Episode 127: Laurie D. Zelon
00:49:00
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Show Notes
Former Associate Justice on the California Court of Appeal, now private judge at Judicate West, Laurie D. Zelon shares her journey in the law, including the significant role that mentorship played in her development. She shares how she became a leader in advocating for access to justice and pro bono work long before joining the bench, and the important role that both play in our justice system. This is a tremendous opportunity to hear from a longtime bar and community leader who embodies public service.
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About Laurie D. Zelon:
In 2020, following more than 22 years on the bench, 19 of which were on the Court of Appeal, Laurie Zelon retired from the California bench. She served as an associate justice of the California Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District, Division Seven, since 2003. She now serves as a private mediator and arbitrator with Judicate West.
She was born in Durham, North Carolina. She received her B.A. degree in 1974 from Cornell University and her J.D. degree in 1977 from Harvard Law School. During the twenty-three years that preceded her appointment to the Los Angeles Superior Court in 2000, Justice Zelon had an active litigation practice, involving scientific and technical issues, fiduciary obligations, and other complex commercial disputes.
Justice Zelon is a past President of the Los Angeles County Bar Association. She is a past member of its Board of Trustees, and past Chair of its Federal Courts Committee, its Judiciary Committee, its Access to Justice Committee, and its subsection on Real Estate Litigation. She has been active since her admission to practice in the American Bar Association and has served as Chair of the Standing Committee on Lawyers' Public Service Responsibility.
In California, Justice Zelon has been a long-time member and served as Chair of the California Commission on Access to Justice. She is an active member of several statewide judicial committees addressing administration of justice issues. She has written articles and spoken at educational programs for judges and lawyers concerning pro bono, public service, legal ethics and legal education.
She was the 1993 Recipient of the William Reece Smith, Jr. Special Services to Pro Bono Award, the 1999 Recipient of the Charles Dorsey Award from the National Legal Aid & Defenders Association, and the 2000 recipient of the Loren Miller Legal Services Award from the State Bar of California. She was the first recipient, in February 2000, of the Laurie D. Zelon Pro Bono Award, given by the Pro Bono Institute of Washington, D.C. She received the Shattuck-Price Outstanding Attorney Award, the highest honor given by The Los Angeles County Bar Association in 2009, and the 2010 Benjamin Aranda Access to Justice Award sponsored jointly by the State Bar, California Commission on Access to Justice, Judicial Council and California Judges Association, in honor of her work expanding and improving access to justice for low-income people.
Transcript
I'm very pleased to have join us on the show a now-retired Associate Justice from the California Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District, Laurie Zelon. Welcome.
Thank you. I'm happy to be here.
Thanks so much for joining. You have a great career on the court but also a deep impact on public interest and pro bono work in the state of California. I'm also interested in that and what you've been doing since you retired from the bench. Not so retired, sitting by designation in some cases to some courts. First, I wanted to start with how it was that you decided to get into the law. What interested you about law school?
It wasn't law school that interested me so much as getting into the law. I had an uncle who was probably one of my favorite people in the world, and he was a lawyer. His biggest client was Will Gaines of MAD Magazine. He did a lot of interesting First Amendment work in the 60s when MAD Magazine was very popular. That gave me an opportunity to see that you could do things with the law. Like so many of us, I was a student government junkie. It made sense to me as a way to accomplish things that I wanted to accomplish.
That's something I've heard a few times from people saying the law is an opportunity to make a difference, using your Law degree to make a difference in some way and to impact the world. Once you got to law school and started thinking about practice, did you think you wanted to do the work that you had seen with First Amendment work, or was there another interest?
I knew I wanted to be a litigator. It seemed to me that was what drew me. What I wanted to do was have the kind of practice where I could make a difference in some way, whether it was directly in practice or through activities affiliated with the practice, but not for paying clients necessarily. I was a student member of the New York Civil Liberties Union Board of Directors when I was in college. I was very aware of how you could use litigation to achieve social justice and protect people's rights in a significant way, so it drew me to litigation. That was the path I took.
