Episode 6: Christine Mayle
Ohio Sixth District Court of Appeals
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Show Notes
In this episode, M.C. Sungaila talks shop with Christine Mayle, Judge, Ohio Sixth District Court of Appeals. Judge Mayle discusses what drew her towards appellate law, and what drove her towards a position as a judge on the Court of Appeals. Tune in to learn more of Judge Mayle’s journey and why appellate law is so important.
Relevant episode links:
Christine Mayle, Thinking Like A Writer, Point Made, Point Taken
About Judge Christine Mayle:
Judge Christine Mayle
Judge Mayle was elected to the Sixth District Court of Appeals in November 2016. In 2017, she was elected by her colleagues to a two-year term as Presiding Judge of the court. In 2018, Judge Mayle was appointed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Ohio to serve as a visiting judge on that court, to decide The Cincinnati Reds v. Joseph W. Testa, Tax Commission of Ohio, Case No. 2017-0854.
Prior to joining the bench, Mayle practiced law with Dewey Ballantine LLP in New York City for several years. She then moved to Toledo and joined the law firm of Cooper & Walinski LPA and, subsequently, Thacker Robinson Zinz LPA. While in private practice, Judge Mayle represented companies in litigation across the country and internationally, helped individuals pro bono, and served on various charitable and legal-aid boards.
Transcript
We have a Judge, Christine Mayle, from the Ohio Court of Appeal. Welcome, Judge.
Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here.
Our experiences together show the value of bar association work. That's how we met.
The Woman Advocate Committee of the ABA Section of Litigation is an outstanding group of women. I met many phenomenal women, attorneys, and judges throughout the country through my involvement and one of them being you. I'm very grateful for that.
That's one of the things we will get into in terms of community involvement in bar service and different ways of being involved to become known and meet other people. Let's start first from the beginning in terms of practicing law. Deciding to become a lawyer, what caused you to do that? Was there some inspirational moment when you were younger or someone in your family?
No. It was a progression of following my interests and what I found most interesting and fitting to my skillset as I went through my academic career. I went into college without a clear vision of what I wanted to do after college. I was very exploratory in terms of the classes that I took there. I gravitated towards the Liberal Arts, Political Science and Sociology. For a time, I was a double major in Political Science and Sociology but I ended up majoring in Political Science with a minor in Business.
I have always been fascinated with the way we interact with each other, social constructs, and how we govern. I loved being a student. I knew pretty much by the time I was a sophomore or junior in college that I would love law school. I took some intro to law courses and sparked my interest there. I knew that I would enjoy law school and with a Law degree.
I wasn't sure then, when I was going into law school, what I was going to be doing with that Law degree but I knew it would be something meaningful. Law is so important to all of our lives, all different industries, practices, professionals and people. It touches so many different areas. I knew that what I would be doing would be meaningful. I took that next step to go through law school and as expected, I loved everything about it. It led me to a position in my second-year summer as a summer associate with a big firm in New York City, Dewey Ballantine.
I took that summer to work with a lot of different lawyers, get exposure to different practice areas and litigation I thought was going to be a fit for me based on what I had been feeling already in law school. It was so I clicked there and joined the litigation department with that firm upon graduation. That's how my career in law got up and running. Instead of having this clear vision, at the start, it was a progression of following my gut and instincts in where I felt my heart and passions lied.
Sometimes it is taking that next step and seeing where it goes. Other times it's a grand vision but sometimes it's following your intuition and gut about what will work for you and testing that out. Were you in private practice doing Civil work the whole time before becoming a judge?
I was. I started my career in New York City. I met my husband in law school at Notre Dame, and he's from Ohio. We are long-distance for a while. I made the move out here and joined a firm in Toledo, continuing my business litigation practice. My practice, although the majority of it was based in Ohio, I did trial and appellate court, work nationally depending on where my clients found themselves in disputes. My practice was all over the place. It was that general umbrella of business litigation but it could be contracts, Employment Law, Sports Law, tax fraud, product liability or antitrust. It ran the gamut. The variety of the practice was one of my most favorite things about it.
