Administrative Presiding Justice, California Court of Appeal, Fourth Appellate District

 00:56:34

Subscribe and listen on…

Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Amazon Music | PocketCasts | iHeartRadio | Player.FM Podcasts

Watch Full Interview | View Show Notes | View Transcript

In today’s episode, California Fourth District Court of Appeal Administrative Presiding Justice Judith McConnell shares her journey from the trial bench to administrative presiding justice of the Court of Appeal, and the difference she has made for women and girls and access to justice both before and after joining the bench, including as founder and president of the Lawyers Club of San Diego and the National Association of Women Judges.

Relevant episode links:

Lawyers Club, Judith Ashmann-Gerst - Past Episode, Lynn Schafran - Past Episode, Michael Connelly

About Judith McConnell:

Administrative Presiding Justice Judith McConnell was appointed to the Court of Appeal, Fourth Appellate District, Division One in August 2001, and took office upon her confirmation October 3, 2001. 

On September 25, 2003, she was confirmed as Presiding Justice of the court. On September 29, 2003, she was appointed by the Chief Justice as Administrative Presiding Justice of the Fourth Appellate District. She served for 23 years as a trial judge in San Diego. 

Her colleagues on the Superior Court twice elected her Presiding Judge. 

She also served as Presiding Judge of the Juvenile Court and Supervising Judge of the family, appellate, and civil law and motion departments during her tenure on the Superior Court.

During Justice McConnell's judicial career, she has worked to improve the court system through better case management and to make the courts more accessible to the public. 

Justice McConnell served on the California Judicial Council and the Commission on Judicial Performance, the judicial disciplinary agency. She was a member of the Blue Ribbon Task Force on Jury System Improvement, the Commission on the Future of the Courts, and the Advisory Committee on Gender Bias in the Courts, a recipient of the 2001 Judicial Council Jurist of the Year Award and, in 1999, the first recipient of the Benjamin Aranda Access to Justice Award presented jointly by the Judicial Council, the California Judges Association, and the State Bar of California. In 2019, she received the American Bar Association's Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award. 

She was a founder and first president of Lawyers Club of San Diego and founder and president of the National Association of Women Judges and has worked to eliminate all forms of bias in the courts.

I'm very pleased to have joined us on the show, Justice Judith McConnell from the Fourth District Court of Appeal in San Diego, California, where she is the Administrative Presiding Judge for the district. Welcome.

Thank you.

You have a lot of firsts and pioneering aspects to your career from serving as one of the first women presiding justices of a major metropolitan area in the state and also, in terms of your work in founding one of the significant women’s bar associations in San Diego, the Lawyers Club. I want to talk about some of those and more but first I wanted to ask you in terms of how did you decide to become a lawyer and go to law school? At the time, there were not a lot of women lawyers. How did you come to that?

There were very few women law students when I went to law school. I went to Berkeley Law and graduated in ‘69. I went to law school because I did not want a traditional career as a teacher or nurse. I didn't think I could be a nurse and medicine was my kind of tea. Law school was one block and a half from where I lived. I applied to two law schools and got into called Boalt Hall at the time. I decided to go to law school because I had been a Poli-Sci major and got very interested in government and how one becomes effective in governance. I read that most legislators were lawyers, especially United States senators and I wanted to be a US Senator so I said, “I’ve got to go to law school.”

Judge Judith Chirlin in Los Angeles talks about her joining the bench as being her interest in service was doing international work. She thought, “People will listen to judges a lot more if I'm talking about the rule of law and other countries.” That seemed helpful. I love that you decided, “Senator is what I’ll do.”

I’m glad it didn’t happen.

It gets you along the path. I remember when I was in law school, it's good not to know that those are pretty high things that you're deciding. You're like, “If I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it at the highest level.” I had the same view, I'd like to have an appellate courtship or a clerkship with a judge. I'd like to go to the US Supreme Court. It was good that I did not know how it goes.

