But there are other aspects

of this job which are not so great. Judges are civil servants, on the

state payroll, and they are exposed to all manner of rules and regulations,

also known as red tape, which they have to put up with as much as our

sometimes grumbling teachers put up with theirs. They quite often work

for hours in windowless rooms which deprive them of all sensory contacts

with the outside world, and some of what they have to listen to is, frankly,

quite boring. There is also no pay for overtime, and no bonuses.

In superior courts, our judges

are expected to handle a lot of so-called domestic relations cases, our

euphemism for family-splitting divorces and battles over the custody of

children. They also have to confront, day in day out, misfits who commit

serious crimes, according them rights which they never accorded their

victims, and then they have to decide what to do with them. That takes

a lot of patience and self-restraint, and it is not cheery work. You don't

go home at night bragging to your spouse, Honey, today I helped break

up 20 families! Or, Sweetheart, today I handed out over 1,000 years of

jail time!

I won't comment on how judges

have to put up with lawyers. While some lawyers can be a joy and truly

helpful to a judge, others can dawdle interminably and seek to trip the

judge in various ways. Judges also have to put up with people who try

to butter them up, and they need to resist flattery. A lawyer who is lively,

witty, and full of initiative often has to curb all that so that, as a

judge, he may stay anonymous in the background to protect not only his

impartiality but even the appearance of it, as is expected of him.

When a lawyer expresses willingness

to be considered for a judgeship, it is unfair to assume he is merely

seeking a plum job. The job has both its good and its bad aspects. It

requires dedication, patience, courtesy, wisdom, scholarship, and of course

an innate sense of fairness. Efficiency in caseload management helps too,

but because our judicial system seems to have built-in inefficiencies

designed to protect people's rights, most of our judges end up overworked.

The lawyers who are aware of

all this and yet still offer to do this work deserve some measure of respect.

When a lawyer has a 5-year or 10-year office lease, a trained staff, regular

clients, and outstanding cases some of which it may take three years to

conclude, the thought of even trying to disentangle oneself from all that

is obviously difficult. As soon as a lawyer lets it be known he might

accept a judicial appointment, uncertainty over the lawyer's continuing

availability can also mean new clients dry up for a while.

We should not make it more

difficult for dedicated lawyers to offer their services as judges by describing

the position in terms which make them look as mere office seekers looking

for a plum job. Perhaps some of them are, but it'd be unfair to assume

all of them are and to portray them that way.

Just as our American sense

of fairness impels us to give criminal defendants the benefit of the doubt,

we should be able to do the same for lawyers. Let's ease up a little bit

on the negative feelings toward lawyers. The person who'll defend you

against the oppressiveness of government when you get in the soup up to

your ears will turn out to be a lawyer, and the person who'll force the

government to respect your rights will be a judge who used to be a lawyer.

Personally, I'd say "Thanks"

to the lawyers who expressed their willingness to serve us in the capacity

of superior court judge. It takes guts to do it.

Claude Y. Paquin

Fayetteville

[email protected]