Episode 84: Maureen O'Connor
Retired Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice
01:00:33
Subscribe and listen on…
Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Amazon Music | PocketCasts | iHeartRadio | Player.FM Podcasts
Watch Full Interview
Show Notes
Recently retired Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor shares how she became the first woman to lead the state judiciary and her contribution to the judicial system. Maureen O'Connor is the tenth Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Ohio, a Cleveland-Marshall School of Law graduate, and a member of the Cleveland-Marshall Hall of Fame. She became the longest-serving statewide elected woman in Ohio history. She shares her journey to becoming the first woman to lead the state judicial branch of government and how she led significant reforms and improvements in the Ohio judicial system.
Maureen O'Connor
Maureen O’Connor is the tenth Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Ohio, the first woman to lead the state judicial branch of government, a Cleveland-Marshall School of Law graduate, and a member of the Cleveland-Marshall Hall of Fame. She is the longest-serving statewide elected woman in Ohio history.
Chief Justice O’Connor has led significant reforms and improvements in the Ohio judicial system and is a leader nationally.
Her commitment to modernization of the courts across the state is unmatched. Since 2015, she has endowed Ohio local courts with more than $35 million to add and enhance technology. This funding has increased access to justice for litigants, defendants, and the public. The foresight made Ohio a leader in its ability to continue to administer justice through the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.
Chief Justice O’Connor has worked to improve fairness in the judicial system. She was selected by her peers in the Conference of Chief Justices and the Conference of State Court Administrators to co-chair the National Task Force on Fines, Fees, and Bail Practices in 2016. In Ohio, she has advocated for reform to ensure people are not held in jail prior to resolution of their case simply because they cannot afford bail. She is spearheading the creation of a statewide criminal sentencing database and the implementation of a uniform sentencing entry to establish standardized data for felony sentencing. She has created a task force on conviction integrity to look at policies and practices to determine equity, fairness, and advise the judiciary and the legislature.
From 1985 to 1993, O’Connor served as Magistrate, Summit County Probate Court. From 1993 to 1995, she served as Judge, Summit County Court of Common Pleas, and was elected as administrative judge of the court. Serving in local and trial courts, she learned that many of society’s most difficult problems underlie legal issues.
Recognizing emerging opioid abuse and its impact on court dockets, Chief Justice O’Connor led efforts of an eight-state initiative to combat the nation’s opioid epidemic. She has increased the role of specialized dockets, to bring community resources together to provide an opportunity for a second chance, where warranted. She holds trial courts in esteem for the challenging work they do and the opportunities they create.
Chief Justice O’Connor left the Summit County bench to serve her community as Summit County Prosecuting Attorney from 1995 to 1999 and was honored by Cleveland State University with the Distinguished Alumnae Award for Civic Achievement and received numerous other awards. In 1999, she was elected with Governor Bob Taft to serve as Ohio Lieutenant Governor and Director of the Ohio Department of Public Safety. After 9-11, she became the state’s first liaison with the newly formed U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security. As Ohio’s leader in Homeland Security, she chaired the State of Ohio Security Task Force and the State Building Security Review Committee.
Chief Justice O’Connor joined the Court in January 2003, was re-elected as associate justice in 2008 and elected twice as Chief Justice in 2010 and 2016. She is past president of the national Conference of Chief Justices and former chair of the National Center for State Courts Board of Directors.
Transcript
I am very pleased to have the Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, Maureen O'Connor, join the show. Welcome, Justice.
Thank you for having me.
You certainly had significant roles and even your position as Chief Justice, being the first woman in that position in your state. We've had a couple of those first on the show. Chief Justice Durham from Utah is one of them, very early first in that regard. She's a wonderful person, who I've also known through board service and things like that. I wanted to begin with how was it that you decided to go into the law? What inspired you to become a lawyer and then eventually join the bench?
I have to admit the first time I ever considered being a lawyer was in the sixth grade. I made an argument that was not in the materials for a panel discussion we were having about current events, and it was about taxation. The panel of my classmates was criticizing taxation for schools property taxes and they said, “People that don't have children get taxed.” I raised my hand and said, “Yes, but everybody benefits from an educated population,” which was not in the materials. It was something I hadn't thought of. My sixth-grade teacher looked incredulous and he said, “You should be a lawyer.”
I considered it late in college. After college, I went on to work on a Master's in Teaching. I did not complete that Master's. It was at the very end of it. I did my student teaching. I soon discovered after that experience that I did not want to make a career out of teaching. Thousands of children have benefited from that decision. About one year later, I was doing things like waitressing in the evening and substitute teaching during the day. I had traveled to Ireland. I was doing a variety of things.
I resurrected the idea of going to law school. I decided I would apply to one law school. If I got in, great. If I didn't, I was going to take the money that I had saved from these part-time jobs and I was going to go bum around Europe until my money ran out to see what was going to happen. Once you know it, I got into law school. Because I got into law school, I've never been able to bum around Europe, but I am retiring as of January 1st of 2023. Maybe I'll get a backpack at that point. I got into law school. I found that I enjoyed it. I did not understand some of my classmates who were in agony about law school.