It was discouraging being at law school because there were very few women in my class. In the beginning, on the first day in law school in those days, everybody had assigned seats in their section. The young man sitting in front of me turned and said, “What are you doing here?” I said, “I'm going to be a lawyer.” He said, “You're taking it away from somebody who has a family to support.” That was the first inkling I had that there might be some challenges I had for me.

Some of the same comments are being made to Justice Ginsburg and in law school as well. How many other women were there in law school?

There were about 250 students in our class when we started and 16 were women.

That’s a lot for that time.

In that year, they started drafting graduate students for the Vietnam War. Before that, if you were a graduate student, including a law student, you were given an automatic deferral or dropped. They drop that so graduate students were no longer exempt. There were spaces available for women because men were being dropped. That was the one good thing about the war in Vietnam that I could think of.

How was law school? Did you enjoy it other than those kinds of comments?

I did not like law school. In the 1st year, everything is required and some courses were more interesting than others but it was in the 3rd year that you got to take more electives. I loved the Evidence class that I took, which is good because I ended up being a trial lawyer. Evidence is your bread and butter when you're in a trial court. I’m isolated in law school. I was married and didn't develop a lot of friends. I didn't participate in study groups. I'd just go to school and then go home because it was only one block away. I did make very good friends in law school with the people that sat next to me because we were always seated in alphabetical order.

How did you decide to turn to trial work until litigation then?

After I graduated from law school, my husband got a job teaching at the University of California in San Diego. I didn't know anyone in San Diego. I sent a resume to every law firm that had more than 10 lawyers and 2 public agencies. Some of them interviewed me and none of them gave me a job. When I was studying for the bar exam, one of my classmates in that bar review course had worked at the Caltrans Department of Transportation Legal Division in San Diego and told me that there was an opening and I should apply.

I applied and went down to San Diego for an interview and got the job while I was studying for the bar. I got the job because the head of the office thought it was cool to have a woman. It was never done before. They've never had a woman before. I went to work at Caltrans. Even before I passed the bar, I started working in the legal division and they trained me to be a trial lawyer. I was sitting at the counsel table from day one. We were on trial all the time.

Skill and experience-wise, that's an amazing opportunity.

They say, “You go to this courtroom and watch the cross-examination of an expert because this lawyer knows how to cross-examine.” They sent me up to LA and say, “You need to watch this so you’ll give an opening statement because you do a good job on it.” I was shown good lawyering from very early on. Three weeks after I was sworn in, I was sent off to Riverside County Superior Court to try a jury trial all by myself. I was nervous that I had to lean against the council table. My legs were shaking but I got through it.

That's a good thing you liked the Evidence class. It’s a good court to start with. That's interesting what you say about the training in terms of you can see people doing things. Not only that but you were guided in who to look for like, “Go see this person. They're particularly good.”

Different people are good at different things and they knew who a good lawyer was.

I say that to newer lawyers as well, “If there's someone who's a good trial lawyer, go see part of that trial because you will learn so much from watching.”

Spending time in a courtroom is important.

It's less available.

There are not so many jury trials anymore for civil. It becomes more unusual.

In the appellate training for appellate lawyers, we had a lot more appeals where they were more bite-size and you could do a respondent's brief on summary judgment or something like that where you could get trained by doing and there's less of those now.

You can do criminal appellate work, the attorney general or even appointed counsel.

It's not the same. The story you have in terms of having a strong government position with a lot of experience in that regard, Judith Ashmann-Gerst was on the show and she had the same experience.

They were the only ones hiring women in those days. Most private law firms didn't hire women. They started after my time. Most of my peers went to work for the government either as county counsel, district attorneys or public defenders. It was unusual for me because I was doing civil. It’s very rare to see civil trial attorneys who were women. I had one case against a woman trial attorney after I'd been in practice for a while. That was once. Now it's so common but in those days, it was very uncommon.

Evidence is your bread and butter when you're in a trial court.

