Episode 37: Bridget Mary McCormack
Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court
00:42:33
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Show Notes
Today’s guest is Chief Justice Bridget Mary McCormack of the Michigan Supreme Court, one of the cohosts of the Lady Justice podcast. She sits down with M.C. Sungaila to talk about how being Chief Justice has helped her impact the legal system. Chief Justice McCormack shares her work prior to the bench as a criminal defender, and as a law professor and dean of clinical education, including in innocence clinics seeking to exonerate the wrongly convicted. She also gives advice for law students on their careers, and for lawyers on advocacy, and describes one of the most rewarding parts of her role as Chief Justice- the opportunity to provide administrative oversight to the court system.
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Relevant episode links:
Michigan Supreme Court, The Legal Aid Society, Tracy LeSage – LinkedIn, Innocence Clinic - Michigan Innocence Clinic, Podcast - Lady Justice: Women of the Court, @BridgetMaryMc - Twitter, @ChiefJusticeBridgetMaryMcCormack - Facebook, @JusticeBridgetMaryMcCormack - Instagram, Bridget-Mary-McCormack - LinkedIn
About Bridget Mary McCormack:
Bridget Mary McCormack
Chief Justice Bridget Mary McCormack joined the Michigan Supreme Court in January 2013, and became Chief Justice in January 2019.
Before her election to the Court in November 2012, she was a law professor and dean at the University of Michigan Law School. Since joining the Court, Chief Justice McCormack continues to teach at the Law School.
Chief Justice McCormack is a graduate of the New York University Law School, where she was a Root-Tilden scholar. She spent the first five years of her legal career in New York, with the Legal Aid Society and the Office of the Appellate Defender. In 1996, she became a faculty fellow at the Yale Law School.
In 1998, she joined the University of Michigan Law School faculty. At Michigan Law, she taught criminal law, legal ethics, and various clinical courses. Her scholarship focused on the professional benefits of clinical legal education. She also created new clinics at the law school, including a Domestic Violence Clinic and a Pediatric Health Advocacy Clinic.
In 2002, she was named Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs. Responsible for the continuing development of the law school’s practical education, she continued to expand the clinical offerings at Michigan Law School, launching a Mediation Clinic, a Low Income Taxpayer Clinic, an International Transactions Clinic, a Human Trafficking Clinic, a Juvenile Justice Clinic, and an Entrepreneurship Clinic. In her capacity as professor and associate dean, she conducted and supervised civil and criminal litigation at all levels of the state and federal courts. The University of Michigan Law School’s clinical programs are now recognized nationally as one of the best places to be trained as a lawyer.
In 2008, then-Associate Dean McCormack cofounded the Michigan Innocence Clinic, in which students represent wrongfully convicted Michiganders. The clinic has exonerated over 22 people so far, and has shined a light on the important justice issues underlying wrongful conviction.
In 2014, the Attorney General of the United States appointed Chief Justice McCormack to the National Commission on Forensic Science. In 2019, Governor Whitmer appointed her as Co-Chair of the Michigan Joint Task Force on Jail and Pretrial Incarceration.
Chief Justice McCormack is an editor on the ABA’s Litigation Magazine, a member of the ABA Council on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar, a board member of the Washtenaw County Chapter of Families Against Narcotics, a member of the University Musical Society’s National Council, and a board member of Kids Kicking Cancer.
In 2020 she was appointed to the ABA Council on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar. In 2021, Governor Whitmer appointed her as Co-Chair of the Michigan Task Force on Forensic Science, Chair of the Michigan Jail Reform Advisory Council, and Chair of the Michigan Judicial Council. In 2021, Chief Justice McCormack was also appointed to serve nationally on The Council of State Governments, Healthy States National Task Force, the American Bar Association Center for Innovation Governing Council, and Chair of the American Bar Association Board of Elections. Chief Justice McCormack continues to teach at the University of Michigan each year as well as publish in professional journals and law media.
As the Chief Justice, McCormack has promoted statewide initiatives devoted to improving the courts service to the public, and in particular on improving equal access to justice.
Chief Justice McCormack is married to Steven Croley, General Counsel and Chief Policy Officer at Ford Motor Company. They have four adult children and enjoy frequent family trips to west Michigan.