I enjoyed the subject matter and thinking through the thought processes discussions. I thought it was a good experience. I did get out of law school with my husband and two babies. One was born the day after I graduated. Timing is everything. The older one was fourteen months at that point. I had fourteen months and a newborn. I had to study for the bar, which I passed. I decided I was going to hang out a shingle instead of joining a firm or doing employment and any other capacity. That was a nod towards the fact that I had these young children. I started a practice and it became successful.
I was doing a lot of court-appointed criminal defense work. I was working in juvenile court and probate court. I was representing small business members of the community. It was fun, and then I got an invitation from a probate court in Sonoma County, Ohio, where I live, who asked me if I wanted to be a magistrate. It was something I had never considered, but I thought, “This could be an opportunity.” It turned out it was an opportunity. It was regular hours, which was great because of the young kids and all the benefits of working for the county.
Was that selected by other judges?
It was selected by the probate judge. It was his decision. A magistrate that it appeared in front of recommended me because he liked the way I handled myself in the courtroom and with the case. That's how that transpired. He now takes credit for the fact that he created the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Ohio, but we're good friends. I enjoyed being a magistrate and the type of cases that I was dealing with. I was dealing with guardianships, estates, and trusts. I did adoptions in the county. I also did involuntary commitments for people who were mentally ill and a danger to themselves and others. It was a wide variety of things that I was doing, and I enjoyed it immensely.
I ran for judge several times. In the early ‘90s or late ‘80s, that was how you handled yourself if you wanted to become a judge. You were involved with a local political party. When I was asked to run for political office, I did know full well that I was probably not going to win because I was challenging several incumbents. In fact, this is amusing. The first judge that I ran against was named Judge John Judge. You can imagine what a fool there and that was.
We have inherent powers. The constitution acknowledges that, and our history acknowledges the strength of the judiciary.
To make a long story short, I had the local party's support when there was a vacancy in the common police court. The governor appointed me. I then stood for election and the common police court, and two years later, I won. About three months after the election, I resigned to become the County Prosecuting Attorney. It was very much unexpected. I didn't plan on that, but there was a vacancy in our prosecuting attorney's office, which was a countywide elected office. Everybody understands the importance of the prosecuting attorney's office.
The Prosecutor of Sonoma County had another responsibility. That was for the Child Support Enforcement Agency. That was the agency that collects the funds and distributes them to the children through parents, parental obligations. Either they were married through domestic relations court or unmarried through juvenile court. From a judicial point of view, I realized how important that position is and decided, “If this just can't go to any political appointee, there were some people that were being considered, and I felt that they were not worthy, they didn't have what it took to do the job.”
I went to the party leader and said, “I will resign from being a common police court judge to become the prosecuting attorney. That's how important this is.” He thought I was crazy, but he was delighted. I did that. I loved being a prosecuting attorney. People said to me, “Why are you doing this? Do you know the shape of the prosecutor's office?” I mentioned to you the Child Support Enforcement Agency. There's only one entity in the state that affects more children than the Child Support Enforcement Agency, and that's our education system.
You can see how important the Child Support Enforcement Agency was. The Children's Defense Fund had come in the year before, and they had just released the report. Summit County was 87th out of 88 counties in effectiveness. I knew that there was only one way to go, and that was up. I took the job knowing that. Two years later, we were nominated for two national awards for that agency. That was a matter of management, getting the right people, getting the wrong people out, and prioritizing the mission of the Child Support Enforcement Agency.
We had success there and in the other areas of the prosecutor's office. I often would go to Columbus and testify about the proposed legislation. I was active in the Prosecuting Attorneys Association. I was then asked to become the running mate for Bob Taft for Lieutenant Governor. It was totally unexpected and not something ever on my radar. I thought about it and sought advice from people. I ended up doing it. I figured, “What's the worst thing that happened? I can get elected. If I don't get elected, I've got a great job that I enjoy immensely. I'll stay right here in Summit County. I like my experience of either going to Ireland and Europe and bumming around or getting into law school. I got into law school. That worked out.
I said, “Yes, I would.” It was a successful campaign and I became Lieutenant Governor. The real job that I had during those four years was the Director of the Department of Public Safety. That was a department with almost 4,000 people. It encompassed Emergency Management, Liquor Enforcement, the Highway Patrol, Bureau of Motor Vehicles, and Emergency Medicine for EMT’s training and certification. It was a great opportunity to be a Director and have all that experience with managing our programs or directions working with great people who were very talented and doing what they did.
One of the things that I'll never forget was 9/11 happened when I was Director of the Department of Public Safety. My responsibilities from then on out pretty much were homeland security. I was the Ohio Representative in Washington for homeland security. We worked with law enforcement and with all of the agencies. Proportionally, Ohio was in a good position because of our structure and emergency management agency.
