- This month’s newsletter is about mentoring and the law. You’ve had a varied career having previously served as a law enforcement officer, prosecutor, private counsel, and adjunct professor of law, and for many years, as a Judge. Each of these roles lends itself to mentoring and it is clearly something you value, having initiated Kentucky’s 2014 new lawyer-to-judge mentoring program and authored the Transitions mentoring manual. What is the value of mentoring generally? And what are the specific benefits of it in the legal profession?
Answer: The old, but too often truthful joke about mentoring, is that I never had a mentor when I was a young lawyer. Now tormentors? Yes, I had plenty of those! Experience teaches that relationships with more experienced and hopefully wiser colleagues can have a positive effect on our own professional development. Within the law generally, and certainly the courts specifically, mentoring teaches about the culture of our profession. And hopefully, exposure to other’s experiences provides a base to positively guide our own conduct. Most of us naturally develop informal mentoring relationships, but formal mentoring also has a place. While some bar associations have developed mentoring programs, very few courts have formal mentoring programs and there is a tremendous amount of knowledge which can be shared within such an arrangement. A lot of it relates to handling ethical issues which may arise within the judiciary, strategies for handling stress and developing responses to commonplace issues like the isolation of the bench, personal challenges relating to substance abuse or mental and physical health issues, case management, and professional development. Formal mentoring arrangements must never supplant the informal relationships we develop with our most immediate colleagues. Instead, formal mentoring augments the informal by providing another reliable and confidential sounding board for inexperienced judges.
- Did your view of the role of mentorship in the law evolve as you transitioned into being an adjunct law professor? If so, how? How does mentoring law students compare with mentoring lawyers and judges?
Answer: Surprisingly, no. Most of my mentoring relationships, formal and informal, have involved attorneys and other judges rather than students. To this day, I still receive calls from lawyers and other judges who are confronting something which does not comfortably fit within their own wheelhouse. These don’t involve case specific issues but generally life or career issues. In years past, lawyers or judges might reach out because of some concern that seemed to threaten their practice or tenure on the bench. Sometimes, all you can do is provide a friendly ear, sometimes a mentor might suggest an alternative approach to viewing some issue or perhaps occasionally to resolve it. In a positive relationship, there is a mutual benefit. Young lawyers and new judges have often prompted me to look at some issue or problem from a different perspective. That’s been helpful to me. Mentoring has benefits for both sides.
- You’ve led innovate programs that involving the relationship of the legal system and the community, including Kentucky’s probation program, SMART. What do you believe that experience will allow you to bring to your role as a judge in the US Court of Federal Claims?
Answer: That’s a tough question. Much of my earlier work involved developing approaches to specific widespread problems within state courts—the opioid crisis, inadequate community supervision of high risk/high need defendants and the high rates of re-incarceration of those individuals, the prevalence of Hepatitis C within the justice involved community, bail reform, and the professional development of judges. At first glance, those types of efforts don’t seem to lend themselves to address the unique jurisdiction of the United States Court of Federal Claims. Certainly, our court only deals with criminal justice related issues in only the most glancing ways. But in a larger context, all courts are confronted with ever-changing issues that can be externally or internally generated. I’m hopeful that in addition to the disposition of my own assigned cases, in time I might contribute to addressing some of the broader issues affecting all courts. Developing systemic and collaborative responses to re-occurring issues is not something that every judge aspires to. The degree to which I might participate in such efforts will largely be determined by my fellow judges and judiciary leadership. I hope that those opportunities come my way.
- What role does the Bar play in mentorship, either formal or informal, in the law and the courtroom?
Answer: That’s an easy answer. Bar associations can actively promote civility, diversity, and the availability of opportunity for younger attorneys. As professionals, we police our own profession, not simply through formal processes like disciplinary proceedings but in the expectations we establish for each other. When the standard a Bar association sets is-forgive the pun-a high bar, then that becomes the norm and individual members of the group are more likely to conform to those expectations. Conversely, if a local Bar is replete with attorneys who disregard deadlines, routinely tender pleadings, motions and responses which are ill-drafted or even misleading, abuse the discovery process, and appear in court tardy and ill-prepared, young lawyers accept that as the norm. It benefits nobody except perhaps those attorneys who perhaps should have pursued a different career path.
- What is the role of judges in promoting and using mentorship in the courtroom generally as well as in times of crisis, such as the recent COVID-19 pandemic?
Answer: Even during the pandemic, judges have an obligation to ensure that parties have access to a forum which can timely adjudicate their grievances. Certainly, 2020 has interposed obstacles that courts have not previously confronted, at least in the last 100 years. Most courts have responded well to that challenge and certainly the Court of Federal Claims has done so. The obligations that judges assume when first taking the bench are not lessened as the result of calamity. The duty to ensure the orderly and just disposition of cases remains constant and judges and lawyers must be able to effectively react in times of unrest or natural disaster to ensure that the processes of justice remain viable. Those processes may look different, like web-based hearings instead of in-person proceedings, but the goal remains the same. Adapt, improvise, and overcome!
Rapid Fire Round!
- Mac or PC?
Answer: Mac, though I’m only a recent convert and sticker shock is a pretty compelling factor in favor of PCs.
- Top-three songs on your Spotify/I-tunes playlist?
Answer: Ever changing and dependent on my activity. Like most everyone, I have specific playlists depending on what I’m doing, one for driving, another for the gym, etc. During workouts, I prefer higher tempo pop mixed in with some mild rap. While driving, I listen to a lot of music that’s nostalgic to me—songs that remind me of someone from long ago, or perhaps something that my family members may have especially liked. While writing these responses, SPOT is playing a Fleetwood Mac mix. And my favorite band growing up was Molly Hatchet, which I still occasionally play.
- Beaches in Honolulu or Bluegrass in Kentucky?
Answer: Kentucky bluegrass is where my heart will always be. That’s home. Hawaii was wonderful but the rolling hills of Kentucky are indelible to one born there.
- Eagles, Cardinals or Silverswords?
Answer: None of the above. Kentucky Wildcat basketball. No equivocation.
- Stay-at-Home Binge: books or television?
Answer: Books! I don’t watch a lot of television, mostly outdoors shows and my guilty pleasure—reruns of The Big Bang Theory. I read a lot, online news and opinion, some magazines, and multiple books simultaneously. I’m currently rereading all of Larry McMurtry’s novels, most of Ian Fleming’s, and for balance my recent reads include the Indianapolis (the most notable American WWII sea disaster), Sapiens (a history of humans), Hamilton ( biography) and The Dark Art (exploring the relationship between large scale trafficking and terrorism). My wife and I also like the cinema but since Covid, that’s not been possible.
Membership
The Bar Association provides its members numerous educational opportunities and opportunities for practitioners to meet and interact with the judges of the Court and colleagues from both public and private practice for these purposes. Our members work closely with the Court’s judges to develop programs, contribute to revisions of the Court’s Rules, and organize a broad range of educational and other activities.
