervous or anxious about their career and all of that. They're like, “If I have a clear roadmap or blueprint that says, ‘First I do this and that,’” it's anxiety-producing but on the other hand, oddly calming because you're like, “I'm doing all of these things,” but both the good and the bad of it is not true so you don't have to go through everything and the bad is you're going to have to off-road at points. There is no particular roadmap and that is okay. That's what makes life exciting and the journey interesting.

It tests your resilience too, “Can you go off script?” Life will force you off script.

That says a little bit about your personality and ability to adapt which you need to have the resilience to persevere through some challenges in life. Why not get used to some offroading in the career as well?

It also builds the confidence that you can deal with whatever comes your way which helps quell some anxiety.

I did that challenge. I made it through that one. I can do another challenge. I think about it even in a small way. When I started the show, I had no idea what I was doing but I was okay with that because I had already started a book publishing thing and I didn't know anything about that either. In each thing that you do, you're like, “That's fine. I don’t anything about that but I'll learn. I'll figure it out, find people who've been there before, get some advice and move forward.” In that small way, there is breaking the fear and saying, “I can figure it out.” It is figure-outable.

How empowering it is to be able to trust yourself and figure it out?

How empowering it is to trust yourself and figure out how to solve challenges on your own.

There's a lot of benefit to that. I hope we inspire some students to try something a little different and carve their paths because that's how you find the way to your highest and best contribution. Everybody is unique in their whole set of skills. Only those with all of their attributes could do a particular thing. It might be very different from what your neighbor in the class is doing.

Sometimes the path that's carved for you ends up not being the path that you want. When you're in it, it's like, “This is not fulfilling to me and what I want to be doing.” Being able to listen to yourself, go off script and work out the life and the career that you ultimately want is when it's going to be most rewarding.

That's a thing that's been interesting here too. Also in addition to, “There are certain things you have to do,” there's that sense, particularly in law school once you've chosen it. That is the only path and you cannot change it. That is not at all true as you can see with your career and different things that you have done and every single person who's been on the show. It's an evolving process. Something at one point that is great and perfect is something else that may be an interesting challenge that you would do. In the end, looking back, it all looks very neat, tied in a bow and makes total sense. In the process, it is not.

I look at my journey from studying Film Production in college. I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts going to teaching and law school. It doesn't make sense in a linear path but looking back it does. Certainly, I feel that now I'm on the bench, this is the book. It all makes sense.

I hope people learn from the show. I can say it all makes sense. It doesn't mean I had this particular plan about how all of this would fit together from the very beginning. Some people do but in many cases, no. That's okay if you don't have that. Keep going with what your intuition says is the right thing for you. Following your inner guidance to some degree is important. That's how you find the best place.

Nobody can tell you what is the right thing for you other than you. We were talking at the beginning about going to law school. That's how I think it is a great way to be in your entire career, being open to new challenges and experiences. You never know what one experience is going to lead. That's one of the exciting things to me because I'm a person that loves change. I love to see how opportunities unfold that I couldn't have imagined years ago.

Nobody can tell the right thing for you other than yourself. Be open to new challenges and experiences because you don't know where each one will lead to.

That's good because I've heard that the one constant in life is change. That's good that you like that. That works out well. Some people don't like that. That's hard. That's good that you can have that observational aspect to it in a way. I'm glad that you said that expressly and talked about that because I do think it's something that we've been implicitly talking about but on the whole, it's an important thing that people are a little bit scared to do in law school, in particular.

Thank you much for sharing your knowledge, experience and journey. I look forward to seeing what you do next on the bench. I'm excited to see what that is and see you grow and change as well in that role. Before we close, usually I ask a few lightning-round questions, which you would have fun with. I don't want to close without these. The first question is, which talent would you most like to have but don’t have?

Being multi-instrumental. If I could pick up any instrument and play it fluently, I would love that. I would love to be Prince. I dabble in several but am not good at any.

Which ones do you dabble in?

Guitar and piano. I used to play the bass guitar. I was in an all-girl band in high school playing the bass guitar but that's been a while.

One of my friends had the coolest birthday experience. There were these camps called Girls Rock Camp. It would be for young girls to instill their confidence in this stuff. Every once in a while, they would do these special ones for Ladies Rock Band Camp. She had that for her birthday and it was in Austin. We had all these great Austin female singer-songwriters working and training us. We want to try out exactly that multi-instrumental. We want to try out four different instruments and also sing whichever ones you wanted to try. We then create a band and wrote a song or the lyrics. We put together the music and then performed that night in an Austin club.

In another life, I would love to be a rock star but not this one. That sounds so fun.

It was fun and I played the drums. I've never played the drums ever but they're like, “The key is you know what rhythm is and you can keep it.” That's all we need.

The drummer is so important.

That's what I learned. After I was like, “No pressure.” If you don't keep this up, the whole thing is going to fall apart.

You have to keep the tempo.

It was fun. I was thinking this was my only experience of multi-instrumental because we want to move around and try different things. Who is your hero in real life?

One of my heroes is my oldest son. He's a twin and was born very premature, three and a half months early. We lost his brother. His name is Beckett. He was in the neonatal intensive care unit for 119 days, born weighing 1.50 pounds. Heath is a fighter. He fought so hard to be here and came out of the NICU unscathed. For somebody that was born premature and underweight, he's got no legacy issues from the prematurity. He is on the autism spectrum and has ADHD but that's unrelated. This is a child who persevered in life. I look at him every day and marvel at him. I thank him for fighting so hard to be here. He is one of my personal heroes.

You see those personality traits early. He is a fighter. That's what you saw in the beginning.

Feisty. He probably was the one who wanted to come out of the womb early. He was like, “I'm done here. I got to get out and see what this world is about.”

That could be the other part of that. You want to get out and see what's happening. Given the choice of anyone in the world, who would you invite to a dinner party?

I think of Nelson Mandela because I'm fascinated by leaders who would put their liberty on the line for their ideals. His story is so fascinating to go on and lead the country. To be stalwart in your ideals that you would do anything for them is admirable. What I don't think I asked myself if I were in a similar position is would I have the fortitude to sacrifice everything? He would be a fascinating one.

There's a lot of patience and forgiveness in his story, which is remarkable.

Also, resilience.

Last question. What is your motto, if you have one?

I don't have a motto. There were clichés that I live by that. 1) Be kind to everyone you know is fighting a hard battle. That goes to empathy, peace and compassion but also Gandhi's famous quote, “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” It's inspiring to me. One of the reasons that I pursued the judiciary is to be able to make a difference and serve my community. I'm hoping to be able to do that.

Judge Adrianne Marshack, thank you much for joining the show and sharing your thoughts. You are a dynamic and eclectic thinker. It's always interesting to know your thoughts.

MC, thank you much for your kind words and for inviting me to do this. This time has flown by. I enjoyed it.

Take care.