I have to tout what a fabulous job they did during 9/11 and the preparation thereafter. It comes to the end of four years as Lieutenant Governor. I had a decision to make, whether I was going to re-up for the second term. There was an opening on the Supreme Court of Ohio. Ohio is an elected judiciary. We are mandatorily directed that we cannot run again for any office of the judiciary if you reach the age of 78. There was a Justice who reached the age of 70, that was an opening. I had always thought in the back of my mind once I resigned from being a common police court judge that I always wanted to get back on the bench. I always had that aspiration.
I thought after I did this Columbus stint, I would go back to Summit County and run for a judgeship. This was running for a judgeship on a whole different level. I'd spent four years in Columbus and had a different perspective on things once you're statewide, as opposed to countywide. I realized the importance of this position. I ran for it. I was elected and I made the Supreme Court my career. I'm ending 20 years on the Supreme Court at the end of 2022, 12 of those as Chief Justice.
That has been a good twenty years. I had to run for the election. First, I won. Six years later, I had to run again. That was in 2008. I was the top vote-getter in the state. I always joke that I got more votes than Barack Obama. I won all 88 counties. The election for the chief justice was going to be two years later. My success in my 2008 election pretty much guaranteed that I was going to be the contender for the chief's position. Our chief justice was retiring as a result, and he could not run again. Unfortunately, he passed away in April 2010. I had already been declared as the candidate for the position.
The then governor appointed my political opponent in the interim to be chief justice. That was awkward 6 or 7 months on the court, but again, I prevailed. I won every county and was the highest vote-getter. I say this not to pat myself on the back because I truly believe that the name Maureen O'Connor is, and people tell me this, is an excellent ballot name. People vote for it because they liked the name. I realized that, but they also realized that there's competence associated with that name. I had always been judged to be more than competent in any of the roles. I was elected in 2010 as the Chief Justice. I had to stand for election in 2016. Nobody ran against me. It was the best election of my life.
You said something interesting, which I don't know that always people think about this in terms of making the next decision. When you said, “I did this turn to the left,” when you wouldn't have expected it from having the original digital position to say, “Prosecuting attorney is something that I'm looking around and I don't see people who have the skills or chops necessary for what needs to be done in this particular arena.”
Not only that, but that you recognize the importance, the impact, and the meaning of that role. I don't know that people think about that always as clearly being a moving part of their decisions when they make different career decisions, “Where can I make the most impact?” That seems to be like the common thread.
That's part of it. I have to have a meaningful job and a challenge. That's me. I give this advice to college kids, law students, and young lawyers. I say, “Life presents all kinds of opportunities for you and it will happen in your career. Your professional life will present opportunities. What you have to decide is whether you want to take advantage of the opportunity that comes your way. Are you prepared to do it? My advice is to do the very best you can at what you're doing.” I say that to students. “Doing the very best in what you're doing will get you noticed.”
When people need to fill a position or an opportunity comes up, people are going to say, “Who can we get to do this? Who will come to us to do this?” If you will get noticed, you'll be a contender for the position. It worked out well in my situation. I never planned on any of these positions. When I graduated from law school, I had no career aspiration of being Chief Justice with the Ohio Supreme Court, to be the first woman to be Chief Justice in the 200-plus years of this state, but I ended up here.
I say, “I'm not going to caution you against having a career plan and trying to go from point A to Z in a straight line with blinders on, and you got your mission scoped out. However, if you've got those blinders on, you might miss opportunities that present themselves along the way that deviates from what you thought was your career path and you find that there is an opportunity there, and you take advantage of it. It turns out to be the right thing, and it's a better opportunity, a better fit than what you thought was going to be at the end of that path. You have to know who you are, your skillset, and if the risk is worth taking.” That's something that I advise kids and young lawyers.
“You have to know yourself and if that risk is worth taking.” I always say, especially to those that are aspiring to be judges or run for some political office, “If you can't stand a loss or you don't have plan B, then don't do it. If the loss is going to demoralize you and ruin your life, don't do it. You're not cut out for it. When I say politics, I mean elections. You have to know what you're getting into. It's a gamble. Anybody that pays attention to elections knows that. That's probably the one bit of advice that I give people repeatedly. Another piece of advice is when people say, “How have you been successful in these positions?” I always say, “I hire people who are smarter than me, and I let them do their job. I support them.”
We're certainly in communication and I'm certainly part of the decision-making. Don't get me wrong on that. You hire the right people. You truly let them do their jobs and realize that they know, and they do know something more than you. I've learned a lot from the people in management and other employees. The secret to anybody’s success and acknowledging their competence and what they're doing positively. I am very quick and always have been to praise people that are doing well, have performed, and deserve that. They always say, “Praise in public and have a conversation of a correction in private.” You never embarrass someone like that in public.
I was thinking about your different roles and there are a lot of executive leadership roles. You've expanded your skillset in doing that, which I would think is important for the Chief Justice position because there are many aspects of running the court system that you're involved in that role.