Transcript
I am thrilled to have Chief Justice Bridget McCormack from the Michigan Supreme Court and who has her own podcast with two other Supreme Court justices from other states. We will talk about that and that podcast as well but welcome, Justice McCormack.
Thanks for having me.
I wanted to talk to you about a few things but starting from the beginning in terms of how you became interested in going to law school and becoming a lawyer.
I don't have any lawyers in my family. I do have a big family but nobody had gone to law school before me and nobody since. I had a godmother who was a legal aid lawyer in New York City and she's a wonderful godmother. She did not have any kids of her own. I feel like I’ve got a lot of extra attention than some people do from godmothers who are busy with lots of their own kids. I spent time with her as a kid and went to work with her. I thought of a lawyer as someone like her, who helped people who had problems. That was the only sense I had of it.
When I was a sophomore in college, my boyfriend who was a junior was taking the LSAT one Saturday morning and I figured, "I will do that because he's doing it. What else am I going to do?" I scored well on it. I was like, "I'm going to go to law school." Maybe you were hoping for a better answer but that's the actual answer.
There are all different ways, we find our way to things. Maybe that will be hope-inspiring for those who said, "I have not planned this the whole time and what am I going to do?" Things intersect and you found out, "Not only do I like that I can help people through this but I have an aptitude for that." It turns out that through the LSAT. That's good.
One of the things that I have found interesting from this show is that there are a lot of people who may be in their mind think that becoming a judge or justice is there's only one path. You have an interesting path and an interesting pre-judicial career in academia and also in law clinic work. We are going to talk about that a little bit. How did you decide to teach?
I was a public defender in New York City, which was a wonderful job. I have had so many wonderful jobs but that was one. In 1994, I worked for The Legal Aid Society, which was the main public defender in New York City. We went on strike, not for money but for caseloads and issues related to the representation of our clients.
Not very far into the strike, the Mayor of the City of New York, was a man named Rudy Giuliani, who canceled The Legal Aid Society's contract and fired all of us. I’ve got fired from my first job and ended up getting an appellate job but it was a temporary job and that was great. I have got this fellowship teaching in a clinic at Yale. I’ve got it because I needed a job. I have never been fired. I'm not sure I ever would have ended up in law school teaching.
What did you enjoy about the defender work or the legal aid work before?
It's fascinating work. It's hard work because it's pretty important. You are representing people who can't afford lawyers and their liberties at stake but you are having a real impact day in and day out on real people in their families and being able to provide high-quality service to people who can't afford it. It feels so fundamental to our branch delivering on its promise of equal access. Some of the most important work lawyers do is represent poor people whose liberty is at stake.
On the show previously, Tracy LeSage, who's a Senior Public Defender here in California. We talked about that as well. In terms of the impact, the most gratifying thing for her is the letters, the cards, and the notes that she gets from her clients. Their life is going well that she helped them get out of a very difficult situation and move forward in their lives, and that she's making a difference in one person at a time in that regard.
One way would be saying accidental career moves but it shows a little bit of resilience there and grit as people talk about, "This happened. I have to pick myself up off the floor and figure out, what am I going to do now?" You have been flexible about that and had some different opportunities as a result. I also think about the teaching positions that you were able to leverage the experience in practice to work with law students at the clinical phase.
At a time, when law clinics were starting to have a lot of momentum and a variety of clinics, I remember when I was in law school. Maybe there were a couple of clinics working with public interest organizations and they were not as robust or extensive as they are now. I have taught for ten years in different Ninth Circuit Appellate clinics in different law schools. Those clinics did not exist maybe even several years ago with the amount that they do now.
I hopped into law school and clinical teaching in particular at the most fun moment when most law schools were growing their clinical offerings and the pedagogy to make up an important part of the law school curriculum. That was fun because I went from 2 years at Yale to 13 to 14 years at the University of Michigan, in that same role.
One of the clinics you were instrumental in was the Innocence Clinic. Can you talk about that?
