A newly appointed judge said the nicest thing in his new career was not having to be an advocate anymore. What? That’s what I love about being a lawyer.
Sure, there are some times when you don’t have the best facts or you don’t share your client’s point of view on what the outcome should be. But I find a challenge in finding the best argument that can be made with the facts you have. I analogize it to playing the cards you are dealt.
I want my argument to trustee or court to be intellectually honest and I want to offer the decision maker a well thought out reason to adopt my point of view. That’s my role as an advocate.
I see more pressure in judging, in having to make the “right” decision against the background of statute, precedent, and the particular facts. I see the overwhelming responsibility of our judges and the burden of having to make decisions by the gross, day in and day out.
It is clear to me that the amount of time that a judge can spend really getting inside the facts or an unsettled area of law is limited by the number of hours in the day and cases on the docket. From where I sit, that doesn’t seem liberating, as the new judge exulted.
To each his own.