We have about 260 employees in our building. We do not have a unified system of the judiciary in Ohio. By the constitution, we have the superintendents of the courts. There's a lot of rulemaking and regulation like that. I have a relationship with the various associations of the judges. There's the Judicial Conference which all the judges belong to. I'm very much involved with that. I will be delivering my last state of the judiciary speech in September 2022 to that group. There is a lot of administrative work and great staff able to do it. That allows me to be able to showcase what we do. We've done some great administrative stuff.
We have to pay attention to technology, and we've got to reach out and grab what we can use in the law field.
Do you want to talk about a challenge that I had as Chief Justice? That was pay raises for our judges. Pay raises require working with the executive branch, the governor's office, and the legislative branch. At that point, it was a lame duck session, as they say, in the legislature. I thought that maybe this would be the opportunity to get a pay raise. The judges hadn't had a pay raise in eight years. I went to the governor and had a conversation with him. He asked me not to do this at this point. He had a very good reason. I said, “I will not bring this up with the legislature at this point, but I want your promise that you will support me in the new year for this pay raise.” He gave that to me.
I knew that I had the governor. That was great. He said, “You're going to have to work on the legislature yourself. If you get the legislature to do it, you've got my approval.” I said, “That's fine. I'll do that.”I had a deal with the Speaker of the House who, fortunately, at one point in his career, was a judge. It was not exactly a hard sell with that gentleman. I had to deal with the President of the Senate, who was very reasonable. He was also a lawyer. These were good people to negotiate with. That was a time when I could go to the legislature and speak with them. To make a long story short, I got a 20% raise for the judges. It was 5% a year over four years. It was miraculous for them. They were much appreciated.
That always is a tug of war. It's a challenge because you do have to have all the various parts of the political branches involved onboard in that decision.
You have to pass the legislation. It's a budget. That's not the only time I dealt with the governor and the legislature on issues. It's a skill set that you have to have as chief justice, and not to be political when you're doing it because now appellate judges in Ohio and the Supreme Court run with the R and the D for the first time. Prior to that, there was no political designation on the general ballot. I'm mindful of that. I tell judges all the time, “You leave your politics, your religion, or whatever your beliefs are that have anything to do with affiliation and groups outside the door. You don't bring them into your decision-making.”
Unfortunately, some judges do, but you're supposed to be neutral when you hear cases. I could never take part in obvious political things. None of our members of the court should do that. Even though I was working with these gentlemen, they were all men, it was not because I was at the same party as them that we got things done. We got things done because they were the right things to do.
That's always tension or a challenge, especially when judges are elected instead of appointed in terms of maintaining that it's a political contest, but you're ultimately in the job. You are there to fulfill the rule of law and not as a political partisan and making decisions.
You applied the Ohio Constitution and statutes as they are written. Sometimes the results aren't what you like. Every judge knows, especially on the appellate level, that you have to hold your nose and vote for an opinion or write an opinion if you're on the Supreme Court. When that happens, I include communication within the opinion to the legislature.
This was an unintended consequence and the legislature should look at it or this is just an unfortunate law and it's not working. The legislature should reconsider it. You say it in a tactful way because I'm not dictating to them. I'm just saying that this is something they didn't consider, and here it is on our doorstep. We have to apply the law to it. It is an unfortunate result for the person who is the subject, especially in a criminal setting. It's that relationship as well.
Being clear about whose job it is in the various aspects of the system and who has the power to do that.
There's always that admonition, “Stay in your lane.” We have three branches of government, etc. That certainly applies when I'm doing the part of the job that is decision-making. You're reviewing the cases and you have your oral arguments, but there's another part of the job of the Chief Justice. That is an appropriate policy direction, things that are part of the judicial system, and things that you can make a difference in.
I’m talking about, for example, our programs for substance abuse. We've done the creation of many specialty dockets in the State of Ohio. We're a leader. We have OGs over 250, and the number's growing because we're certifying these specialized dockets. They run the gamut from substance abuse disorder to human trafficking to domestic violence and veterans courts.
That's a policy decision to have those types of courts, encourage them, and have staff that supports the creation and the certification of these courts. That's not stepping out of my lane. We should use the Supreme Court to do. There are things that I did at the beginning of the opioid in 2016. I convened a collaborative effort. We called it RJOI, the Regional Judicial Opioid Initiative, and brought together eight states.
We sat down and said, “We've got a problem. Everybody was experiencing it.” It's the states around Ohio and the region. “Let's work on this problem together, break down the silos, and communicate with one another, so we can address this because people who are selling these drugs are not considering state lines. People who are abusing the diseased are going over state lines. To get this, we need to cooperate.”
One of the things that I'm happy that came about is the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program when you're doctor shopping. Pharmacists and doctors had no way of telling if they had someone in front of them that had gotten prescriptions in the last 3 weeks from 5 different doctors, but we put in the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program. They just got online and they could see right away that this person was a drug seeker. The charges for doctor shopping, which was illegal, plummeted in Ohio because of this. They knew they couldn't go to doctors and scam them.