I want to say you have that interesting culmination in your career of marrying different kinds of work and having a holistic impact on the law, which is a great background for joining the bench, ultimately. Tell us about how you did end up doing that and how you ended up marrying different kinds of practice. Sometimes people think, "I'm going to a law firm. I'm just going to do private civil litigation," but you've done a lot more than that.
It starts with being incredibly lucky and landing in the right place at the right time. I was looking for a firm that would allow me to do pro bono work and be involved in the community. That was very important to me. By luck, I went to an interview where people told me, "Don't even bother to interview with that firm because they only hire one person a year, and it's not going to be you." I went anyway.
I was interviewed on campus by Dennis Perluss, with whom I've had a very long professional relationship. The firm was that magic firm. I didn't care that it was in California. I probably would've gone to Timbuktu. That magic firm where all the lawyers were expected to and wanted to be engaged in the community in some meaningful way.
I walked in there, and I felt like I had come home. I was lucky they hired me. From the beginning, they put opportunities in my path. I remember when I was a very young associate, Sam Williams became President of the county bar. He called me in and said, "I'm putting you on a committee. What committee do you want to be on?"
It wasn't, "Do you want me to put you on a committee?" It was, "I'm putting you on a committee." The firm was like that. When you have the likes of Sam Williams, Pat Phillips, and later Shirley Hufstedler as part of your practice, you're going to do things that are just open doors for you. They made it possible to do the work I wanted to do. It was an extraordinary stroke of luck.
It's in the DNA of the founders. The firm fostered that because that's how they were and what they wanted to do in their practices. It's such a special opportunity to have that opportunity, to mix all of that up, but also with people who were leading in their own way in so many ways in the community.
Everyone there was a great lawyer. If you wanted to go to a place where you wanted to learn to be a good lawyer, that was certainly a great place to be. I learned so much there. It was a very special place.
Shirley Hufstedler in the firm was a judge on the Ninth Circuit. Is that where you first had the idea that, "One of the ways I might be able to serve is to eventually serve on the bench?" Was that something that came later?
It came later. It came from being in court watching judges, gaining the sense that if I learned my craft well and I became trustworthy and trusted, that was something that I might aspire to. It was always in the aspirational category. I can't speak for anyone else, but I never was one of those people who thought so highly of myself that I thought, "This is something that they owe me." It was something that I hoped I could earn.
That's a common theme I've heard from a few guests on the show who is on the bench, talking about basically being excellent where you're planted, doing the very best you can at the work you're doing at the time. That's the way to conduct yourself, or that's their view of what led to their being on the bench and part was because they worked very hard at being very good at where they were then.
Law is many things, but one of the things is that it is a craft. You have to be good at your craft, sit on either side of the bench, appearing in the courtroom effectively, or sit on the bench as the adjudicator. It is something that needs to be learned that you need to pay attention to, and it's hard work to do right.
The craft part is the part that keeps it interesting. It's not static. For me, I know all the different subject areas as an appellate lawyer I'm involved in. Different areas of the law keep it interesting. It's always on the cutting edge of where the law's developing, which also keeps you sharp, and your own craft in writing an argument. It can always continue to be refined.
It never got boring for me. I was on the bench in one capacity or another for more than twenty years, and it never got boring. People who were not in the law would say to me, "Do you have a specialty?" I said, "Yes, I do everything except death penalty cases." If I were still there now, I'd be doing death penalty cases, too. That variety and the sense that you were always learning something was something I enjoyed as a lawyer taking on a new case and delving in and figuring out what was going on. That carried over to the bench. Having a new craft of cases every month that you were going to look at was always fun and exciting.
It keeps it interesting. I know some people like to specialize in a particular area, but that's not something that would keep it interesting for me as far as the substantive area. That's certainly something as a judge. It's one of the factors in terms of looking for people with diverse experiences, both as people but also in their practice, for the bench is helpful. There are so many different kinds of cases you could encounter once you are a judge.
It requires a good dose of humility, too, because I went from a fairly sophisticated litigation practice to a traffic court, which was my first assignment. I learned an awful lot about Drunk Driving Law, but you have to step back and say, "However good I was as a lawyer, I'm starting again with something new. I have to take away whatever lessons I can from other people, research, and everything else." You have to be ready to do that.