The law really is so important to all of our lives, all different industries, practices, professionals, and people. It touches so many different areas.
I felt like I was always learning some new aspect of the law or also new industries because that can be so important too, depending on the particular dispute that your client finds. You have to know a lot about a unique particular industry. You have to be the one to educate the judge because then the judge needs to become an expert in that particular industry to effectively rule and decide the case. The constant student in me enjoyed that aspect of it. I did a lot of research and writing as litigators do, especially in the appellate practice part of my practice. I always loved the academic side of the law of research, brief writing, and the oral advocacy at oral argument to it.
In Ohio, is there a dedicated appellate bar or do litigators would do the whole gamut? Are there some people who specialize in appeals? It's different state by state.
For the most part, the litigators who are also doing the appellate work. Some attorneys do get certified as appellate specialists in Ohio that's done through the state bar. You have to have a certain percentage of your practice dedicated to appellate work, and then there are other things that you need to do to get certified. For the most part, you do the trial work and the appellate work as well.
It's great to have that variety of topics, clients and industries. Sometimes it's important to claim the industry what happens there for the court to understand what makes the most sense in terms of, “How do I play the law to this setting?” That's fun to have variation in that regard. You have that on the Court of Appeal.
I will never stop learning in this profession. As an Appellate Judge, we see everything. In Ohio, there are twelve different intermediary Courts of Appeals. I sit on the Sixth District and have jurisdiction over eight counties in Northwest Ohio. We hear appeals from every single trial court in that eight-county area. It's everything. It's criminal, civil, domestic, probate, juvenile, and endless the number of issues that could come before us
I had some new lawyers who came through our court to take a tour and see the courtroom. I was talking to them in the courtroom about what happens in the appellate court. I said, “When you are in the courtroom, it's all about the law here.” At the trial court, the witnesses have said what they were going to say, the documents already say what they are going to show, and the evidence has been admitted.
There's nothing new that happens here in terms of facts or evidence. Our entire purpose here is just to look at the law and to decide whether or not the law was followed in the trial court. To me, there's something so pure about that. This is the heart of what you learn in law school and what it is to be a lawyer. What we do here at the Court of Appeals is all about the law.
Two things are interesting coming to your position. The first is that you are elected to that position and not appointed. Second of all, it's unusual as well to go to the appellate court in the first instance on the bench people, especially the appointments process, will go from the trial court to the appellate court, occasionally to the appellate court or Supreme Court but both elected and directly to the appellate court. There's something a little different there. Maybe you can explain first how you decided, “This would be fun to do next.” How did you go about it since there's an election in the Court of Appeals?
I was elected in 2016. That's when I ran for the court and won the election to my position. In 2014 or 2015, I started having this voice inside my head that I was starting to think about, “How great it would be to be an appellate judge.” If that would be anything that I could truly achieve like how I was talking about always following my heart and gut, what it’s telling me on the next thing to do. At that time, I wasn't listening to that voice because I had a busy law practice.
I have three young children. At the time, I had two. I gave birth to my third in 2015. A lot is going on. It wasn't something that I was actively working towards and formulating a plan of how am I going to get there. Something unusual happened in the summer of 2016. There was somebody who was running for this position unopposed. He withdrew from the election in June of 2016.
I was keeping my eye on the appellate races at that time. As soon as that happened, I thought, “I had no idea what happened.” The governor was to a point because if there are vacancies in office, the governor will appoint a judge to fill out the unexpired term until that appointed judge can then win election to retain the seat for the remainder of that term.
I didn't know if the governor would appoint or what the situation was. I went and read the statute. I learned that in this weird circumstance in Ohio, where there's this open position on a ballot, both parties have the opportunity to nominate a candidate at least 90 days before the general election. They do that by calling a meeting of the chair and secretary from each county within the particular district. My county has eight counties. It would be a meeting of sixteen people essentially. The majority would win.