It was something across state lines where we could check their prescriptions. They could check ours. That model was duplicated in New England and in other parts of the country. That is a policy thing and using the authority of the court and the prestige of the court to collaborate. That's the way I see my role, advocating for cameras in the court.
Another way that I am a big advocate for transparency and cameras in the courtroom is we have been archiving our oral arguments. They're live. They're also been archived since 2002. We have provided technology to our local courts so that they can do things remotely. They can have cameras in their courtroom, and there's transparency there. I even sat on a panel at the press club in Washington and advocated for cameras in the United States Supreme Court because I believe so strongly what a learning opportunity and a teaching moment it could be if we had cameras in the courtroom for the United States Supreme Court.
Having that technology set up so far in advance probably made a difference when COVID occurred.
Ohio was in a good place with the capacity to have remote technology. I also devoted over $35 million over the last several years from my budget. Every year we set up technology grants and the courts would apply. I had nothing to do with the selection. We have a committee that selects what courts receive. They had to give us their projects and they had to be technology projects.
We gave out over the last several years over $35 million, which was a surplus in my budget each year. I could give out anywhere from $3 million to $8 million, depending. Rather than give that back to the State of Ohio, I gave it to the local courts for beefing up their technology. Sometimes it was security technology. Certainly, during 2020, 2021, and 2022, it's all been about helping courts operate during COVID.
That has been at the beginning of COVID. It was an issue between state and federal courts in many circumstances, but federal courts either have the technology in place already or had some funding that they could apply to that. Some state courts that didn't have an extra fund like you're talking about that you could reallocate were a little bit delayed. Maybe you could do arguments by telephone or something, but they didn't have video. It's good that you have that.
Practice arguing your opponent's side and put yourself in your opponent's shoes. And then have your own perspective with the clients on the side that you're representing.
I don't know that they did arguments by telephone. I don't know if any Supreme Court did that.
California, the Courts of Appeal did.
Technology is a challenge in this country and across. Access to technology is quite frankly an access to justice issue as far as I'm concerned, and many of the chiefs around this country. The federal administration has to deal with that and do something about it, and they are, but a lot of the dollars that came out of the COVID allocations came to the States. We were able to get some of those dollars before the local courts. That was an important use of those dollars for all kinds of COVID-related. For example, we started an eviction program with our Senator Sherrod Brown, who was very much involved, knowledgeable, and a proponent of eviction help that we were able to do through the courts.
Those are the type of things that may be a purist would look at a court, look at what I'm doing, look at how I do my job, and say, “You're not staying in your lane. Your job is to interpret the Constitution, the laws, apply them to the cases, and that's about it.” What a sad way to look at the judiciary. We have inherent powers. Our history acknowledges the strength of the judiciary, and we need to use that. I've never been afraid to use it in my role, nor will I ever apologize for using it in my role as Chief Justice.
There are a number of different ways that I've seen over many years coming out in different ways, but that power of convening that you mentioned with the opioid question. That's what I would put in the soft powers or whatever of a Chief Justice and Supreme Court Justices as being able to bring people together to sit around the table, discuss, and coordinate.
Your skill in bringing people together starts with true recognition. The true Justice in those situations is not about winners and losers or the fight to the death. The participants need to find common ground. You, as a Justice, can emphasize that and put forth the spirit of finding solutions. You bring these groups together. I'm a great believer in task forces. I probably have created more task forces in my time than the Chief Justice combined that went before me. Task force is our bail system, conviction integrity, and the death penalty.
These are just a few of the task forces that eCourse task force, in other words, task force after COVID. What are the lessons we learned in technology that we can take with us? These are all the types of task forces in the reports that have come out. There have been great results in the task force on conviction integrity. A report has just come out. These are issues that are front and center in the cause of justice.
We need to address that as a court. These task forces come up with recommendations. Some of those recommendations are for legislation, so their recommendations to the legislature. Some of them are to the courts. The challenge is to implement those recommendations and convince legislators, “This is worthwhile, a great recommendation, and this is something you need to do.”
Also, get the judiciary, especially when maybe we're making a rule, and that's a whole different thing, but it's a soft policy to try and get the judiciary to recognize that and act accordingly. We've got 723 judges in Ohio. I know that doesn't seem much considering California's number of judiciary. I've spoken to your Chief Justice frequently about what an awesome job she has and she's doing. There's a big difference.
In Ohio, we have 723 judges and they're all elected. Sometimes, you got to be careful and respect that these are elected officials themselves in their jurisdiction. They have authority, and you don't want to usurp any of that local authority, but at the same time, it comes at a time when the policies need to be implemented. Even if there's a bit of resistance, that's the authority of the Supreme Court. It's not used often at all, but when it is, it's something that has to be recognized.
Our Chief Justice has done a wonderful job as well. She's also retiring.
There is a spate of retirements of chief justices around this country. I was at a conference with chief justices in Chicago. The number of new chief justices that are already there, when I say new, probably one year or less, the number of retirements, New York, California, Ohio, Kentucky. I'm a twelve-year serving chief justice in Kentucky the same way. That's a pretty lengthy term in our organization in the Conference of Chief Justices. There's a lot of institutional knowledge that's leaving, but good people take our place. I'm not saying that we're the only ones that can do the job. Not at all. I would never say that.