Being a lawyer requires a good dose of humility because however good you are, you have to step back, start again with something new, and take away whatever lessons you can from other people, from research, and from everything else.
Humility is an important element throughout your career, in general, but especially for the bench. It's very helpful because that's the beginner's mind you're talking about. In the very beginning, you're coming into a whole new thing. Serving as a judge and deciding cases instead of advocating is one thing and then a whole new area. Certainly, humility from complex litigation to, "Now I'm doing traffic court." It doesn't necessarily mean I know anything about traffic court and how to do that. You got to learn that as well.
I knew so little the first day I was there. I took the bench, and I was waiting for somebody to get things started, and it took me a minute to realize, "Wait, I have to do that."
I know. Even sitting pro tem in some courts, there are things where there's a note, "Just do this." I'm like, "I don't know that." "Take a plea." I realized so many people with criminal backgrounds who had sat in this court that meant something to them, and they could move forward from that. I was like, "I'm going to need to take a break because I don't know what to do. I need to make some findings, but I don't know what I'm supposed to be asking." Take a break and move forward. It's that moment when you realize, "I'm the one that needs to figure this out." From the trial bench to the Court of Appeal, what made you think about applying to the Court of Appeal and doing that?
I was encouraged to apply to the Court of Appeal. I don't think I would have done it as soon as I did, had I not been encouraged to do so. In a way, the Court of Appeal was a very logical fit for me because I am interested in getting to the bottom of things in a way you don't always have time to do on the trial court. The kind of litigation I had done, most of it didn't go to trial. I enjoyed the trials, but most of it didn't go to trial. I was used to working with a paper record and evaluating things that way. It was a comfortable fit for me. Getting to go to Division Seven, where the PJ was the same, Dennis Perluss, who had pulled me out of law school, was very nice. That was a special place.
That's remarkable that that would happen. In the Second Appellate District, you could have been appointed to others if there were other openings in other divisions. The fact that that did happen is nothing short of a miracle.
It was. One of the other people in Division Seven at the time I was appointed was Earl Johnson, with whom I had worked for many years on my extracurricular activities.
That's always one of the things that can be a challenge when you're appointed to a multi-member court, and your collegiality is important. There's joint decision-making. You're not the only judge deciding things anymore. You don't get to choose your colleagues. You have to learn to work together and meet people for the first time, in most cases, when you first join a division. What a joy. That wasn't the case, and you worked so well already with some of the members of the division. That's amazing.
I used the word luck before. That's a theme for me. I have been a very lucky person as my career has unfolded.
You must be doing something right. That's all I'll say.
One can only hope.
You're rewarded for doing good and being a positive force. I want to talk a little bit, too, about some of your extracurricular activities. You mentioned them with the Huffstetler Firm. Also, it's carried on once you join the bench as well. Maybe you can talk about some things you've worked on.
When I was in practice, I always had a pro bono case or two hanging around. As a matter of fact, the first deposition I ever took was in a pro bono case. I also started working with the bar. As I said, Sam got me on that path. Because I was interested in what is now called Access to Justice and has been called different things through the years, I gravitated to that work both locally and at the ABA.
Because of that, I became involved in some of the national discussions around improving Access to Justice. I was President of the county bar, Chair of the ABA Standing Committee on Legal Aid, and a defendant at the time that Congress decided in the '80s that it was time to defund the Legal Services Corporation.
Yes. I distinctly remember that part.
It has led me to go back to Washington and try to convince Congress people that it would be foolishness indeed to take away that safety net. There was some disbelief along the way, but ultimately successful in part. The corporation was never defunded, although it has never had the funding it deserves. In the event, the other thing I became involved in the '80s was the work that led to the establishment of the California Commission on Access to Justice. That is one of the things in my career I am most proud of.
I was with Jack London, Earl Johnson, Paul Boland, and many other very important Californians involved in studying how California could establish the Commission on Access to Justice. It was a relatively new concept. We ended up designing what we thought the commission should look like, getting buy-in from the people who needed to buy in, and the commission was established. I became its founding chair. If there is anything that makes me smile, thinking back about things, it was the time I spent helping to get that off the ground.