I was the Associate Dean for Clinics at the University of Michigan Law School for a while. I found a lot of clinics during that period for the reasons you say it was a time of real growth in clinical offerings. The Michigan Innocence Clinic was the last one that I founded that I taught in myself. I taught in it until I went to the bench. It was the first nonDNA innocence project. It was a clinic because we had students doing the work in the country.
Michigan did have a DNA innocence clinic at the Cooley Law School in Lansing. There was a team already working on the DNA cases but we knew enough by 2008 from the large database of wrongful convictions to know that they happen. Not only in cases where there's biological evidence from which DNA can be gathered but the things that lead to wrongful convictions happen in every case, not ones with biological evidence.
Teaching us all the ways in which things go wrong has been a real service of innocence projects around the country.
We thought, "Let's try one for cases where there is no DNA, that will be a lot harder, both factually and legally," but hard legal problems are perfect clinical practice. They are perfect for smart Law students who have not been told, "Only do things this way and not that way," they are so creative and innovative still. They think of all-new ways to do things. It's a wonderful clinical model for exactly those reasons because the cases are hard. That makes it great.
A certain level of risk for practicing attorneys that are not in a clinic might find it difficult to take or continue to fight in those cases.
It's hard to have the time and the resources if you have a busy practice to keep up.
It's important for the reasons you mentioned. Also in expanding the view within the judicial system, both on the prosecutor and the judicial side, the work in the DNA innocence clinics has changed people's perspectives and had them be open that there's a possibility that that scientific evidence that people relied on may not be accurate. There may be problems in the match and a whole bunch of other things.
Having been open to that idea, then they have a different view when those cases would come in front of them. They will hopefully, look at them carefully, and maybe on the front end, things will be managed a little more carefully in terms of admission of that evidence. There's value in having the other kinds of innocence clinics too to raise awareness in terms of the number of ways in which things can go wrong.
In addition to exonerating people who are wrongfully convicted, teaching all of us the ways in which things go wrong has been a real service of innocence projects around the country.
One of my colleagues at Loyola Law School runs the innocence project clinic there, too. It's amazing, the work that they do. I have a question, you were deciding which clinics to open, what factors go into that decision? I wonder how you still have limited resources as a law school. How do you balance the student and justice system needs? How do you decide on the next clinic to open?
The first question is always is the practice area or the problem-solving area one that the students can do the meaningful work in. That means, does meaningful work get done in a semester? In some practice areas, it takes years for anything to happen and it's hard to guarantee students in a given semester that they will be able to do the work that they can learn from.
Beyond that, we always wanted to add to the Michigan access to justice infrastructure. What problems are out there that the bar is not well equipped to solve and pitch in on so that a clinic could be in service to the legal community and the public? The faculty interest matters as well. If I have a faculty member who is passionate about a juvenile justice clinic, that's going to weigh heavily in that being one that we want to take on. It's some combination of those factors.
The academic calendar and then the meaningful impact that the students can have, that's a driving factor in terms of, "Can we match the academic calendar and make sure that there's good stuff that folks are learning in the scope of that calendar?" Especially, the appellate clinics that I have seen have been very helpful in that regard and in helping to place cases with clinics.
Also, being very aware of the timing for the cases, trying to have it match and track the academic calendar, so that students can both work on appellate briefs and argue the case. Even if it does not get decided many months down the line after graduation, at least they have had a significant role in the case and are able to argue it. Sometimes it does not always work but it takes a lot of commitment from the courts to the clinics and to the students to do that because nobody else gets that care towards the timing. It's a joint collaborative effort between the courts and the law schools.
It's nice to see that. From a gratifying and long time at the law school, how did you decide? In your case, it is not just not being appointed to the position, you have to run for the Supreme Court and that is an entirely different challenge to joining the bench. It's a different work that a lot of lawyers, especially appellate lawyers would cringe to have to do because it's not the personality. You have to want to do and be a judge to go through a difficult thing. How did you decide, "I'm going to put my hat in the ring?”
Again, it's accidental. It is the case that Michigan judges have to stand for election but most of them get to the bench the first time by appointment. The governor appoints in a vacancy and most people get there originally that way and then, they stand for election with the title judge or justice and that is a little bit easier but I did not. I ran for Statewide Election in 2012, there was an open seat on the Michigan Supreme Court that year. We have our mandatory retirement age of 70 and one of the justices was in mandatory retirement age. She was retiring. I had good relationships with the justices on the court.