You were with Caltrans for several years but then you joined the bench pretty quickly.

I was in Caltrans for about seven years and then I went into private practice with two other women. I did whatever walked in the door. I soon got hired by municipalities to do trial work for them because they farmed out some of their civil trial work and I loved that. That was great and then I got appointed to the bench of the municipal court in 1977. I wasn't eligible for an appointment to the superior court. You needed ten years for that.

It's more quickly than you would think because the municipal court was available.

It was a fabulous court to serve on. I'd never even appeared in municipal court because all my cases had been superior court cases but you learn criminal law fast in the municipal court. You have to because that's what they do mostly is criminal or used to do. It was a great job. I loved the job. The nice thing about the municipal court was the decisions, if you made a mistake, weren't horrendously consequential, because if you make a mistake in muni court, it's not that big a deal but if you make a mistake in superior court, it's horrendous.

How did you decide that you wanted to apply to become a judge, to begin with?

Jerry Brown was governor and he started appointing women and others, which is unprecedented. Go back to when I was in Caltrans. I was a trailer. I got bored between trials. I love being in the courtroom. That was my favorite time of day. When I wasn't in the courtroom, I got bored. My boss said, “There is no excuse to be bored. Go out and do something.” That's when I got involved in the women's movement in San Diego and supported the equal rights amendment which was very important to me because of what I'd been through and what I saw others going through. When I went into private practice, I had a better opportunity because I got more exposure to different areas of the law and it made me better qualified to be a judge.

You could be in so many different assignments on the trial bench in different subject matters and moving between those.

It's a great job. Every day, you’ll learn something new, which drew my job too in the Court of Appeals.

The timing was good in terms of the governor being interested in appointing women.

I wasn't the first. Others came before me but every person who went on the bench helped the others who came behind, which was important.

That's still the approach that I know with my friends in LA and the Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles that we receive help from others and the only way to pay that back is to put the ladder down for others and help them. A lot of laywomen and judges help prepare people for interviews and the whole vetting process and give them background so they're prepared and can do their best in the nominations process.

One of the reasons we founded Lawyer's Club which is a feminist, not a women's bar association, we always had men in our membership, but we founded it because we wanted to use the force of an organization to help get more women on the bench and into positions of power and authority in the legal profession. It helped.

Having the collective voice in that regard as always is important.

That's one of the reasons we formed the National Association of Women Judges. I had only been a judge for two years when we formed that and under the leadership of Vaino Spencer and Joan Klein from the Court of Appeals in LA. I don’t know how many women judges we had in California or Jerry Brown had been in office for a while but many states had no judges at all so we wanted to increase the number of women on the bench.

That's one of my hopes close to my heart in terms of the show as well. I looked around and while we have strong representation in California on the appellate bench, that's not true in a lot of other states or federal circuits even. We have quite a few women on the Ninth Circuit but in other circuits, there might just be one woman. Wanting to highlight that and those who are in those positions and to maybe put the idea in someone's head, they can apply in there as well. The stories I've heard so many women on the bench were encouraged by someone.

That's important for all of us to remember that you don't just get it on merit. It's connections, networking and who you know. Merit is a big part of it but how you get to the bench is a long, hard process. Being active in the legal community is important and also being a good lawyer.

Being known and of service, prior to the bench is important and having any interest in serving the community.

That's what it's all about. You don't do that for the money. It’s called public service.

That’s tangible proof that you are wanting to be a judge. You want to be of service because you are a person of service in general. National Association of Women Judges, how did that feel to have the collective at a much bigger level?

It was phenomenal. The first meeting was in Las Angeles in the fall of late October 1979. To be with 100 other women judges was mind-blowing. They were from all over the country and some of them are still very good friends of mine like Christine Durham, for example, and others. We wanted our issues to be front and center. Many of the things we worked on through the national association of women judges were issues of importance to all women, not just women judges but the treatment of women as victims in the court, child support, spousal support and rape victims. There was a jury instruction that said the rape victim's testimony was to be distrusted. The California code had something a whole section called, Women, Children and the Insane or something like that.