Some of our early efforts led to the Equal Access Fund, which has now put millions of dollars into the hands of legal aid organizations around the state and other efforts on limited-scope practice and language access that had made a difference for people. Even though I've long since termed off the commission, I still go to the meetings. I'm now what they call an emeritus member. That was, for me, a sense of great accomplishment to be involved with that effort because it has made a difference.
I think about one of the things that can be disappointing when you join the bench. A lot of people who want to become judges are involved in their community in the way you were in terms of larger issues with the bar and other things advocating for these and becoming involved in these commissions. One of the things that people maybe have a little hesitancy about is, "Once I become a judge, I can't do that anymore. There are certain things I can't do. I can't impact things in the same way." I wonder whether you were concerned about that at all. In your case, there's a lot of overlap between Access to Justice issues and judges in the court's role in that regard that might allow you to carry that on the bench as well.
You have to think about it a little differently. If you look at the ethics rules, one of the things you give up when you become a judge is your right to speak on many things. One of the things you are expressly allowed to speak about is the administration of justice and direct routes and indirect routes to do that as a judge. One is the Judicial Council has all these committees that deal with things.
You join those. If you have a Chief Justice like Ron George who puts you on his Rolodex, you'll never run out of things to do. His successor, Judge Cantil-Sakauye, who we are losing, hadn't heard it is Rolodex, I believe. The other thing is that there are things you can do within the court. Here's one example for me. Sorry if I sound like I'm bragging. When I got to the court, we started hearing arguments from self-represented litigants. They were completely at sea.
If they survived to get to the oral argument, it all was a miracle, given the complexity of the rules and difficulty navigating the system. I was looking at them and thinking some of these people have legitimate issues on appeal that, if properly presented, we couldn't rule on and do justice. We can't if they're not properly presented to us because of the rules on appeal.
I started talking to some of my friends and former compatriots in the access fight. We came up with a proposal to set up a self-help center in the Court of Appeal and said, "Will anyone come?" From the great line from baseball, "If you build it, they will come." Indeed, they did. That still exists. It's had to cut back its hours. Of course, the pandemic made it hard for everyone.
That's a real service. We started hearing oral arguments from people who had been through the clinic. Lisa Jaskol was the first person who ran the clinic and came up with the idea of recruiting people through public council to take on certain of the cases pro bono. It was this enormous sense of relief that people who needed resolution of issues could get it. That's something that was completely within the scope of my judicial duties.
I'd hoped you would talk about that because there's an overlap between the work prior to the bench and what's in your purview as a judge in terms of the cases coming before the Court of Appeal and how you can increase access in that setting. It's a beautiful continuity that, because of the ethics rule, it's not always possible for people.
You have to be both stubborn and hopelessly optimistic to do it.
All of the work before the bench and after. This is so true. You're more likely to make it happen if you have that stubbornness and vision. That self-help center at the Court of Appeal in Los Angeles has become a model for a lot of other courts. Each court has adapted to their own personality, their Presiding Justice, and their needs in their particular court, which is one of the beauties of the different aspects of the court in California. There's a lot of independence in their arena. It's having started a movement of having some form of self-help in various Courts of Appeal around the state. It was influential. Although, I'll say it's still the most robust in the state court system.
There's a lot more online than there was before. For some people, especially people who have language barriers or educational barriers, self-help online is not always going to be effective. The experience in the Los Angeles clinic is one that showed that there could be a real difference if you have a human being there with you to help you learn the process.
Self-help online is not always going to be effective.
Also, having that partnership with Public Counsel and with other attorneys who are willing to take cases pro bono. That was a full-circle access situation. I'm wondering, for those who are appellate advocates or have appeals every once in a while, what tips would you give them in terms of advocacy, whether written or oral advocacy and what is helpful to you or your colleagues in making decisions in cases?
What's important is clarity and concise presentation, both in writing and orally, if you look at the stacks of briefs that come across the desk.
That's a lot of reading.
You consider that. For example, in most divisions, each justice will be on between 20 and 30 cases in any given month. Start multiplying your request for an oversized brief by 30, and you'll begin to get an idea. There is something about the process of making your presentation concise that clarifies it. For me, if I could understand what the position was clearly and then get into the nuances, that would help so much.