My students and I did a lot of appellate practice, so we were in that court. The year that I ran, there was an annual competition for the Best Written Brief in the Michigan Supreme Court and I won it the year I was running, which is funny. I had good relationships and I thought that I might have something to offer the court in large part because of my different background than the way most people get to the state's high court. I naively set out about figuring out how to run for statewide office and did it, and then I won. I had to go take the job.
A lot of times in life, it's good that we don't know when we start to embark on something exactly everything that's involved and that we might not do it. It's good to take chances and do it that way. That's very fortuitous on the brief writing award, in terms of your campaign. I did not realize that there was such an award in Michigan. We don't have that. It might be something that considers in California or other states.
One of the law schools does it and they have a blind grading process, so the people that read the briefs for them don't know whose briefs they are. It's a nice tradition.
I like that a lot because writing is so important to the appellate process. It is the primary part of advocacy as an appellate lawyer. To have the blind judging is even more gratifying when you win. It's because it literally was the writing that you were judging that on it is not somebody's name, reputation or things like that. You have been on the court a few years. How is being a Supreme Court justice compared to what you thought it might be and what do you enjoy most about it?
It's a wonderful job. I'm starting my tenth year this 2022. I was reelected in 2020, so this is my second term as Chief Justice. State Supreme Courts will give you a full plate of interesting projects, in addition to the decision-making work, which is what people are familiar with. State Supreme Courts have administrative oversight of all the courts of the state as most law happens in State Courts, not Federal Courts.
You need more than judges and lawyers and courts. You need the people impacted in the conversation as well.
We have a lot of interesting opportunities to impact people who need justice or people from whom justice is needed. That administrative oversight role and the work that we do in that role has been a tremendous opportunity to make a difference in the way people experience justice in our state and that's where I get most of my satisfaction.
There are the deciding cases, choosing cases to decide, there's clearly that work at the Supreme Court level but then also there's the larger system-wide work in terms of administering the court system.
That is a real opportunity to do a lot of good.
That's something I don't know that most people consider or everybody thinks about the decision-making part, what are some of the access initiatives that you have worked on in that role?
I spent two years with the Lieutenant Governor chairing a bi-partisan effort to look at the jail and pretrial populations in Michigan which had exploded over many years, even though the crime was at a 50 year low, that's true everywhere. Like most places, we did not have great data to understand why. We were luckily aided by a few charitable trusts in collecting that data but we sent twenty bills to the governor, that's what she signed in 2021 which has made Michigan a national leader in the front end Criminal Legal System Reform.
It was an honor to be able to get that done. We also have become the national leader in the Expungement Reform, making our very progressive expungement statute automatic, so people don't have to figure out how to navigate courts to get it done. The most innovative Civil Legal System Reform set of projects is underway now in our justice for all commission. We are doing cool process simplification work, online information work, and regulatory reform work. I'm very excited about the possibilities there.
We have been very forward-looking about how remote platforms can serve lawyers but, especially with those who can't afford lawyers, default rates in cases like evictions and debt collection cases have dropped dramatically when people have a road option. It has been a time of incredible opportunity to make a lot of change, especially in the last few years.
With COVID, it changed people's perspectives in terms of what's possible, workable, and necessary in this case to keep the courts moving and to keep disputes being able to be decided. Prior to that, it would have been much more challenging to say, "We are going to have remote proceedings in these settings." There have been opportunities from years of COVID thus far.
It's good to have the courts involved themselves making the court system itself accessible and working in different ways, whether that's court navigators, online access or remote access. It's important to have it come from the courts because the courts and the judges know what's needed, what's feasible and are focused on ensuring access and good due process.
It's necessary but not sufficient. You need more than judges, lawyers, and courts. You need the people impacted in the conversation as well.
I'm going to switch back to the other part of your role on the bench, which is deciding cases. Given your brief writing award, I was wondering what tips you have for brief writing for advocates in a Supreme Court. What works? What makes your job easier? Also, if there's something you realized when you went to the bench and you are like, "I always did this but now I realize a better way to do it is this because it helps the court in a way I had not considered until I was in this role."