The law was in the dark ages in many respects so we had a lot to work with before I became a judge and after. There were many instances in the courtroom and the court system where there was genuine bias against women. Part of what we worked on through the National Association of Women Judges was to better educate judges so that they could be aware of the bias that existed in the court system and the law and eliminates them. We worked very hard on that. We're still working on it but we've made phenomenal changes in the however many years it's been.

I remember in the mid-1990s, you are still doing gender bias work, the attorney and judicial, gender bias handbooks that the State Bar Association was putting out.

We're still working on it. One of the things I've heard from some women appellate attorneys is that they feel that women presenting oral arguments are cut-off when a man wouldn't have been. That's going to understand. I started trying to pay attention to oral argument a little bit better to see if that isn't true.

What do you think about that?

If they think it's happening to them, these are people who are experienced attorneys, that's something we need to talk to the judges about so that they don't do it. Judges do think of themselves as fair. They want to appear to be fair and want to be fair. If you point out to them something that's going on that appears to be unfair, they're almost always going to change that conduct.

I don't feel that I've experienced that but I'm going to pay attention to that.

I did a little informal survey of some lawyers statewide and that was an option that some had.

I certainly have seen within the appellate practice that there were many more women in the practice many years ago and there are fewer now that have got more prestigious. There's been a shift, which is interesting to see but not in a good way.

A lot of women in the criminal area are on appeal because it's a more flexible work schedule for women.

In the civil, that was true and there were many more women in the civil appellate practice but ever since I've been practicing, I've seen a change that there aren't as many women and we need to bring them up and flip that. It's an important point in your position on the bench that you have these opportunities to convene people and raise issues for women as litigants and as lawyers as well, which is very helpful.

Different people are good at different things.

It's one of the things I did very early on as a judge when I went on all courts in those days and I think still have a variety of committees that you can be part of. I decided that the administration of the court was something that I should participate into effect change and make it a better play. Early on, I got involved in the personnel committee of the uni court. When I went to the superior court, I did the same thing and I felt by working within the organization, I could achieve change, effect change and make improvements. I still feel I can do that.

When I became a superior court judge, I ran for the executive committee, which was the administrative arm of the court, working with the PJ and then I became a supervising judge of this and that department, presiding judge of the juvenile court then and finally worked my way through every possible assignment, except probate. I never did probate, which looks interesting to me. I then ran for election as the assistant presiding judge and was elected. I was the first woman to preside over a large metropolitan superior court in California.

I have also spoken with Justice Edmon who was the first female presiding judge in LA Superior Court. Talking to her, I'm like, “I can't believe the year we're talking about was the first year where it was a woman presiding judge.”

In LA, it took a long time. I was a Presiding Judge of the San Diego Superior Court in ‘90 and ’91. That was kind of early on. It's been a challenge. Now, there are many more and I'm glad to see that.

It’s surprising when you think of Los Angeles. That would be so long.

We have a lot of very talented women judges on.

I'm glad that happened but it was surprising to me. It’s not something we explored. When people think about joining the bench, they think about the cases but they don't think about the impact on policy or the administration of the courts, which a lot of the power that you can have in terms of impacting how the courts are run and jury instructions or things like that. There are a lot of impacts you can have on. 

I always thought that was important. Very early on, I became involved in the administration and judicial education. When you participate in judicial education, your influences, whoever comes to the class or goes through, you can affect them, hopefully in a positive way. We put together the first educational program on judicial decision-making, “Does sex make a difference?” We talked about rape victims, jury instruction and spousal support.

In those days, the judges didn't want to give large awards of spousal support, even though it was warranted because they were afraid they would discourage the man or child support. We had to start from scratch, developing these programs. One time we gave the program, the faculty was bombarded with spitballs from the judicial students. That was at the National Judicial College. We gave the program first to the California judge. They did not use spitballs and then when he gave it to National Judicial College, that’s where that happened.