The situation you don't want to be in, especially people who infrequently do appellate work find themselves in, is they've written a brief where the bench has to read their opponent's brief first so that they know what the case is about. That hole is when you don't want it started. The other thing in oral advocacy is, like any advocacy, there is a story to be told.
Going back and saying, "Case X says this and case Y says this," which you should have done in your briefs, is not effective advocacy because advocacy is storytelling. Always think about, "What is the understanding here that I need people to have at a visceral level to understand what's going on in this case and why this matter?"
Especially when you think about things like rich or issues that the court does not have to address but you want the court to address, the ability to convey why it matters is so important. I'm not suggesting that anybody on that court or any court I've ever been on gives short shrift to arguments. When there's a lot there, having a trusted guidepost to point you in the right direction is good advocacy.
As to oral argument, I know as an advocate, things evolve. New things refine it further as you get to the argument. That's part of the process. What is at the nub? What is the key factor here, whether it's in the record or the key legal issue? What is this case all about? Also, boiling that down and presenting. That's part of the role of argument from the advocate's perspective, too.
When I used to go to law school classes and talk about advocacy, I said, "The most important thing you bring to the oral argument with you is your ears. You need to listen to what the justices are asking you because they're asking you those questions for a reason." It happened in an oral argument I was sitting on. We asked the lawyer a question, and he said, "That's in part 4C of my argument, and I'm only on part 2. I'll get to it." Not so good.
The most important thing you bring to an oral argument is your ears.
I think about that in a human way. Whenever anyone has a question about something, you're thinking about the question. If somebody continues to talk about other things, it makes it harder to focus on that because you're still thinking about the question and the answer to that question.
Answering questions is a great opportunity to get the justices thinking your way. They've opened the door, so go through it, for heaven's sake.
Always be grateful for questions. Without questions, where's the mindset at? Where is the area where the court has questions that I might be able to help answer and might end up persuading a particular decision? It's much better that way. Listening can be hard because, first, you're already revved up. You're already on overdrive as the advocate.
The tendency is to think that the questions are hostile. They're trying to get you to admit or concede something that is not helpful to the decision. Part of listening is discerning where the question is going and what will solve the problem or the question that the court has. You can only do that by listening. It can be hard because you have to hold that space to a point where you're pretty nervous yourself.
Understandable. Sometimes the question is because there's been a discussion in the conference about an issue. One person has said, "I think this means that." The other person has said, "I don't think that's what they're saying." Sometimes the question is simple. If you answer it the right way, then the person who said, "I don't think that's what they were saying," says, "Okay." The questions are very often reflective of what has gone on in the conference and where the questions are that everyone is sharing.
That's an important consideration of argument, too, why I would never waive it if I had the opportunity. There is this ongoing discussion amongst the members of the panel, and this is the only time that you, as the lawyer, have the opportunity to answer questions from that discussion. Otherwise, you're not involved in that at all.
You're outside of it once you've submitted your briefs. That's when you can find things like that out. Like you said, there are questions that have been raised sometimes about the record, which I've seen in real-time clarifying it, and you can see the light bulb go off and go, "That makes a difference," knowing that's the case.
That's what makes a good oral argument so much fun, both for the panel and the lawyers, if you're having a conversation.
Yes, and also to see that clarification. Sometimes in preparing for an argument, I've got everything done and suddenly see some connection in the record. I'm like, "That was important to me. It might be important to one of the judges," so I'll have to be sure to work that in. There's been an occasion where I've seen a judge has the epiphany that I had when I realized the order in which something happened. It's having that openness.
You mentioned humility in being a judge. In being an advocate, you have to have confidence but a certain level of humility and be willing to look at your case with an open mind, even though you've committed to a position, you've written it down, and all of that. Oral argument is the time to reassess that, look at it from different angles, and see how somebody else might see the case. That's who you're going to be talking to.
I always thought when I was preparing for oral argument that it was helpful to talk to somebody who wasn't part of the team and say, "Does this sound crazy to you? Is this convincing?"