I'm not sure if I learned anything that changed my mind about how I practiced when I was on the other side of the bench but I'm a huge fan of Plain English and figuring out how to write something that you think needs clarity. It's much harder to write something shorter than it is to write something longer, and that's because the work that it takes to make it clear enough is a lot of work. It's easier to bang out lots of words. It's a lot harder to make sure those words all fit together in a clear way. I'm very much a big fan of Plain English, with no footnotes, and clear writing. That's easier said than done.
You have to truly understand something and what is essential to have brevity. There's a lot of that processing and work that happens before you can get to that point. As you said, it's a lot easier to put it all out there instead of making that selection, narrative, storytelling, and all of that as well. The no footnotes, that can be a challenge sometimes to have none at all but reduce them. That's another question of you have to decide what's important. If I'm going to put it in a footnote, is it even need to be in the footnote or do things get moved further down, and maybe entirely out of the brief at some point?
Is it so important that it should come above the line?
You have to decide, "Am I burying this?" There's this whole process that goes through the editing of things that takes a long time to do a good brief. It's several weeks of concentrated work. That's not always something that's understood or appreciated outside of the appellate realm in particular. Everybody has written some things. They are like, "You can just write that." "Yes, but no. This is a different situation." What about the oral argument? Do you have any tips for effective or helpful oral arguments?
It's a little bit different in an intermediate Court of Appeals and the State Supreme Court. The State Supreme Court, we are worried about the Rule of Law that should emerge out of your case. The best advocates are the ones that show up and are thought partners for us in figuring out how to write the opinion.
You have a client, so you can’t just be only that but when an advocate shows up and is ready to answer questions from the get-go, the windups and the intros are a waste of time and you are better off finding out what's on our minds and engaging us on those questions than anything you thought we should be thinking about. That's my top-line message to oral advocates.
The toughest arguments are ones where you don't get questions as an advocate because you are wondering like, "Am I answering the questions they might have? I don't know. It could be something different than what I'm thinking." That's another reason in preparation. I like to get lots of different people to review the briefs and feed me questions because everybody sees cases differently about what's an important question to them. When you have been with a case for a while you see it a certain way.
It’s much harder to write something shorter than it is to write something longer.
Having people say, "There's also this aspect." "I need to think about that before I even stand at the lectern." Questions are good, even if you don't feel that way when you are standing there at the lectern. As you noted at the Court of Last Resort and State Supreme Court, the question is more than just what's right or correct in this particular case but we are going to announce a rule that's going to affect a lot of other cases. We want to know and push on the edges of that in terms of how, "We can see what would happen in this case but what about other kinds of cases? Is it going to have some effect that we don't foresee or that we would not want to have?"
There are ways in which we should think about only reaching so far to answer a question and not further because we don't know what the unintended consequences are. It's almost like you want the lawyers to be another clerk, help us with thinking about this. The best advocates are able to do that.
Pull back and think about those larger questions while still advocating for the client. There's that, too. Being that thought partner as you mentioned, gives you a lot more credibility too in terms of the court. We are trying to wrestle this problem together and figure out what's going on.
We are all concerned about the same thing.
I like that thought partner term. It frames it for your mindset when you stand up and talk to the court. It's like, "That is what we are." I had not thought of it quite that way but it's a good phrase. I want to talk a little bit also about mentors and sponsors, in terms of were there people key junctures of your career, who stepped in to offer advice, or to help you in any of these junctures of your career that made a difference? What does that look like or how do people show up in that way? Especially, newer lawyers don't appreciate the value of mentors, sponsors or understand the full array of what that can look like.
Mentors and sponsors are critical especially for someone who does not have natural people in their life to turn to about some of those things. They played an important role in my life. I had people who took a real interest in me in law school. I served as an RA for a faculty member who is still a dear friend and was a mentor for me throughout many phases of my career.
When I was a legal aid lawyer, I had a couple of senior lawyers who took a real interest in me and served as wonderful mentors. Same when I started in clinical teaching and they stuck with me and are still in touch with me. Every important mentor I have had has been male. Men have been incredible mentors to me at every phase. I feel full of gratitude. It's important for women to serve as mentors to women entering the profession but don't turn away a good male mentor either. They are all good.
