College Teaches Jurists How to Wear Black Robes

RENO, Nev. — Some people think you go on the bench so your education can end. That has it backward. You go on the bench so your education can begin. Judges can never forget that.

--Justice Anthony M. Kennedy

U.S. Supreme Court

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At the National Judicial College, classroom bells--not gavels and bailiffs--rule the day. And the underlying message rings loud: Wearing a black robe alone does not a judge make.

In times when the legal profession and the courts are coming under increased scrutiny and public criticism, the weight of judicial robes can be heavy.

“The image of justice . . . is clearly not being approved by a lot of people,” Judicial College President V. Robert Payant told one class of 66 judges. “Public attitudes toward the courts are not very good.”

At the judicial college, the goal is not only to coach lawyers on how to be judges, but to teach veteran judges how to be better arbiters of justice.

For many lawyers, the move to the other side of the bench is an awesome transition.

“Judges aren’t born judges. They learn to be judges,” said U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who attended the National Judicial College upon her election as an Arizona Superior Court judge in 1974.

O’Connor, appointed to the Supreme Court in 1981, recalled her anxieties the first time she assumed the bench as a trial court judge.

“It was frightening, really,” she said. “There was so much to think about and to learn from the prospect of a judge that was new to me.”

Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who is on the college faculty, described it as “an institutional reminder of the very basic proposition that an independent judiciary is essential in any society that is going to be based on the rule of law.

“Judicial independence cannot exist unless you have skilled, dedicated and principled judges,” Kennedy said. “This leads to so many different areas--judicial demeanor, how to control a courtroom, basic rules of civility, how to control attorneys.

“These are difficult skills for judges to learn.”

Founded in 1963, the college gave its first course the following year in Boulder, Colo. In 1965, the Fleischmann Foundation in Reno provided a grant for funding and the college moved to the university campus here.

The National Judicial College is the only full-time institution in the country that provides judicial training, primarily for state judges.

It is affiliated with the American Bar Assn., which funds about 10% of the college’s annual budget. Other money comes from an endowment fund, donations and tuition and fees.

Courses range from 2 1/2 days to three weeks, tuition and fees from $480 to $1,815. Most costs are paid by states or courts that send judges to attend, but many judges pay a portion of their bills.

Since its inception, the college has issued more than 60,000 certificates to judges from all 50 states and 136 foreign countries.

Classes are taught by other judges, legal scholars and experts in particular fields. The atmosphere is casual but the daily workload is intense.

In small discussion groups, judges are grilled by group leaders on the intricacies and dilemmas of the topic at hand.

Courses range from general issues to specifics--courtroom technology, dealing with jurors, courtroom disruptions, domestic violence, managing complex cases, death-penalty issues, mediation, family law, forensic, medical and scientific evidence and opinion writing.

The general jurisdiction course, designed for judges with three or fewer years on the bench, exposes them to legal issues that they might not have experienced as a lawyer.

A judge’s goal, said one instructor, should be to make every person who appears before them feel as if they’ve had their day in court, regardless of the outcome of the case.

“There is an art of judging,” said U.S. District Court Judge Bernice B. Donald of Memphis, Tenn. “You don’t learn about judicial administration in law school.”

Law schools teach lawyers to be advocates for their clients. Judges must learn to be fair and impartial.

“All of a sudden, you don’t have a position to advocate. You’re in charge of ensuring the fairness of the process and the administration of justice,” Donald said. “It’s a tremendous responsibility.”

For some, setting aside their adversarial hat is not always easy.

“I was a trial attorney, and it was real hard not to want to argue something,” Hawaii Circuit and Family Court Judge Marie Nakanishi Milks said.

“The one complaint I have, there are times I feel isolated,” said General Division Common Pleas Court Judge Mary Donovan of Dayton, Ohio, who was appointed to the bench in June 1995 and attended the college’s general jurisdiction course this spring.

As a lawyer, Donovan said she had “a battery of colleagues.”

But once on the bench, judges find their lawyer friends are reluctant to associate with them for fear their friendship will impede or give the appearance of interfering with a judge’s duty to remain fair and impartial.

“Some people don’t realize how isolated judges tend to feel,” said Michael A. Pope, a Chicago lawyer with the firm of McDermott, Will & Emery and chairman of the college’s Council for the Future, a national group of corporate representatives that advises the college on fund-raising and development.

“They are almost not allowed to socialize with anyone who may come before them. As a social being, a judge, like anybody else, needs to release tension every once in a while,” Pope said.

The judicial college, he said, provides a forum for judges to mingle with peers, exchange ideas and frustrations.

As legal issues become increasingly complex and courts become overloaded, judicial training becomes more crucial, said Joseph R. Weisberger, chief justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court.

“It is the judiciary that transforms constitutional rights and liberties from a peace of parchment and printed words into living, breathing reality,” said Weisberger, who has taught at the judicial college for more than 30 years.

“The average citizen probably has a greater stake in the judiciary than in any other branch of government, because it is the judiciary that is the safeguard of the rights and liberties of the people.”