It's for somebody who hasn't already committed to a particular way or sees it differently. I do that by asking smart people who haven't been involved in the case forever, "Read the briefs and tell me what questions you have. Give me your questions. I want to know all the different questions that you have." That's different perspectives on the case that you get from that. It's helpful. It takes you outside where you think the case is. Sometimes you can discover new things yourself, which is exciting.
It helps you make the argument interesting, too, if it's exactly what you said in the briefs. I've seen it in California Supreme Court. They expect you to bring a different perspective. Not a whole new argument, but something different. If you don't do that, they're like, "We were hoping that's what you would do. We're considering all of these things." That's true, to which court you're in, in terms of policymaking or lawmaking. Even if you're in the Court of Appeal and it's a case of first impression, that's a different case you're arguing to.
When you're arguing for a case that you want to have published, it's a different cast on the argument and a different mindset coming into it in terms of, "Why is this new? Why does it matter? Why should this become part of the published law?" With everything online, it's not that cases are not accessible, but if you want something to be presidential, in the Court of Appeal, you have to tell the court why it matters.
That would be one of the criteria for the published opinion. On the other hand, if you think it might be a tough call and you'd like to win the case for your client, then you might find a narrow way to decide it that could be unpublished, but at least your client would prevail testing that. I see that sometimes. It might have some bigger potential issue in it, and you could argue it that way, but it's the way that serves your client, or it may not be that particular.
That's part of the key difference between the advocate's role and the panel's role. The advocate, at the end of the day, has to explain to their client why they did it the way they did it. They have to consider in their mind what is the best thing for the client. The court is interested in resolving the case properly but is also interested in advancing the law where the law is in need of advancement.
As an advocate, you're representing your client, but you're also aware at the appellate level, in particular, at the Supreme Court level, the courts are deciding cases well beyond yours. You need to be aware of that in terms of answering questions and responding to hypotheticals.
I have seen lawyers fall down when you ask a hypothetical. They say, "That isn't this case." You say, "It might be the next case. We have to think about that." The stunned look in an inexperienced advocate's eyes would be, "I didn't think about that."
Being aware is part of the larger direction of the law when you're at the appellate level, which is what makes it exciting to those of us who like to advocate at that level. We're like, "Yes. That's the fun part." I think of it as we have two roles as advocates, at least, which is figuring out a particular result for the client based on the records and the facts of this case, but then also my job.
I see the court's job as being this. There's this running stream of the law, and we're a pebble. Wherever we land, we're arguing that we should land at a particular place in the stream. If that puts the stream off course or diverts it in a new way, then we need to explain why that makes sense. Maybe not, and we want to continue in the same vein and need to explain why that makes sense. Both in the case but also in the larger picture of the law. That, to me, is what makes it exciting as an advocate at the appellate level because you're doing both.
Because you are a good lawyer, you see that. It's the way it has to be if we are going to get the law going in directions that don't have bad and yet unforeseen consequences.
I've thought about this ever since Judge Patricia Millett on the DC Circuit, who was an amazing US Supreme Court advocate. One of the things she said to me, which I take to heart, is I never realized as an advocate. I knew it, but I didn't take it to heart which was we needed to write an opinion. There are so many things that come from that, like the contours of the opinion.
What we're doing with that opinion with the law and where it's going, she said all the implications of that. I knew that was the judge's job, but I hadn't embodied that or understood that in the same way I do now that I'm on the bench. Knowing that, I would've thought about helping the bench do its job that's part of it. I'm understanding where you're going and what your ultimate product is.
The way she said that, the light bulb went on. Ever since she said that, I've thought about it differently in terms of argument and brief writing. That goes to the category that there's always something new to learn from a different perspective on things. That's what makes it so rich and rewarding. What advice would you give to someone who might be considering or might think someday they'd like to be on the bench?
It falls into several categories. The first one is the one we've already touched on, which is learning your craft. You have to be satisfied in your own mind that you're confident enough in what you know that you can do the job and get it off the ground. The second thing is, if you think about the number of lawyers and judges we have in California, you have to do something that makes you be seen as a worthy candidate. Doing something other than just going to your office and practicing law is a big part of that.
It's partially making connections in the community so that people will stand up for you. It's partially demonstrating that you are committed and will be dedicated to the legal system. It's partially making people understand that you can do the hard work when it needs to be done. A number of people think a judge is semi-retirement.