I remember the gender bias when we were doing education on that again in the mid-1990s. They were quite emotional. I remember some of my much more experienced panelists. I was a newer lawyer and I was shocked. We were like, “Next time, we're going to have to put our helmets on to do this panel because it was very combative.”

People got very angry when you accused them of being unfair.

“It's possible that this might be a factor.” That was tied in with some of the requirements for CLE being that you had to have some gender bias training.

That came along later as a requirement. Rightfully, it has expanded to other kinds of bias and prejudice because judges are supposed to be fair and people want to make sure that they are.

Lynn Schafran from Legal Momentum was also on the show.

She helped put that program together.

She's been involved in that judicial education for the National Association of Women Judges. She's phenomenal. We met many years ago, both doing Amicus briefs in the US Supreme Court in a case and became fast friends.

She is still at it. She's going strong.

We worked on another brief together in one of the Jeffrey Epstein cases in the US Supreme Court. She's on it. I get lots of emails from Lynn about different things like, “We need to work on this.”

She’s working on language. That's how language can affect the way we think about particular issues and it can be biased. That's important that she's doing that.

She's got so much energy and great ideas in this area in terms of, “What do we need to think about next?” She is forward-thinking in that regard. From the trial court to the appellate court, what made you decide to pursue the appellate court?

It's a big leap. I did the appellate division of the superior court and enjoyed that great deal. I'd been on the trial court for a long time, from ‘77. I took the oath from ‘78 to 2001. I thought it was time to try another challenge. Gray Davis was in office and the opening came up. They don't come up very often. I was blessed. His chief of staff happened to be the cofounder of the Lawyers Club with me. Lynn Schenk is a strong feminist. I'm very lucky to be appointed in 2001 to the Court of Appeal. In 2003, my predecessor is presiding justice retired and Governor Davis made me the presiding justice.

We talked about administration and being in that presiding judge or justice role, being another opportunity to make a difference. How has that impacted your ability to do that in the Court of Appeal?

I've always been interested in making sure that the courts operated somewhat efficiently that cases didn't languish, not something I worked on as a trial judge. I was very involved in delay reduction in the trial court. In the Court of Appeal, when I started, we had a huge batch of cases from a different court. Most of the cases I worked on when I started here at the Court of Appeal were not from San Diego, Imperial County or outside that division.

I'm still involved in managing the workload so that the public is served in a timely fashion. That’s a big part of our responsibility and making sure that our court is running smoothly, which is always a big challenge and keeping all the balls in the air. We have a phenomenal court and some changes because one of our colleagues went to the Supreme Court. We have a new judge coming, Martin Buchanan. For a long time, we had no changes at all in our court.

That is very exciting to have one of your colleagues on the Supreme Court. It's sad because they're leaving but it's great for the state.

I've enjoyed the administrative aspects of making sure that the cases are continuously looked at and processed. We find cases randomly here so everybody gets to do everything. That's the way to run the court.

Keeping things moving and getting to the decision can be important, especially for litigants who spent a lot of time already in the trial court and then they're on appeal.

It takes so long to get the record put together and then the briefing schedule is prolonged. For every step of the proceedings, you need to keep an eye on it and make sure that the case doesn't languish.

You have done a great job of that. The district and the division certainly have that reputation of being not languishing.

It’s not in trouble.

There are so many things to balance in doing that. If you think about it at the Court of Appeal level, there are a lot of different things you have to have in place to make sure that that happens.

Judges are supposed to be fair and people want to make sure that they are.

