Judicial Bearing

UNDER SUBMISSION

Most judicial appointees bring honor and distinction to the court. But unlike their European counterparts they trained to be lawyers, not judges. The judicial appointment effects an immediate transformation from lawyer, who generally argues the client's side of a dispute, to judge, who brings disputes to resolution.

While on the bench the professional dress changes from smartly tailored suits, jeans, or whatever, to black robes. In California, the newly appointed judge has the benefit of The Center of Judicial Education and Research, which provides orientation programs and a world famous Judicial College, to learn essential skills. But it still takes time to learn the job and to discover one's judicial persona or image.

This is not to suggest a judge should assume a contrived or false bearing. Judges, like everyone else, should be themselves, but some degree of self-censure is a necessity. The practical joker must restrain the compulsion to place a whoopee cushion on the court reporter's chair during a trial. Most people expect judges to be dignified and to convey attributes of wisdom, patience, objectivity and fairness. Just look at the questions on the Judicial Nominees Evaluation Form submitted by the Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation and you know what I mean.

What do we draw upon to fill in the details and add color and shading to our inner picture of who we are in our professional lives? Of course we look to people in the profession we know and admire. But whether we like it or not, movies and television deliver images of judges and lawyers which affect our perceptions.

Just before I began law school in 1960, I was in charge of a group of census takers for a portion of the Hollywood area. In those days, census takers knocked on the doors of people who had not returned their written questionnaires. Not everyone wanted to be counted for the 1960 census, nor did they want to answer the series of questions about their household on the questionnaire. I was called into the field whenever a problem arose. I was able to charm some people into giving me the information.

With others, I was not so lucky. I had more doors slammed in my face than guilty verdicts in criminal cases. Why had I failed with these irate people, who count but did not want to be counted, I wondered? Perhaps it was because I did not have in mind a distinct image of a census taker. Too bad that, in this case, movies and television were of no help.

There were movies about vampires, criminals, surgeons, aliens, clowns, musketeers, sisters, brothers, comrades, soldiers, men, women, little women, amazons, Broadway girls, brides, and the bride of Frankenstein, but diddly about census takers. If you can do a movie titled "The Killers," or "Some Kind of Nut," (a movie in 1969 with Garson Kanin, Dick Van Dyke and Angie Dickinson, which was a total bomb) or "The Three Stooges," "The Outlaw" and "The Pawn Broker," why not one called "The Census Taker?"

It is to this lacuna, in the otherwise glorious history of cinema, that I attribute my failure to accurately count the number of citizens inhabiting the hills of Hollywood in 1960.

But judges and lawyers are more lucky than census takers. Their work is usually more steady, no 10-year hiatus. And as I have suggested, there are judges portrayed in movies and television from which judges can model themselves. But the public sees these same movies and televisions shows. Imagine the disappointment when real judges and lawyers are so different.

When I first became a judge in 1975, I was in my 30s and did not look or act old enough to be a judge. Now, I just don't act old enough. I was the supervising judge of the Los Angeles Traffic Court, the largest traffic court in the world.

At that time, Sorrel Booke, a well-known and respected actor, appeared in a commercial for Haines hosiery. The commercial was filmed in an empty courtroom at the traffic court building. Sorrel's brother Fred, a lawyer and arbitrator and one of my closest friends, insisted that we visit the set to insure the authenticity of the shoot. There were Sorrel and several distinguished-looking actors in judge's robes getting ready for a take. Their bearing was stately and courtly even off-camera. That was how a judge should look and act, I thought to myself.

But then the filming began. The judges were directed to run, leap, twirl and dance around the courtroom in their Haines socks. I tried it once in the master calendar court. Luckily, the Judicial Performance Commission was not in existence at that time. But that was a commercial.

How do judges fare in the movies? A few months ago, UCLA law professor Paul Bergman and I did a program for the Ventura County Bar Association's annual dinner. He and UCLA law professor Michael Asimow wrote "Reel Justice: The Courtroom goes to the Movies," published by Andrews and McMeel. We showed film clips from movies and television to illustrate how changeable the image can be. Of course, a bad image on the screen can be a guide as to how not to act.

Take for example, Judge Judy, who at one time was a real judge. She decides real disputes real fast. She is the ideal model of how not to act. We see her presiding over a case involving a mother, her three children and their three separate fathers. She is her usual patronizing, insulting self, and her bailiff is a tattletale, disclosing to Judy the comments he hears litigants muttering under their breath about the good judge. It is not Judge Judy's decisions that are so bad. It is her comments that are so offensive.

Counseling someone about not having children until he or she are ready is one thing, but insulting a person for having them is another. Judge Judy is troubling because many of her millions of viewers expect judges to behave like her.

In many of the older movies with legal themes, judges were often in the background. They were portrayed as sober and wise, but not always. In the 1942 spoof, "Roxie Hart," Ginger Rogers plays the part of a publicity-seeking starlet on trial for murder. The judge allows the press in the courtroom. Every time the photographers crowd the witness stand to get Roxie's picture, the judge quickly stands behind the witness box to get his mug in the shot. These hilarious scenes provide a good example of how foolish judges look when they seek stardom.

And then there is the judge in "My Cousin Vinnie," a gruff, provincial, impatient martinet. He doesn't even know that a "yute" is a young person. A good model to follow, however, is the judge in "Anatomy of a Murder," played by attorney Joseph N. Welch. He is patient and gentle, yet firm when he has to be. He lets the attorneys try their case without undue interference.

Welch was not an actor but a lawyer. He had represented the Army in televised hearings before the infamous Sen. Joe McCarthy, who was trying to uncover communists in government. Welch made history with his trenchant remark to McCarthy, who tried to dishonor a young associate working with Welch, "Have you no decency?"

The influence of television or movies on one's professional image is not limited to judges. The New York Times reported last week that some shrinks, I mean psychiatrists, were so impressed with the therapy practiced by fictional psychiatrist Dr. Jennifer Melfi, on the HBO series "The Sopranos," that the American Psychoanalytic Association gave her an award. I'm not sure who got the award, Dr. Melfi or talented actor Lorraine Bracco, who plays the role of Dr. Melfi.

Generally, psychiatrists have not been favorably portrayed in movies. The adulation for Dr. Melfi in large part was motivated by showing the profession in a more realistic and positive light, for a change.

As for the image of lawyers, read professor Michael Asimow's recent article chillingly titled "Embodiment of Evil: Law Firms in the Movies." UCLA Law Review, Volume 48 (August 2001). While sole practitioners have received some favorable depiction in the movies, big firm lawyers in most movies are downright repugnant. Just take a look at "The Devil's Advocate," "The Firm" or "The Verdict," to name a few.

Bigness has brought with it a business mentality at the expense of professionalism. Asimow points out that, ironically, lawyers on television fare better than they do in the movies. Lawyers in "L.A. Law" and "The Practice," for example, though not perfect, are decent and likable people. Indeed many people attend law school because of those shows. Why can't they acquire a passion for the law by reading biographies of Holmes, Brandeis or Cardozo?

So what should we do about our image? My advice to judges and lawyers is avoid affecting a professional persona. With common sense, civility and a professional attitude, image will take care of itself. In fact, no good can come from a preoccupation with image. Look what happened to Narcissus.