I am reminded of what Joan Dempsey Klein said to me when I was being considered. She said, "It's a great job being an appellate justice. You can work any 80 hours of the week you want to." I loved it. I've always remembered it. What I'm saying is you need to demonstrate both commitment and capacity to do the work so that when you put that application in, you have the support of the community, and you've demonstrated that you're worth taking a bet on. Anytime a governor makes an appointment, he or she is taking a bet on the person that they're appointing.
You are, too, in putting yourself forward. You're like, "I'm going to grow and step up in this new position." I think about the larger part of what you're talking about in terms of having a particular job to advocate for your individual clients. There's something more than that, some service or interest in giving back to something bigger beyond yourself. That's the common thread because the role of a judge is to do that. You're focused on the justice system, the law writ large, as well as the individual cases. Some commitment beyond yourself is a common thread.
If you think about it, whether you're on the trial bench or an appellate bench, you are for the people whose cases you are hearing the face of justice and the justice system. It is so often said that judges don't have armies. The justice system works because people believe in it. If you are not prepared to be the face of a system that works and to be part of making it work, you can't do the job.
That's another important point in terms of the legal system, and the court system works because of that faith and belief in the system, and it's self-perpetuating.
It's not for everybody. Being a judge can be isolating. It can be incredibly challenging in a number of ways, not just intellectually but in a number of other ways. There are some people who are not going to be happy doing it. For anyone who is thinking about whether that's the path they want to take, they need to talk to people who are judges and find out whether it is the life that they want.
I hope that in the show, one of the things we get to show is all the different ways to serve on the bench. Some people might enjoy more trial court work, federal court, or being a magistrate judge. All of these different things being a judge is not one thing. It depends on what court you're in and what work you're doing.
That's right, but there are still common threads that run through it.
That's true. Investigating and asking those who have the position, "What is this? What's involved?" is important.
One of the funny things is a lot of people who end up applying to be judges have been active politically for a lot of reasons. That comes to a screeching halt. If you're not prepared to understand that, you shouldn't apply.
That's why I was asking about your situation in terms of Access to Justice work because that is something that is part of being a judge and being able to continue that work in different capacities. In most cases, it's not going to happen. You're going to channel that service into being on the bench.
As we've already discussed, there are ways to do it within the ethical strictures that are still impactful and different from active participation in the political end of that.
In terms of mentors or sponsors, I try to talk about that a little bit on the show because sometimes people, especially newer lawyers or law students, are like, "I hear I need a mentor. What does that look like? How does that work? What's involved in that?" I wonder if you might discuss some folks who have been great mentors for you and what that looked like.
I'm going to use the lucky word again. When I started my practice at the Huffstetler Firm, two giants in the courtroom in the legal community, Seth Huffstetler and Sam Williams, were there. Pat Phillips is a giant in the Family Law community. I'm watching those people. Because the firm was only sixteen lawyers when I joined, everybody mentored everybody. Organically, you see people who you can learn from.
There are a lot of formal mentor programs now where people are paired. It was most effective for me to watch other people and see who did things in a way that I thought was effective and that might work for me and ask those people to help me, watch me, and teach me. I used to get a big kick out of the fact that the longest mentoring relationship I had was with Sam Williams.
Sam was this giant ex-football player, and I am not giant anything. They used to say, "What are you learning from Sam?" I said, "I learned the way that Sam controls a room." It's not just his size. He uses other techniques. I learned the way that Seth Huffstetler controlled the conversation by not participating in it until everyone had their say, and he could then say, "What I'm hearing is."
Those are lessons that have served me in every capacity in my professional life, not just in the courtroom and the bench but in persuading people, settling cases, and coming to constructive solutions. Passing up those mentoring opportunities to not look to people from whom you can learn is a great loss in your career.
When I joined Morrison & Foerster, I was a pretty full-fledged lawyer at that point and was doing more mentoring than being mentored. Still, there were people in the firm who had things to teach me, and I was never embarrassed to ask to be taught. That has helped me a lot. For the people who I mentored, I saw growth in them, too. It's part of passing it on and making yourself better. It works both ways.