I was reading the statute and said, “You would need only nine votes to get onto the ballot?” My husband was there. He's also a practicing attorney. We went to law school together. He said, “You should do this.” I said, “I can't do this. I don't know how to run an election. It would be so much more.” I'm giving all the reasons why I couldn't run for office, couldn't go and be an election. He said, “You would be a great appellate judge. This is what you want to do. Why not you?”
I'm making it sound like it was one conversation between us but it was a few conversations along the same lines over a few weeks. When I thought about, “Why not me?” I did not doubt my ability to be a good appellate judge. I would love to be an appellate judge. I would be very good at it. I knew that my skills and my interests were suited for that position.”
My hesitancy was all about the process that I would have to go through to get to that position. Once I thought about it in that way, I had to overcome my fear of the process because I knew that at the end of that road if I could get elected and get the nomination, it would be extremely fulfilling, and it would be a dream position for me. I decided, “If I'm ever going to do this and this is ever something that I want to do, the timing isn't great but, in a way, this unique situation where the campaign period would be truncated and only a matter of three months instead of 12 to 18 months, that made it very appealing to me.”
I decided that I would go for it. I started meeting the decision-makers of who would be at that meeting to decide, explaining my qualifications, my experience, why I thought I would be a good judge, that I could win an election. They took a chance on me. I was not somebody that was in the political mix at that time but I thought that was a good thing. I would be focusing on my career, so I had a lot there to back up.
You need nine votes. Did you know the nine people you might need for the vote?
Just go for it. Figure out what you need to do to get there. You can make it happen.
I didn't. I went into that completely cold. I found out who they were. I asked to have meetings with them. I sat down for lunch and coffee. I traveled. This is a big geographical area. I said, “I will come to you, meet with you and explain why I believe I'm a good fit for this.” After I’ve got that nomination, that got me on the ballot, and then I had a three-month-long campaign period, which was crazy. It was a lot of work and stress. Running for election is traumatic in a lot of ways.
You put yourself out there. It was one of those things that I thought, “I can do this for three months or a few more weeks. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.” I did everything that I could do. I had enough people in the legal community who knew me and could speak for me, my capabilities and suitability for the bench, and everything came together. I was happy.
Did you have someone running against you or were you the only one?
I did. I ran against a sitting trial court judge who was running for the Court of Appeals. He's still a trial court judge. He's a great judge and a great person. The judicial campaigns are civil. It's not like a lot of the other campaigns that you see in the national media. Thank goodness.
Hopefully, at least we haven't reached that point yet with the judicial election.
Judicial elections are tough because we are so unlike the other two branches of government. What we do has nothing to do with politics or political parties. The other two branches of government are there to represent the will of the people. When I took my oath of office, I swore to administer justice without respect to persons. That's what the first outreach back to me or anybody who elected me, voted for me, any of that. The judicial campaign involves a lot of education of the voters to try and explain this is all about your qualifications and experience and how you are going to apply the law fairly and impartially without respect to anything about what the law requires.
I get inquiries from friends and family when they get the ballot, and they do need to vote on a judge, “Do you know anything about this person?” In California, at least the bar associations do some vetting of disqualifications for the public but they are not always the easiest way to find them. Since you are saying it, it isn't a partisan thing, you want to find out this person's ability for the bench. That's very hard unless you are a lawyer to know that. It's challenging for voters to know and then to be able to convey that as well.
The judges usually come towards the bottom of the ballot and there’s a drop-off too because, unless they know attorneys to get some advice on [the candidates], they have to do their research.
That's probably an achievement given the truncated timeframe and all of the ingenuity you had to use to find out what was going to happen and then to take the initiative to go meet with people. That right there says a lot about your personality and how you ended up on the bench, your tenacity, and figuring that out. Your comment that you were confident about being able to do the job but you weren't as confident about the process to obtain the job. Something that I continue to hear from many women judges is that they were hesitant. There was somebody else in their life, whether it was another judge, their kids or their husband saying, “Why not? Why don't you try this,” or recommending that they try it.