When people ask me about retirement, how would I feel leaving this powerful job? I'm going to be a private citizen on January 1, 2023. It's time to let somebody else make the decisions. I've been doing it for a long time. I'm not dismayed at the fact that I'm forced to retire because of our constitutional provision. I'm okay with it. I realized that there are other people that certainly can take the reins and institutions need new people. We have new people on the court, our court, and it's invigorating. We've been doing some great work. I look at the passing of chiefs or any resignation as something exciting. It's exciting for me.
I don't know what I'm going to do post-retirement. I'm going to take about four months off and do nothing. Italians say, “Dolce far niente,” which is, “The sweetness of doing nothing.” That's what I plan on doing for about four months, turning off the phone, and doing whatever. I don't want to just sit around and not do it. I would like to be able to find a project or do something that will allow me to work on an improvement. I don't know what improvement to, but something that, there's a problem, it needs to be solved, and I have a good skill set for that.
Justice O'Connor certainly did that in terms of iCivics and the work that he's done in civics education since retiring from the US Supreme Court.
In 2021, in the National Center for State Courts, I will hand out the iCivics Award or the Sandra Day O'Connor Award for Civic Education. In 2021, Ohio won it. My Civic Education Department won it for a program that I thought of and implemented. I thought of it. They went with it and made it phenomenal. What it does is take one of our pastoral arguments, which are all archived, and make them into a lesson plan for 4 or 5 days. High school teachers can take this and watch the video of the oral argument.
The kids are prepared by having read the briefs and understanding them, then they can see the oral argument. During that period of time, they don't know that the decision has already been decided. After they have the classroom discussion, then our decision is part of their learning experience as well. It's a great program and teaching. Now it has been recognized nationally, which I'm very proud of. Our staff hires the right people. They take ideas, run with them, and make them great. Sara Stiffler and Mason Farr were two of the employees that did that.
I've always thought about that being able to leverage, you now have the technology and the arguments recorded. You can leverage that to open up the experience and the teaching for students in the schools. We have some of those programs here in California, Appellate Court Experience, where the kids will come, the lawyers will present in their classroom, and then they will come and watch an argument in real-time. That's great.
That's why I thought of iCivics. We have high school and junior high come to the court in Columbus. In fact, if they apply, we will pay for their desks to come to Columbus. We have a lot of those students. They come in, sit, and tour the building, which is a magnificent building, and they learn about the Supreme Court. That's a fraction of the number of students. These other opportunities can reach, and it doesn't cost a dime.
Even on this show, I had the program chair for Girls Inc. here in Orange County. I interviewed her because she has a law degree. I thought it was interesting what she was doing with her legal training. She and I said, “Let's do a live panel program,” with their high school girls who they're being trained in their workforce development program and going into internships.
Don’t put limits on yourself. Do anything that you set your mind to.
The companies are all 11th-grade girls in Orange County, 100 of them. By recording that, we're then able to open up that whole session to all of the rest of the Girls Inc., the 5,000 other girls that they serve, and anyone else who wants to hear that. We're trying to think, “How do we leverage this great program in a new way, using a new format and technology?”
When are you going to be able to do it? What are your ideas?
We had six local judges and attorneys talk about their careers and answer questions for the girls. We did a record that as a show. Now it's available to any high school girl or anyone who wants to learn it, but also anyone else in the Girls Inc. program. It goes well beyond their 100 folks that were in the room that day, although they had an awesome experience and got to meet judges in person and all of that, a way of extending their programming.
In Ohio, we have a lot of leadership programs and it starts in high school. It is to encourage students to consider the law as a career. I've participated in speaking because there's a summer component to it as well. My message is to think about college. These are mostly children from urban inner city areas. What is an urban inner city? Think about law school, but first, think about college. If you don't end up going to law school, that's okay, but think about going to college because you're never going to regret going to college.
I'm happy to say that in 2021, three of the students graduated from law school. One of them was from Georgetown and I can't remember where the other two graduated from, but they were accomplished and coming back to Ohio. That is an example of the success of a program. The message there is, “You've got to nurture the program, have it grow, and be able to apply it then.” This was applied all around the state. There's a law school component involved in it. It's a great model.
Doing our part as we can to contribute and think about new ways to leverage the old-fashioned way of doing things and technology is always good.
That's the way people communicate now. We're looking at it as, “Here's the new thing. I supplied all this money to the course. They could have remote hearings and send texts to people's cell phones so that they realize that they're got a court date, which has cut down on failures to appear.” That's the technology that the courts are doing. It's a no-brainer to a generation under 40 probably. Here we are saying, “Look at this advancement we're making. We're throwing dollars at this.” It does improve the system and it is here to stay.