What you mentioned about seeing what people are doing and how they're doing it, there's so much to learn from being around people and watching how they do things. Sometimes there are things that, if you ask someone, "How do you do that?" they probably wouldn't answer in the same way as what you saw because there are so many other things going on. They're not even thinking about that anymore. To see the art and the skill with which they're doing things, you can only see that by watching the interactions.
I learned much more in the situations where I sat, watched, and kept my mouth shut than when I ran my mouth.
You learn much more in situations where you sit and watch while keeping your mouth shut than when running your mouth.
It's true because you can observe everything and see all the interactions.
That's important for young lawyers. For young women, in particular, law firms are different in many ways from the law firm I joined in 1978. There are more women who are there to be observed. Seeing how men approach things and how women approach things, both can be helpful. There's a level of emotional support that you get when you have a strong relationship with someone that you have developed on those moments when you're thinking, "I can't possibly do this." They can tell you why you can, and sometimes that's all you need. I would urge anyone reading this to go and build a relationship with someone you admire and whose work you want to see close up. You'll be better at it.
That's perfect. Thank you so much for saying that. I hope that people will take you up on that and will do that with people around them. Sometimes people, especially newer lawyers and law students, see it as, "I have to wait until I get formally paired up with someone. Why does mentoring mean one thing, but it's so many different things?" What you talked about it is impactful in skill-building. I usually end with a little lightning round of questions. I'll ask you a few from the lightning round, not all of them. The first one would be, which talent would you like to have but don't?
I would like to be able to sing, and I don't have that talent.
You're like, "No, it's not happening." Got it. Who are your favorite writers?
My favorite poet is Wallace Stevens.
I love him, too.
The thing that attracted me to him was that he was an insurance guy, yet he had this amazing worldview and put things together in such memorable ways. I wish I could write like that, but I have said to people, "There's an answer to everything in the collected poems of Wallace Stevens if you'll look."
I like that one. It's true. That's wonderful. I've always thought that about him, too, that there's the possibility of dual careers and the creativity that remains. Even if you're in a career that doesn't sound very creative, you can continue to do that, the holistic aspect and the turn of phrase. Who's your hero in real life?
My sons are because they are devoted to their families, but they are also devoted to their professions and public service. Both of them are great dads and good husbands. They've developed their careers, but they always serve the community. To see them making that balance, making it work, and being committed to it, that's all I could hope for. I admire them so much.
Isn't that nice to say about your sons? For what in life do you feel most grateful?
Two things. One, to be alive. I have some significant health issues, which have given me a different perspective on life. The related issue is I am very grateful for my family. I have an incredible husband who has been married to me for many years. God knows nobody thought anybody could live with me for many years. We have the aforementioned sons, their wives, and children. The value they have in my life and the meaning they give to my life is second to none.
It's pretty awesome. You are very accomplished in what you have done in your own career and what you've done in service to the community and the greater public. It's also nice to have that fullness of family life. Given the choice of anyone in the world, who would you invite to a dinner party?
Can I have more than one?
You can have more than one.
Here's my dinner table, Michelle Obama, Zelenskyy and Fauci. They all have some characteristics. Zelenskyy, I know the least about in terms of this, but looking at a situation and saying, "I have the capacity, the will, and the ability to make this work all in very different ways." They've all been faced with significant challenges, doubters, and haters, yet they managed to rise above and perform important tasks. I'd particularly like to ask Zelenskyy how he manages to get through every day and keep his country motivated and alive. That would be my dinner table. I can only imagine the conversation.
I know. I was going to say part of the interest in that is the individuals all have something of interest that I'd like to hear. Collectively, you think about what that conversation is going to bring out might be a whole other level with all of those people together. Last question. What is your motto, if you have one?
Figure out what the right thing to do is and do it.
You exemplify that motto in many ways in your service and work in Access to Justice. That's fitting. It's not just a motto. It's something that you exemplify also.
I tried to live by it.
There's a congruence and integrity between your motto and how you operate. Thank you so much for joining the show and having this conversation. It was a pleasure.
It's been a great pleasure and lots of fun. Thank you for having me on your show.
Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
My great pleasure.
Take care.