With the pandemic, things slowed down in the trial courts because they rely on cures, witnesses and so many people coming in whereas, in the Court of Appeal, we were able to go from in-person one day to virtual the following Monday. Trial courts can't do that. The pipeline narrowed. We've always taken a cake. One of my jobs as administrative presiding justice is to equalize the workload among the division. I do that but we also took cases. The Sixth District had a big backlog and a lot of vacancies for quite a long time. We took a batch of cases from the Sixth District. The Fifth District also had a lot of backlogs. We took some cases from the Fifth District. The APJ works closely together to try to make sure that justice is served.

It's statewide. There are some ways to adjust that workload and then you do it. For those who know, we're talking about the Fourth District. There are three divisions but we're talking about Southern California, San Diego, Riverside and Los Angles. It's massive in some of the busiest courts in the state.

It's huge. We have 26 judicial positions in the Fourth District.

What kind of advice would you give to those who might be considering joining the bunch, whether it's the trial court or the appellate court?

The first thing people need to do is to be the best that they can be in whatever career they’ve chosen in the law because it's not just trial lawyers who are considered. In the past, that's always been a requirement. I also think it's very important that people be active in their professional organizations. If you are active in the bar association, La Raza or whatever organizations are in your community, it's important to be engaged in them so you can serve and help people.

If you have kids and you don't have time to be active in the bar, be active in your kid's activities, the why or schools. That's important to serve others because what being a judge is all about is helping others, serving others and trying to make the community a better place. Those are two things. Be the best that you can be in whatever career you've chosen in law. Get out of your shell, go out and engage in the community.

Those are two good pieces of advice because that's the common thread amongst those who are on the bench. I do think people say, “I have a family or other commitments. I don't know how I can serve,” but serve where you're planted.

Especially with the pandemic, it's very hard for parents who are having to homeschool their kids in front of a computer. I don't know how they did it. Put that aside, hopefully, we're coming out of that. There are things you can do that you do with your children. If they're in scouts, support the scouts, Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts. There are lots of things you can do to pay back because all of us who are in a position of being lawyers have skills that can be used by others and we should use those skills to help people's lives improve.

That could be in several different things in whatever you're also passionate about.

Whatever your interests are. I became involved in the women's movement because that was right at home for me and it affected me personally. That's true with a lot of people.

A sense of fairness overall in terms of how people are treated.

If you're very involved in your church, do the things in your church that help others. That is very important to the appointing authorities that you didn't just do good lawyering but good lawyering plus. Those are important characteristics. I work on Governor Newsom's Judicial Selection Advisory Committee for San Diego and Imperial. It's important to work to look at what people do in their practice and communities because when you're a judge, you're an important public figure and you should serve the public. 

I encourage newer lawyers, as soon as you want to develop your skills and all of that in the beginning, to become involved in the larger community. It benefits you as a person and your career overall, whether you're joining the venture or not in terms of getting to know people and not just the people in your particular hall of whatever office you are in because you don't get out that much.

It helps develop your skills too because if you become active in a community organization, you're out there speaking and doing public speaking or meeting with new people all the time, that's very good for a good lawyer.

That's another good point in terms of your age experience or developing a different skill then you can layer each of those skills on top of each other and the whole thing together is even better than you were before. I even remember when I took creative writing classes and ended up using a lot of what I had learned there in terms of structure and framing the written work that I use appellate briefs. I wouldn't have thought of that but that experience combined with other things can improve your skills.

How you use your words is important.

In terms of board service here, lawyers add something to that. Even if you're doing technically lawyer work there, the way we think, the way we're trained to think and work through problems and get to a resolution in a very measured way is something that is a different skill that we bring.

We think differently. Our mode of thought and problem-solving skills are important.

I hadn't realized that and part of it is recognizing your value by serving in these different ways. You can see how lawyers can contribute. I was mystified on the first nonprofit boards that I was on. I was like, “It's obvious the problem with this. We'd go through here. We saw these things when we get here.” Everyone is looking at you like, “What? You didn’t even get to the part where we don't understand how you boiled it down to that.” That's when you realize, “That's what we do. We see a problem. We try to fix it, find a path and work our way through it.” It can be helpful for a newer lawyer to say, “I'm adding value. I'm learning all of this other stuff. I might not feel like I'm up to speed yet” 

You get to meet more people. That's important and they get to know you.

