I was pleased to learn that Justice Dickson will take the position of Chief Justice of the Indiana Supreme Court. Mostly it’s just good old-fashioned home-town bias. He practice for many years (17 I think I heard) as a general practice lawyer in Lafayette. He had been a Supreme Court Justice for many years before I even became a lawyer. But, I’m told, when he first came to town, he shared office space with Fred Hoffman who founded my law firm. So there is an extremely tenuous connection there. Later, he practiced with some other excellent local lawyers I’ve had the privilege of working with since I’ve been in town. (Bob Reiling, Dan Teder, and Jerry Withered are the ones I know).
One thing that I have appreciated is Justice Dickson’s efforts to maintain his connections to the Tippecanoe County bar. Seems like he’s at events every year, if not more frequently. And, just because he comes from a legal background with which I identify, I think I have confidence that we’ll have similar frames of reference when looking at a legal problem. While I’ve certainly disagreed with decisions from time to time, I’ve never gotten the sense of anything other than a genuine effort to apply existing law to the facts at hand. (And, really, that’s the sense I have gotten about all of our Justices — I can’t tell from their decisions the party affiliation of the governor who appointed them.)
I expect the transition from Chief Justice Shepard to Chief Justice Dickson will be fairly smooth.
Doug, I’m pleased that you’re pleased about the choice. I’m still wondering, though, especially in light of the fact that Mitch will be appointing yet another justice to the Indiana high court, who the “liberal activist judges” are. Jim Bopp, Eric Miller, Micah Clark, and their colleagues keep claiming such unelected folks are just a hair’s breadth away from imposing same sex marriage on Hoosiers. That’s the reason they tell us an amendment (HJR-6) to Indiana’s constitution is absolutely necessary. Just which ones on the High Hoosier Bench should we be suspicioius of? Surely SOMEBODY knows!
Shepard started a DIY bent with how pro se litigants are handled at the trial court level. Trial court judges bend over backwards to accomodate the pro se people because Shepard told them to be overly nice to each pro se and to let things slide that a trial court judge normally wouldn’t let slide for any attorney (ie, a pro se showing up for a Court hearing attired in shorts and tank top or a pro se walking into a judge’s office and demanding to see the judge to obtain specific forms). Shepard absolutely hates solo practitioners and very small law firms because he doesn’t think that it is fair for attorneys to charge fees to people.
Justice Dickson’s real claim to fame is the fact that he is from Hobart, Indiana and even more important is the fact that he lived on Kelly Street.