Don’t insult the judge (via Above the Law). While arguing a point with a federal bankruptcy judge in the Southern District of Florida, a partner from a large Chicago law firm responded to a comment from the judge as follows:
I suggest to you with respect, Your Honor, that you’re a few French fries short of a Happy Meal in terms of what’s likely to take place.
The Show Cause hearing for contempt is scheduled for this morning.
Why? He said, “with respect”!
Seriously, though, can a judge be held in contempt? I have hear some very cruel and nasty things said by judges to defandants, witnesses, and lawyers. Can any of them fire back in kind?
As a practical matter, I don’t think so. Depends on the jurisdiction, but you can usually complain to a judicial commission or something. I doubt that does you a great deal of good most of the time. For your client’s sake, the best course is just swallowing your pride, taking your lumps, and getting on with business.
A few months ago, I and a couple of other attorneys were being yelled at by a judge (he was under the mistaken belief that we had not taken all of the required steps to consolidate a few related cases for the purposes of discovery and mediation). After a few minutes, Plaintiff’s counsel said, “your honor, with all due respect, if you think we have screwed something up, we’ll fix it, but your tone is not necessary. There’s absolutely no reason for you to sit here and yell at us and treat us as if we did something intentionally.” At that point, the judge backed off and moved on to something else. Certainly, it was a risk. Counsel stood the risk that the judge would silently punish the client for his attorney’s response. In that case, however, had the judge been so foolish as to sanction Plaintiff’s counsel, the judge likely would have faced a dsciplinary complaint and would have looked much worse than the attorney. While some judges are just vindictive, some probably just get a bit full of themselves after some time on the bench. The judge I mentioned probably was embarrassed and remembered what it was like to be on the opposite side of an undeserved judicial trial. I do agree with the first commenter that there are many more judges who get away with violating their ethical duty to treat counsel with respect than there are attorneys who get away with mouthing off to the judge. I’ll leave it to Vincent Bugliosi to say it best:
“The American people have an understandably negative view of politicians, public opinion polls show, and an equally negative view of lawyers. Conventional logic would seem to dictate that since a judge is normally both a politician and a lawyer, people would have an opinion of them lower than a grasshopper’s belly. But on the contrary, the mere investiture of a twenty-five dollar black cotton robe elevates the denigrated lawyer-politician to a position of considerable honor and respect in our society, as if the garment itself miraculously imbues the person with qualities not previously possessed.”
Wow, great quote John.