They get to know you and your judgment, even if they're not seeing you write a brief or arguing for it but they know you on a personal level, on a character level and having that trust matters. I want to talk a little bit about mentors and sponsors in terms of you were mentorship of others and those who have mentored you, what kinds of opportunities like that, have you had to mentor people and also in terms of what kind of help you received?

I got hired at Caltrans because I was a woman. The head of the office was working for Caltrans and also the President of the Sierra Club, which seems contrary. He thought it was different and hiring me was cool, even though at Sacramento, they called me an attorney, which I don’t think was a cool thing. He mentored me. He is the one that was responsible for teaching me to be a good lawyer.

Was he the same one who said, “If you're bored, go out and do something?”

Yes. He was one of the men who were one of the first members of the Lawyers Club when we founded it and he supported us in that regard. It doesn't have to be a woman to mentor you. It can be a man. You can mentor men and women. It's important that you always think of how you can help others do better at what they're doing. We do that here at the Court of Appeal. We have an extern program that we hope helps law students develop skills that can help them in whatever form of practice they follow.

I still am very active in Lawyers Club and the legal profession, generally teaching. Hopefully, that helps people move ahead in their careers. All of us have a responsibility. For those of you who are younger who might be reading this, people like us are always willing to answer questions. We're flattered by it. Don't be shy. For me, Joan Dempsey Klein was a huge role model for lots of women and had such a powerful impact on many of us here in California. She was always available. If we ever needed her to help out with a project or to speak, she was always there. That's important for all of us to remember that you need to be available. People want help. They have to know that they can come to you and get that help.

She was always available for lots of things. As a result of that, she has so much influence. There are lots of benefits to giving back and being available. I’ve taught for many years in various Ninth Circuit clinics. I feel similarly about that in terms of not all of them may become appellate lawyers, that’s okay but they've certainly leveled up their skills during the clinic. That's my gift to them.

What we're doing is like, “We're going to make you the best you can be, writing and/or argument. You can carry those skills into a lot of different things. You don't have to become an appellate lawyer. It's good that you're a good writer if you want to do anything.” Being able to persuade someone is a key skill for being a lawyer. It's always nice to see people grow and rise during that, get better themselves and then see what they do afterward. That's a way of saying that we might be available but it's gratifying to see other people grow and be a part of that. It is nice. What about the appellate bench? Are there any differences that you would say in terms of people who might want to join the appellate bench?

It's a very different job. If you don't mind, being by yourself in an office all day, without a lot of people around, you don't belong on the Court of Appeal. During the pandemic, that was especially true. Even before the pandemic, you could sit here all day. I could sit here in chambers. I would see my judicial assistant but maybe not anybody else. A lot of people were virtually so it’s even quieter but it's a quiet place. When I first came to the Court of Appeal, I felt like as a kid when I went to church that I had to whisper and it was a big shock from the truck or where you're on the bench right away.

At 8:30 in the morning, I'd be on the bench all day and lots of people are in and out. It's not like that at all here. You have to become more careful about the words you use because what you say in an opinion can have an effect way beyond the particular case that you're working on. You have to think about that when you're writing. You want to write, not just for the litigants appearing in front of you but for the public, in case some of them might read it, explaining what you're doing and why you're doing it. It's quite a different job. The other big change about the Court of Appeal is you have to get one other justice to agree with you.

That’s the biggest change.

Our mode of thought and our problem solving skills are really important.

Many of us are also set on assignment to the Supreme Court. They're at seven that they have to agree on that would be a very difficult and big challenge. If you've been a truck for a long time as I was, you're used to making decisions like this all the time. It's a big change to come to the Court of Appeal where you have time to think about your decisions and be persuasive to at least one other judge. Oftentimes with oral argument, when you look at the way questions are going and I watch oral argument a lot in a live stream, sometimes the questions that justice AF is not for purposes of learning the answer but to persuade a colleague on the bench.

