Res Ipsa Loquitur

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January 17, 2005

Judge's Day

There's never a MLK day passes but what I don't think of, and raise a glass to, a local judge who has been departed now for several years. He was, alas, one of the last of the old school judges. He demanded respect for the law and the bench, and would not tolerate discourtesy in his courtroom. Tall and lanky with a shock of white hair, he resembled an Old Testament figure raining fire & brimstone down on any attorney unfortunate enough to raise his ire by making a misstep in his courtroom. He had one of the sharpest legal minds I've ever encountered, especially on procedural rules, so it was fairly common for all attorneys to be raked over the coals by him at some point. Since I was just beginning my legal career during his last days on the bench, I was of course terrified of him.

But for all his excellence on the bench, he had a few quirks. One was that he refused to close his courtroom on the MLK holiday, but instead closed it for Robert E. Lee's birthday. As I remember, it had nothing to do with race. Rather it was his way of protesting the change to one, all-inclusive Presidents' Day holiday. Or something like that. He may've been as racist as the day is long for all I know, but I never saw or heard of him treating anyone differently in his courtroom, no matter what their race, religion or creed.

Another quirk he had involved his open-docket court day. For all you non-lawyers, this was the day in which you did your uncontested probate and family law matters....divorces, guardianships, etc. You didn't have to call up & set a specific time to get these matters heard. You just showed up in his courtroom around 8:30 am and signed your name on his docket sheet. Once he took the bench, cases were called off in the order of the signatures on the docket sheet.

And that order was very important, you see, If you were first on the docket sheet, you were almost guaranteed a thorough ass-reaming from this judge. (All the local lawyers knew this, and it was almost funny to watch all the jockeying for position on the docket sheet sometimes.) I once watched an attorney get chewed out for filing an uncontested divorce in his court because neither his client nor the defendant lived in our county. Now this was perfectly legit due to a recent ruling by our Supremes that any county in Arkansas was a proper venue for a divorce of Arkansas residents. But this judge refused to follow the ruling because, as he explained at great length, our Supremes were wrong. (Too long to go into here, but it was based on the legal rule that a court only has jurisdiction over property that is located within that court's county. And since most divorces involve property division, things can get messy. I can't say I disagree with his reasoning.) The attorney made the mistake of arguing with the judge, which only made matters worse. I just sat back & enjoyed the show. The attorney is one of those dickwad sleazebag ambulance-chasers that give the rest of us a bad name.

I had cause to remember that scene when, months later, I had an uncontested divorce in his courtroom. I thought I was safe, 3rd on the list....but the first 2 cases were simple matters of paperwork. I had the 1st case involving witnesses. Awww, shit. I knew I was going to get it, but I soldiered on. When my last witness finished, I waited for it with bated breath,

And boy did I get it. A blasting lecture on some arcane procedural rule only tangentially related to the circumstances of my case. Halfway through it I realized that if he had to dig that deeply to find something to lecture me on, I was doing pretty good. My side of the conversation was limited to a very respectful "Yes, Your Honor" and "No, Your Honor" and when he finished, I said "I will take care of that. Thank you, Your Honor". And I hustled my livid client out the door before she could get cited for contempt of court.

After calming my client down and sending her on her way, I decided to beard the lion in his den.....mostly because due to the peculiar circumstances of the case, I wasn't totally clear on how to fix things to the judge's satisfaction. And I certainly didn't want a repeat of the morning's performance.

The judge and I had quite an interesting discussion in his office. He was extremely polite, and answered all my questions....he was, in fact, the epitome of what a judge should be. He seemed delighted that I came back to explain the circumstances and to explain why the procedural rule he cited was unworkable for my client. We agreed upon a solution, and he granted my client's divorce without question when we came back to court.

He even smiled at me throughout the proceedings. And yes, when it was over, my hands were still shaking so badly that when I handed his clerk the order to be signed, she asked me if I was alright. "Yes ma'am, I am now" I replied with a big sigh of relief. She got a big giggle out of that.

So here's to that judge, wherever he is.....though it may be the case that heaven doesn't want him and hell's afraid he will take over. The legal community isn't nearly as interesting without him.

Salùd!

Posted by Rita at January 17, 2005 08:50 AM

Comments

Posted by: Keith at January 17, 2005 03:55 PM

Posted by: rita at January 17, 2005 06:05 PM