New Talk Conversation Announcement: What is the role of the courts in making social policy?

New Talk is a new online forum designed to tackle tough policy issues directly, with ongoing commentary from leading experts and policymakers on the frontline of said issues.  The next question to be addressed by New Talk is, "What is the role of the courts in making social policy?"  The conversation begins Tuesday, July 8th and runs through Thursday, July 10th.

Experts scheduled to participate in this next conversation include: Michael Traynor, President, American Law Institute; Lord Hoffman, Lord of Appeal in Ordinary; Kenneth Feinberg, Principal, The Feinberg Group; Theodore H. Frank, Director, AEI Legal Center for the Public Interest; Mark Geistfeld, Crystal Eastman Professor of Law, NYU School of Law; and Phillip Howard, founder of Common Good and New Talk.

Ms. JD encourages its readers to participate in the online conversation!  Log on to www.newtalk.org to post your comments alonside the experts' dialog as the conversation unfolds.  Ms. JD also encourages its readers to continue the discussion on Ms. JD after the conclusion of the New Talk conversation.

Ms. JD has, therefore, created a General Discussion forum post especially for this purpose.  The forum topic can be found under the General Discussion category, entitled 'What is the role of the courts in making social policy?"  So debate away!

Are Women Judges The Meanest?

The Las Vegas Review Journal's "Judging the Judges" survey asked lawyers who practiced before Clark County District Court judges to rate the judges' courtesy. Of the attorneys surveyed, two-thirds were male. The results ranked female judges as significantly less courteous than their male counterparts with even the highest-ranked female judge still scoring lower in courtesy than "all but two of the male judges." According to "experts who study judges and the courts, attorneys and litigants favor a judge similar to them, whether in age, ethnic makeup or gender," which could explain why the primarily male survey base would be biased to find male judges more courteous than female ones. Legal Blog Watch posits that the dispairty "may just be that when a male judge acts sternly or impatiently, he's merely regarded as firm or strict, whereas a woman who conducts herself the same way is labeled as strident or obnoxious."

When I read these results, I couldn't help but wonder if women judges just have to work harder to get the respect that should come with their position automatically (but doesn't, unfortunately), and if the lawyers who may have needed "encouragment" by said female judges to give the judges the respect they deserve might be bitter in filling out the survey. I've had the experience of older male attorneys not taking me seriously on the job, and I've sometimes felt forced into taking a hard stance to stop what seems to me as a conversation where I'm being belittled or even verbally abused. I've had (more than once) a male attorney then accuse me of being the rude one, and each time, I've been very taken aback since, in my view, I was only responding to the caller yelling at me first (and in each case, I never raised my voice--it's funny how women just speaking firmly in a normal tone can be viewed as MORE rude than a man actually using a raised voice).

I've also been in courtrooms where male attorneys push around relatively new female judges (i.e. talking over them, arguing back with contemptuous "with all due respect, Your Honor" lines thrown in to offset their rudeness, and basically just refusing to accept the female judges' rulings as final). I can't claim to have watched an entire genesis of a new female judge turning hard to demand the respect she's not given automatically, but it doesn't take much of a stretch to imagine it happening. I also think women walk a very fine line in being taken seriously without being "bitchy" and that only certain personality types (the lucky snarky and funny ones among us) can do it successfully without resulting to firm behavior that will inevitably be interpreted as rude. In some ways, this "courtesy" measure by which these judges were judged could easily turn into a proxy for "bitchiness," and there are lots of reasons a man might view a woman in a position of power (like a judge) as "discourteous" regardless of how objectively courteous that judge is. Honestly, if I were the LV Review Journal, I would be wondering how to eliminate the bias from my survey since I think it's completely ridiculous to think that results so skewed are in any way a real measure of whether men or women judges are more courteous.

Clippings: Chief Judge Kaye Sues New York for a raise

For over 10 years New York State's judges have gone without a raise. Since their salaries are not adjusted for inflation, they've actually experienced a devaluation in their compensation. Today, Court of Appeals Chief Judge Judith Kaye formally announced her plan to sue the state to change that. Judge Kaye and her counsel, Bernard Nussbaum, spoke to Ms. JD and NWLSO's members at the recent Student Leadership Summit. In the context of a business culture in which women in particular fail to fight for compensation commensurate with their experience (check out Women Don't Ask and Ask for It for advice on how to ensure you are not undercompensated for failing to negotiate a raise) I say bravo to Judge Kaye and Mr. Nussbaum!!

Betrayal: Sexual Harrassment by Mentors

I can't stop thinking about a recent story out of a Texas district court of several alleged acts of extremly severe sexual harrassment by a federal judge. There are a number of disturbing circumstances involved. The alleged aggressor is a federal judge-a person we all trust to uphold the law. The alleged attack was barbaric and, according to more than one accuser, just the most recent and sever in a long history of abuse of female subordinates.

The Honorable Sandra L. Lynch: First Woman Appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit

The Honorable Sandra L. Lynch, Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit since 1995, is a graduate of Wellesley College and the Boston University Law School where she was Articles Editor of the Law Review. After clerking for Judge Raymond J. Pettine of the U.S.

First Women: Dorothy W. Nelson

It is an honor to participate in the “First Women Lawyers” series of Ms. JD. I am particularly happy to do so in the company of Professor Barbara Babcock, one of the most admired and distinguished members of our profession. She is a marvelous mentor to her female law students, many of whom I have hired as my law clerks. Like Professor Babcock, I was the first woman faculty member of the law school that hired me-the University of Southern California. At that time (1957), I decided to insert into the curriculum something that had not been taught but was part of my deeply held beliefs. This was contrary to the advice of my friends on the faculty who advised that as the first woman on the faculty, I shouldn’t “rock the boat”.