We now have a mindset that we got to pay attention to technology. We've got to reach out and grab what we can use in the law field. How people are practicing law is so much different now, virtual law firms, people that are representing clients that they've only met over Zoom, especially during COVID, the meetings that people have, the discussions they have, the transfer of documents. We have eFiling and thousands of trees have been saved, thanks to eFiling.
The resistance that people had been getting with eFiling is like, “I don't want to read a document on a screen. I don't want to squint.” We have screens that are as big as your TV set. You can read your documents at your leisure and comfort. That's here to stay. One of the beauties of eFiling is that the public can then log on to the clerk's office, bring up any case, and see the public record without going down to the courthouse and looking it up in person. It is a blessing to some and maybe a curse to others, but nonetheless, that's access to justice and transparency.
I want to also make sure we get your wisdom or advice for appellate advocates in your twenty years on the Supreme Court Bench anything in terms of tips about what would be most helpful for you for the Supreme Court when an advocate is arguing or in brief writing, whichever one you'd like to discuss.
The same advice to both. Stay on point. Be concise and not for boasts. That's certainly with writing. Speak your message. Don't try and flourish your message to the Supreme Court. We don't need that. Talk like you're trying to convince us of something and do it with respect. Don't use slang or anything like that. Speak in English like you would be trying to convince somebody of something and use your authority to do it. Be concise, be direct, and speak in plain English. That's the same thing with oral argument. Be intimately familiar with your case and your opponent's case. You should be able to argue your opponent's side convincingly. If you can do that, you're prepared for an oral argument.
That's what I would say to someone who's going to practice arguing your opponent's side. Put yourself in the shoes of your opponent. You've got your own perspective on the clients and the side that you're representing. That’s a technique I remember in law school. Certainly, you do that in moot court. You've got to argue both sides can. Take that. Not everybody has moot court experience. You give that advice to lawyers that want to be appellate lawyers that have never had that experience. It's valuable.
Having been an appellate law clerk, I think about it, too. Sometimes lawyers will say, “The other side wasn't effective in certain arguments. They made these arguments, but there might be other ones they could have made or should have made, but I don't have to worry about those because they didn't make them.”
I was looking at that as well. You're talking to the court, who's looked carefully at these issues as well. Just because your opponent may not have made a particular way of making the argument doesn't mean you don't need to consider that. That's a potential weakness on your side. You need to think about that. Be aware of that. That's the corollary to what you're saying, which is to be able to argue their case well.
That's my advice to appellate practitioners. Don't be nervous. It's a conversation. I'm not out to trip you up, embarrass you, or do something that is going to throw you off. Although I have to admit, I did that once. I felt bad after I did it. It was a long time ago, early in my chief dumb. When I say speak to the court in a conversation, that doesn't mean to use the term, “You, guys.” I had tolerated it for several oral arguments, then finally, it was one too many.
The young lawyer said, “This is up to you, guys.” I said, “That's your Honorable you, guys.” At first, he didn't know what I was talking about. I felt bad after that because it knocked him off a little bit, but there it is on archived. If anybody looks at the oral arguments, they would have seen that. I don't want to use that phrase. “You, guys,” is something that should be stricken from every lawyer's vocabulary.
It's a little informal for the situation in your area and it's also not all guys.
We have a majority of women.
That goes in the category of some of the US Supreme Court advocates. Call someone, “Your Honor,” if you're not sure which particular justice you're talking to, instead of using the wrong last name for them. Usually, I end with a few lightning-round questions. Which talent would you most like to have but don't?
I would like to be able to fly. I've always wanted to fly. I've had dreams about flying, but I would love to have the superpower to fly. This has been something I've wanted since I was a kid.
Don't be afraid to try something on, and if it doesn't fit, take it off and move on. It's just as important to know what you don't want to do as what you do want to do.
Who are your favorite writers?
That's a good one because I like John Steinbeck an awful lot. Some of the writers from the ‘30s were Dos Passos and Steinbeck. We are telling a story that has societal, and political awareness to it. I respected and enjoyed those. I always have since I was first introduced to them in college. I don't do a lot of reading for pleasure and I feel I've deprived myself of having extracurricular reading for many of these years. That's something in retirement I'm going to do because I love to read.
I always have loved to read since I learned how to read. I was one of those kids that would get a book, go hide someplace, and read. Hopefully, my mother wouldn't notice that I wasn't around when she needed some chores done, but I find that my day job has interfered with my ability to, but I'll pick a book and I sit there for a while.
I've had that where I pick up a book and I go, “I never read that book. I should,” then I find the bookmark third of the way through that I started, but I wasn't able to finish it.
I did finish a series of books by a writer named Martin Walker, which was pure enjoyment. It took place in France. It's about the police officer and he lives in this little Burg. In every novel, there's a dead person, and you got to figure it out. It's either mystery, but I've never been one to say, “I like mysteries. This is the first set of books that I've read like this.” I've read thirteen maybe of them, and they're easy reading. I can get through those without any problem. I don't mean any disrespect to Mr. Walker. He's an accomplished man, but I would not put them in the category of Dos Passos or Steinbeck. He's not claiming to be.