That's a good observation. All different types of people can help. They may be a different package than you expect but it's wonderful to have that support. I have had a lot of support from male mentors as well. I know what you are talking about in terms of help in that regard. Do you have any suggestions for Law students given your time in a law school and also on the mentoring question in law school? Are there any recommendations for Law students in terms of succeeding and doing their best in law school?
Be kind to yourself in law school. Law school can be so stressful. Do the things that work for you. I went to NYU Law School, most of my colleagues went to big firms after they graduated. I never even went to a big firm in the summer. It was not quite right for me but your people are always there. I found others who were like me interested in something different.
Find your people, trust your gut, and you don't have to do what everyone else is doing. Take professors who are good teachers, don't worry too much about like this class or that class is important. You are going to learn in law school how to learn the Law and you are going to be able to figure out what the Law is when you need it in any given context. You are better off taking like good teachers, even if they are teaching something that you are not sure you are interested in. Good teachers matter more than anything. Don't take it all too seriously, it all works out.
That's one of the inspirations for this show, too. In law school, there are certain things that are easier paths to follow because firms come to recruit on campus and there were certain things that are like, "Those opportunities are right there and we are certainly aware of them." There are many different ways to practice law, and even not practice law and use your Law degree for other things, too. It's important for people to be aware of and to be willing to think outside the box. As you said, find your tribe or people that have a similar interest.
It can be hard to take that, "Don't take it so seriously." That's hard. The first year was always hard. Everybody was very stressed out the first year. It was better after that. As you said, you are being taught how to think about things and you are being molded in that first year, and it can be very challenging. What is the most surprising thing about being on the bench since you joined? We have a sense of what it would be like but then when you are on the bench, it might be different. Is there something surprising about being on the Michigan Supreme Court that you did not expect?
The most surprising thing is the unbelievable ability to have such an impact on so many people through the administrative oversight role and that's not true for most courts. That's only true for State Supreme Courts. If you are thinking about being on the State Supreme Court, that is the most surprising thing, the tremendous possibility to have a positive impact on so many people. Not through your decision-making role, not to say that that's not important but through the administrative oversight role. You can change the way we do business in our local courts. It's a stunning amount of opportunity.
It also sounds like you need skills to work with different stakeholders, as you mentioned, there's a legislature to pass certain laws as well, so there's working with other branches.
If you are not good at working with stakeholders and you are not going to be able to take advantage of the tremendous opportunity I keep talking about.
That's important. It's a set of skills, you might think about in terms of working with your colleagues on the bench to reach consensus or to have a majority opinion but this is beyond and different from that in terms of stakeholders and the entire system.
It's a much bigger project.
There are some judges who are very reticent. We speak at bar events, we do this and that but we are certainly not going to be on Twitter or not going to have a podcast as you do with other Supreme Court justices. I'm curious how you came to be present in the internet and social media forums, and then how you think that contributes to your role in the court with the public in terms of stakeholders?
Good teachers matter more than anything.
Judges and courts serve the public. It's our obligation to be accessible and to make the work that we do accessible to the public. It's a mistake for judges to avoid social media. They don't avoid. If they get invited to go to the local Rotary lunch and give a talk, they do that. Most people don't get much information from the Rotary Club talk. They get most of their information now from social media.
There are things judges should not do on social media. We have a Code of Conduct that means there are a lot of topics that I don't talk about on social media. It's a great way to make sure people understand how they can see what the Supreme Court is doing anytime we are deciding a case. They can all watch it if I tweet the link. It's a pretty important part of transparency and accountability in my view.
I wanted to cover that because that is true in the world now, especially with COVID. That's our opportunity to be transparent, there are no meetings to go to talk to people. Those meetings are being held over Zoom. Tweeting out the link to live oral arguments of the court, if that were not happening and broadcast, people may never see an argument in Supreme Court. It's important to be able to see that and to see the courts I work. It has value. Tell me about your podcast and how that came to be with Justice Wood and Justice Walker.