There's that hesitancy and stepping over the threshold. In your case, it's not a lot of fun running for office. I can understand that, and not having done that before is a whole new world. It's difficult to say, “I know I would be a good judge but I don’t know-how about running to be a judge is different.” What kind of advice would you give to women lawyers who are considering joining the bench in terms of how it is in practice? You love it. What would you recommend if someone is interested in exploring it? What might they do?
The system is different from state to state but generally, if this is something that you could see yourself doing, loving, and being very good at, go for it. Try to get over that fear of the unknown because it's scary for everybody. When you realize this unknown process, there's a natural tendency to think that, “I can't do this. This is scary for me. This is not something I can do.” That hesitancy in that fear is universal. I still feel it every time I have to give a public speech. I was feeling it before I’ve got on this show. It’s knowing that the fear is always going to be there but the more that you act despite that fear, the easier that it gets.
For females in this profession, we do have certain obstacles in terms of some implicit biases in the profession that we have all experienced in one way or the other. There's no difference there in terms of whatever the process is to get to the bench. I still notice it with people who say, “You don't look like a judge.” I have gotten that comment many times. What they are saying is, “You don't fit the instant image of what it means to be a judge,” which is an older White man sitting on the bench in the row. I would say, “This is what a judge looks like. I am a judge, and I'm a good one.”
There's something about your demeanor. You are very approachable and open. I don't think that's something that someone has in their mind about a judge like very stern. That's good for the court and bench because you are a good ambassador for the legal system. I don't think that people expect that from a judge as well.
The best advice is to go for it, figure out what you need to do to get there, and you can make it happen.
I want to talk a little bit about mentors or sponsors both about the judicial process and also in the law firms you were in. All of us have had at least one mentor or sponsor at some point in our careers. Some of them we may not even know about who say the good things for you in the right meetings. Are there any that you know about that helped you? How did they help you?
I have been fortunate to have many mentors throughout my career that have made a difference. I can even think back to my summer associate position at that firm and having the partner that recruited me to work at that firm who knew that I was very capable and had a lot to offer. He had me write a brief in a bigger case as a summer associate, which was a unique thing but he did that so that way other lawyers could see my capabilities and it would open more doors for me at that firm. It was something later on that I looked back on it and realized, “That was a great thing that he did for me there right off the bat.”
Throughout my career, I have had many mentors, men, and women that I have learned so much from. I remember when I was interviewing with the firm that I joined in Toledo, coming from New York City. I was sitting in an attorney's office. Her name is Margaret Lockhart. She's one of the most brilliant lawyers that are out there but her office was littered with children's drawings and paintings all over her office.
Be completely honest with the facts and the law.
I was looking around and speaking with her about her practice and what she does, surrounded by these drawings by kids. I thought, “This is what I want. I want to be a great lawyer with a family, with young children.” I saw her as somebody to look up to in that regard. We worked together very closely on several cases but also, I would always watch how she handled situations. She was somebody that I could always go and talk to about personal situations, being a young mom and a litigator. Having that support system was invaluable. If I were to go through a name, all of the different mentors that I had, and how much of a difference they made to me, it would be the rest of the show.
It's important to talk about it and acknowledge different ways that might look because a lot of people can't recognize it. You did afterward saying, “I had this opportunity to do this brief in this case, and it showcased my skills for a lot of people.” That was probably intentional by this person who was trying to help me expand my reach. That's what it looks like. They don't know. They hear this, “I need a mentor.” What does that look like? What does that mean?
A lot of it is informal, and the mentee to recognize who you have to learn from and maybe be the one to open that door, ask questions and invite a relationship there with this person that you think would be beneficial to you. In Ohio, when you are first elected to the bench as a new Judge, you have to go through two weeks of training called New Judges School.
There's also a formal mentoring process component where you get paired up with a more experienced judge as your mentor. You have to meet a few times during that first year and submit things regarding your meetings. I requested a particular judge to be my mentor because she was one of the instructors at this New Judges School. I felt like she was somebody that I could learn from that.