I have that feeling sometimes with an argument when I'm thinking that wasn't directed at me. I'm just like a conduit.

The hope is that you will explain it to the colleague better.

It’s like, “ I got it. I know what my job is. I'll go ahead and do that.” It is an odd feeling when you can sense it.

You know what that softball is all about. You go to the right person. It is an interesting job and I love it. You think, “I spent so much time on one case but every day, there's something new. I’m amazed that that's still the case. I love it. It keeps me working harder.”

It keeps you continually engaged and fresh with it because there are always different things.

The legislature keeps us on our toes with all their changes. 

There are new statutes and things to work out, interpret and things like that. What do you think in terms of tips for advocates in terms of oral argument or brief writing? Are there particular things in either of those that are answering questions? It's like an oral argument.

For brief writing, what's important is not to spend too much time on boiler-plate. I don't need five pages telling me what the standard of review is for a motion for summary judgment. That's true for most of my colleagues. If you're giving me five or more pages on a standard of review of something obvious, it's because you're being paid by the pound or the page and not by the work that important.

We have limits.

Save the words for something important. Get to the important point. Back to the brief writing, the introduction and the table of contents are important. If I can read the table of contents, what needs to be done? That's a good brief. For oral argument, it's similar. You get up for oral argument and usually, you know who the panel has read your brief and hopefully looked at least some of the record, if not all of the record. In every case, someone has read the whole record.

Listen to the questions very carefully because the questions will tell you what direction the court is taking. If they don't ask any questions, pick out those issues you think are most critical to your case and focus on those. Make sure you ask the panel if they have any questions because that might generate something. It must be terrible for a lawyer to come into court and have no questions at all.

As difficult as it can be to have question after question, it's still better to have a question than none at all.

I feel bad for people when there's no question.

It was like our last opportunity to have a conversation and see, “What are you concerned about? What can I answer for you?”

For us, on the court, there is no greater joy than having a case with good lawyers on both sides. It's sheer pleasure with good briefs and good oral argument, interesting, tough issues and we all appreciate that.

It's a lot of fun doing that and having that engagement on all sides, even if it's challenging and fun. Thank you so much Justice McConnell for doing this. I'm going to end with a little lightning round and a few sets of questions. The first one is which talent would you like to have but don't?

I wish I could sing. I have a terrible singing voice. My kids used to scream at me when I would sing to them. 

Do you like to listen to music though and sing?

Sometimes.

As much as you need artists, the artists needed an audience. That's how I feel about painting and other kinds of things. I'm like, “Somebody needs to appreciate that. I'm here to do it.” That's good. Who are your favorite writers?

I love Michael Connelly. He used to be with the LA Times. He is wonderful. He's a terrific writer. I get his books as soon as they're available.

I was on a panel at the appellate judge's conference with an Illinois appellate, Justice David Ellis, who writes legal thrillers and things like that as well. He is an interesting guy who writes with James Patterson on occasion. Who is your hero in real life?

Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I love that woman. She's an amazing and special person. We went through many hardships. She was strong, important, powerful and left a mark on all of us.

What in life do you feel most grateful for?

My children because I adore them. That changes life. I'm grateful for all of the opportunities I've had to do what I do. I had a very interesting life.

Given the choice of anyone in the world, who would you invite to a dinner party?

My husband. He's the most interesting person I know. He's a sociologist. Every conversation we have is so interesting. His latest thing is Sociology of Music but it's always something new for him. I'm lucky to have him.

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

I don't have a motto but it's important to every day do your best in whatever you're doing.

Excellence is always welcome. Putting your all into things is the way to go. Justice McConnell, thank you so much for joining the show.

Thank you very much for inviting me. I enjoyed talking to you.

Thank you.