Justice Wood, Justice Walker, and I met over Twitter. We’ve got to be friends. Justice Walker was at the time, the Chief in West Virginia. She and I did have an in real-life interaction at the conference of Chief Justices in whatever year that was before COVID 2019. When COVID first hit and everybody was in lockdown, Justice Wood's granddaughter was working on a project for school and proposed an interview with the three of us, and then Justice Guzman from Texas.
We did that interview and Justice Woods' judicial education team recorded and curated it. We had so much fun doing it that they suggested that we do a podcast, and so we did. It's how we have become even closer friends because now we look forward to that chance once a month. We record about once a month to catch up with one another. It has been a lot of fun.
They are enjoyable to hear about all your paths to the bench and your careers but also to understand some of the questions and issues that State Supreme Courts grapple with and what's involved. There's an aspect of transparency in that as well in that podcast. It's the commonality you are talking about Supreme Court justices from several different states but still, there are common challenges you need to deal with.
That's a great podcast. I'm glad you are still doing it. I was a little bit worried that as COVID waned a little bit but a lot of people would want to do podcasts, and then you are so busy, and you are not going to do that but I'm glad that you are continuing. It has an important role to play in the conversation.
It's so interesting that it was Justice Woods' education department of the Supreme Court that said, "This is helpful and useful." You would not say the forward-thinking perspective would come from the court education staff itself in terms of saying, "This is a good way to go." I wrap up with a few lightning-round questions. Which talent would you most like to have but you don't?
I wish I could sing.
Do you like to listen to music and sing as well? Are you an appreciator?
I do. My sister's got a gorgeous voice. She was Sally Bowles on Broadway at one point. She now has a daughter whose voice is even better than her mother's. I love listening to them and I wish I could sing with them.
Everybody has their talents and gifts. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself and what is the trait you most deplore in others?
I don't deplore traits in myself or others. I have things that I could do better but I'm kinder to myself. When other people get on my nerves, it means I need to go for a walk or do a little yoga. I try not to deplore anything or anybody.
That's a good evenhanded response. Responding rather than reacting to things, that's a good approach. Who are your favorite writers?
That's such a great one. It's Mary Oliver and George Saunders, they are not legal writers. They are poets and fiction writers.
That's what I was wondering about. Good writing is good writing in all different formats and you can enjoy and learn a lot from all of them. I enjoy a good poem along with a good short story or an essay as well. Who is your hero in real life?
It's the trial judges around the state that are running problem-solving courts and literally saving lives, day in and day out. I serve on the Board Of The National Association of Drug Court Professionals and there's a board member from Detroit here in Michigan, who runs a drug court in Detroit. Drug use and drug overdoses have been off the charts throughout COVID.
It has been harder to do the work that problem-solving courts do. This judge, her name is Shannon Holmes and what she does is unbelievable. I don't want to single her out because there are so many others like that around the country but I will say that the judges who are running problem-solving courts are my heroes.
It’s our obligation to be accessible and to make the work that we do accessible to the public. It’s a mistake for judges to avoid social media.
We call them collaborative courts here in California but it makes that work much more challenging because it is a stakeholder work as well. There's a lot of in court and support but it's very gratifying in terms of the difference that can make in individual lives, which then ripple out into the family and community overall. It's a remarkable set of different problem-solving courts in a lot of different arenas. It makes a big difference.
It's important but even harder to do now because of limitations. It's something that looks at the whole person as a human being and the context of everything. It allows them to grow from the experiences, which is not an opportunity that the court system provides in that setting. It's amazing. I have done some activities in those courts and it's amazing to see the results. Given your choice of anyone in the world, who would you invite as a dinner guest?
My mom or my dad who I have not gotten to see enough in COVID because they live far away and are both older and like most people their age have many health issues. If they were not available, I would like to have dinner with my husband. That's fun.
Family is important and it has been challenging during COVID for the reasons you mentioned. Last question, what is your motto if you have one?
I don't have a motto. I might need a motto but I don't have one. I will work on that.
There are a lot of other important things for you to think about but if you come across that, that's okay. Thank you so much for joining. It has been interesting and I appreciate you taking the time to talk about your path to the bench, career, and overall wisdom. Thank you, Chief Justice McCormack.
Thanks for having me.