I felt good instinct chemistry with, in terms of somebody I would feel comfortable coming to talk about things. She was my formal mentor but informal. I'm going into my sixth year on the bench but I still feel comfortable asking her things that I wouldn't feel comfortable asking other people. It's great to have that support.
That's a great acknowledgment too, then it continues throughout your career. When you are doing new things, it's always good to have someone to help out and mentor you in different ways, be open to that and recognize that you don't know everything like, “I haven't done this before.” You sat on the Supreme Court. Was it for 1 or 2 cases?
The way it works in Ohio is if there's a Supreme Court justice that has to recuse in a particular case, then the Chief Justice will appoint an appellate judge in that justice's place to sit and decide that particular case. I have had the opportunity to do that, two times already. I sat for a case that I had to do. It was an attorney misconduct case in Ohio. In all those cases that are prosecuted, the Supreme Court of Ohio is the last word on those attorney or judicial misconduct cases. That was via Zoom. The Supreme Court of Ohio was still via Zoom at the time.
The first time I was appointed was in 2018, and that was for a case involving, of all things, the taxation of bobbleheads that are given at professional sporting events. The Cincinnati Reds were involved in that case, and it had to do with the taxation of those promotional items that are given out at baseball games. That was taxation. It was pretty cool. That was a great experience. I felt very honored to have been asked to sit on the Supreme Court.
In California, we have a similar situation. If there's a vacancy on the Supreme Court, then the Court of Appeal justice will get appointed. Essentially, by seniority within the system. Everybody gets a chance as you go down the line and who's up next at-bat gets to come and sit on the case but it sounds like your system is not that way. Being called twice to do it is maybe an indication that you did a pretty good job the first time.
It's all up to the Chief Justice. She's the one who does the appointment.
Whether you are on the Supreme Court or the Court of Appeal hearing argument, is there something that you would most like lawyers to do in their argument in front of you? I will ask you the same question about brief writing. Is there are top things you appreciate where lawyers are more helpful?
In terms of oral argument, what would be most helpful is to focus on the toughest issue that you have. You shouldn't use your time to repeat what is the most obvious or willingness of your positions if those winning positions aren't going to be necessarily outcome determinative if there's another issue there that is more difficult for you, that we would have to overcome to rule in your favor.
Although it's more comfortable to use your time to nail down those cases that are in your favor and why you have the best arguments in other areas, what we want to do during oral argument is test our theories but drill down on what is the weakest points of your position. What has your opponent brought out that makes it hard for you? How do you respond to that?
Maybe it's a Supreme Court case that you have to distinguish for us or take us through some of this history of the statute, how it's worded and why it means that you can overcome some of the languages that I'm reading in this section of the statute that doesn't seem to be so good for you. Use that time at oral argument to help us overcome whatever that biggest hurdle is for us to rule in your favor.
If I had to narrow it down, it would be, to be honest with the facts and the law, to give us a complete account of the relevant facts and not leave out any pieces of the facts that might be important for us to know about. The same thing with terms of Case Law. I'm a big proponent of parentheticals that if you are going to cite a case for a particular proposition, if there are no parentheticals, I'm going to assume that there's no logical leap that I need to take to get from what is in that statement, in the sentence to what the case then says.
When I go and read the case, and I see it's not what is it led me to speak that it says based on a brief, that's not good. If you have a parenthetical, that explains why you are citing this case for that proposition, that's fine. It gets hard when you have a bunch of cases. You don't have parentheticals that explain why you are citing that case or some cases aren't cited that should be cited. The biggest thing that I would ask would be completely honest with the facts and law.
You wrote appellate briefs yourself previously, now you are writing opinions. Is there something surprising or different about writing additional opinions? There's advocacy for one side when you are writing a brief, but just the process or how you think about writing that, is there something different?
There are a lot of similarities. I feel like my experience with brief writing has translated to writing judicial opinions as well. I'm not writing as an advocate anymore. I'm deciding the case but I still have to go through, analyze the issues and explain why it is that I'm reaching the results that I'm reaching. Brian Garner's books on brief writing apply to writing appellate opinions as well.