There are different kinds of reading for different things. Sometimes it’s your enjoyment. Given the choice of anyone in the world, who would you invite over for a dinner party?
People always say things like Abraham Lincoln. I don't know that I would want to want to do that. I would like to invite Édith Piaf. She's French. The reason I would like to invite her is that when she died, I believe the Archbishop of Paris refused to allow her to have a Catholic burial. I want to know why. What was in her life that was outrageous? I don't know that. Maybe I need to read more about her, but I love listening to her sing. I would love to have her as a dinner companion and find out what her life was like in France during those years.
She's quite the icon. Who is your hero in real life?
My grandmother and my mother were very accomplished and encouraging. I grew up with the attitude that I could do anything. My parents held that belief for their kids and encouraged all to be educated. My mother was the one that if there's a challenge, you meet the challenge and you best it. There's not a problem you can't overcome. That was her can-do attitude. My grandmother had the same encouragement. I took that to heart that there was nothing I couldn't do. Sometimes I translated that a little loosely when it came to things like rules as a teenager and beyond.
That's one of the reasons why I chose a profession and a career in problem-solving. That's what judges do. You're solving problems for people that they cannot solve themselves. If they could solve them, they wouldn't need you. That goes from personal cases all the way up to corporate cases and cases involving the State of Ohio and federal governments, etc. If they could resolve them at the conference table, over the telephone, or whatever, they wouldn't need us. We are decision-makers and problem-solvers.
It comes out in all different ways, but that's exactly what we're doing in the law, especially what the courts are doing.
Lawyers do that all the time.
Last question, what is your motto if you have one?
I don't have a motto. I can't think of any motto. I won't repeat mottoes or say, “Here's my motto.”
I thought what you said about what was instilled in you by your mother and grandmother is important in terms of confidence, instilling, and not putting limits on yourself. “I can do anything that I set my mind to.” That makes such a difference.
My grandmother was accomplished. She was a social worker all her life. She started during The Depression. She was a mother of four children and became a social worker during that time. My grandfather was a graduate engineer from Notre Dame. During The Depression, there wasn't much building going on for a civil engineers. Those were tough times for that family. Since then, they have been successful. They never forgot them. I never tired of listening to stories about The Depression from them. Not that they were boohooing about it at all, but it was like, “Here's what we had to do. This is what we did. Here's what we couldn't do.”
Into the ‘40s during World War II, all my three uncles were in the service. My grandmother would tell us what it was like to have three boys in the service during World War II deployed. That is a true insight that you don't get from a history book. I'm lucky that I had those conversations. I was able to travel to Ireland. The first time, I went there with my grandparents and they were too old to rent a car. They needed a driver. This was before I went to law school period. I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do during that.
That's why I decided I was going to go back to Ireland because I was their chauffer for about six weeks going through Ireland. It was wonderful, but I listened to my grandparents and the way they spoke to one another. I spend a lot of time with them. It was wonderful. The trip itself was wonderful, but the ability to observe grandparents. I always knew that they were a special couple. I always thought they were happy with one another, even in love at that age, and respected one another immensely. They were a model of what a happy marriage should be.
It was a blessing and an encouragement to see that. I was able to work with my mother on occasion. She was a liquidator for art museums and high-end stuff. She also did in the States. Prior to law school, I would help her do that. Even in law school, sometimes it would help her. It was great working with her. I enjoyed it. Problems would come up, and she'd figure out the solution and that's what she was going to do. She did it and it worked out. You learn, embrace, and imitate. That's one of the best ways a person can be exposed and talked to something.
I think about the same thing with my mom when she was working. After school, I would go with her and I would be in the background. I would hear her negotiations and what she was working on. I think about now, in retrospect, how much I learned from being there and watching her.
You learn what you want to do and what you don't want to do. My dad was a dentist. The times I had to go into his office, if his assistant and a secretary were ill, I would have to come in and maybe substitute during college if I was on vacation. It was summer. It was torture. I knew that I never wanted to be a dentist, that's for sure.
It's good that you have to learn the things you don't want to do so then you can turn the other way.
I tell kids that all the time, “Don't be afraid to try something on. If it doesn't fit, take it off and move on like you're trying on a coat.” If it doesn't look good and doesn't fit, don't get it. It's as important to know what you don't want to do as what you want to do. Oftentimes when you think, “I would like to do that,” and then you get into it, it was not at all what you wanted to do, then move on. There's no shame in doing that. Realistically, make sure you've got another job. Don't just quit a job because that can have devastating consequences.
Get involved in something else, try on a few things, and decide as I did with teaching. I thought I wanted to be a teacher. It didn't fit. I didn't want to do that. That's brilliant when you do that. When you get stuck in because you think you should do it, then you don't have a happy career and that reflects in all aspects of your life. Don't be afraid to try things on and if doesn’t fit, move on.
That's excellent advice to close our chat with. I appreciate your time, your wisdom, and advice, and sharing that with those who are reading. Thank you so much, Chief Justice.
Thank you. It was a pleasure.