There's another writing instructor, Tim Terrell. He writes Thinking Like A Writer. He did a presentation for new appellate judges at NYU that I intended. There's this week-long seminar that NYU puts on every year for newly elected or appointed appellate judges, state and Federal. He did two full days of that week talking to appellate judges about writing opinions. He was using the book that he has for attorneys as a guidepost for teaching us how to write these opinions. It correlates very nicely to writing judicial opinions.
Ross Guberman also has the Point Made, which is a brief writing book, and then Point Taken, which is a judicial opinion writing book. He applies similar principles but it's a great foundation to have the opportunity to have a written appellate pellet before being on the bench. Some judges are more attuned to particular things. When they are crafting an opinion, they know maybe it's going to be reported if it's published. The first 1 or 2 paragraphs should delineate. If people aren't going to read carefully the rest, “Here's what we are doing,” you can translate that to the public about what's going on in this opinion.”
Life is short. Take a step back, tell the people you love that you love them. Spend the time on earth that you have doing what you want to be doing.
I do that as well to have a good summary there at the conclusion as to why we are doing what we are doing.
I want to turn to a little bit of a lightning round with a few quick answers with relatively quick questions. Which talent would you most like to have?
I have a terrible voice, so I would love to be able to sing and get on stage like Adele.
Who are your favorite writers? What is your favorite word?
My favorite writers are Brené Brown and Glennon Doyle. Brené Brown is brilliant, and her books on leadership are phenomenal. I have taken a lot from them. Glennon Doyle as well, I used to read her blog back before she wrote her first book. She wrote a lot about motherhood and has written three memorable memoirs. They are all excellent.
Who is your hero in real life?
My mom is my hero in real life. She was born in Portugal. She left home when she was nineteen, didn't speak a word of English, and moved to England to learn English before she moved over to the United States in her early twenties as an offer for a nanny. What she did was pretty amazing. She would talk to me about how homesick she was but she wanted to have a better life for her family back home to help out her family. She grew up without anything.
That takes a lot of courage and strength to do that but also a belief in accomplishments in the future. It's both helpful and strong. For what in your life are you most grateful?
My family. I have, my husband Andy, who is an attorney with a busy law practice but he is my biggest champion. He supports me in everything that I do. It's important to have that partnership with your spouse. I'm so grateful to have him and our three boys. Things are crazy with sports, all their activities, judicial campaigns, trials, and whatever else is mixed but I wouldn't have it any other way. I’m fortunate.
Let's talk about dinner guests. Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you invite as a dinner guest?
I would probably have the Pope over.
What is your motto, if you have one?
My motto is probably, “Life is short.” I try and remember that if I'm getting too much anxiety about the day-to-day things or worried about how this is going to happen that life is short, to try and take a step back, tell the people you love them and spend the time on Earth that you have, doing what you want it to be doing.
Especially these last few years have been so hard for many of us. I lost both my parents in 2020 within 60 days of each other. It was a hard time. It also made me reflect on how precious this life is and how short it is, so we should focus on the important things. It's easier said than done. There are so many things that day in and day out to make you stressed, worried or anxious. It's something that I try and remember.
Be conscious about it. You can have that overarching view but then sometimes it can be hard to get to that point. I'm so sorry about your parents. It’s so hard because they are your anchors. Life is short and keeping that in mind is a great way to end our time together and have that be the takeaway for people, to appreciate their life and maybe not worry so much because we are very good at that as lawyers.
One of my many mentors would always say, “A good lawyer is a good worrier.” We take our client's problems, and we are the ones who do the worrying for them. You have to be a good worrier to be a good lawyer.
In that category, my mom reminds me of one time when I was little. I said, “I'm worried.” She said, “What are you worried about?” I said, “I'm worried that I have nothing to worry about. I feel that I have forgotten something because I don't have anything to worry about.” I didn't realize that made me a perfect candidate to be a lawyer but based on that description, yes. Thank you so much for sharing your insights and spending time with us on the show. Blessings to you and the rest of your journey, Christine.
Thank you so much. I'm honored that you asked me.