All bright people, but a couple of them had zero business experience except to the extent necessary to run their own practices.
I realize that intelligent lawyers, once appointed as a judge, can be assigned to areas other than areas they were involved in when in practice, and eventually gain the requisite competence. Sometimes they do make the adjustment and sometimes they don't. Some civil practitioners never successful adjust to criminal cases once on the bench, and some career criminal defense lawyers or prosecutors, once on the bench, never truly get a grip on civil litigation.
But those adjustments, although difficult, can often reasonably be successful. But Business Law can be so incredibly complex and involved, I dare say one cannot learn on the go. Unless one has a real passion and aptitude for it, and practiced it like for 20 years, if one tries to learn it on the bench, they will only grasp it in the most superficial manner.
In court systems in New York City and Long Island, all areas in and surrounding L.A., and Cook County, Illinois, Detroit area, and a multitude of other larger jurisdictions, you cannot even be considered for such judicial assignment unless the majority of your practice was in such area for over a decade.
And we are by no means any longer such a small jurisdiction. In point of fact, Clark County Courts now services an area of over two million in population.
But, candidly, no matter how bright someone is, I don't want a judge who only handled personal injury while in practice, but with no commercial litigation experience, and no general business law knowledge to speak of "learning" while on the job, with litigants often with corporate matters with millions at stake.
So, I think we have two choices. Choice #1. Have the intelligence, and ego control, to recognize this dilemma and seek to match those judgeships with people with the requisite knowledge and experience(which, admittedly, is less difficult to accomplish by the appointment process since if the vacancy is designated as a Business Court positon it will hopefully attract applicants who practice in the area. But with elections, you never know what you will get).
Choice #2 is to look like arrogant hicks(which we often look like, despite our population growth) by insisting our "skilled" judges can "handle it" and "learn it", even though they truly cannot to any meaningful degree.
To:12:11–But but nothing will change. They may call it a specialized court, but it really is not if they rotate people in and out, and new judges need to keep getting trained in such court. A truly specialized court selects the people who are a good fit due to their legal experience, and pretty much leave them in there.
One reason it will not attract skilled people in this discipline is the way vacancies and new judgeships are filled, which you allude to. Whether it be an appointment or election, you may get very few applicants with this highly specialized training. I suppose, as you suggest, if a vacancy is designated in advance as a Business Court positon, and only people skilled in that area are urged to apply, that such could possibly help. But I'm not certain. Most applicants would still be from the Criminal Law field,Plaintiff's Personal Injury field, Insurance Defense and from Family Law.
12:11 and 12:24 make some good points about how it is optimum if we are able to assign Business Court judgeships to people who had substantive experience of that sort while in practice. But as both posts also identify, a main problem is that attorneys who practice in this area tend not to apply for, or run for, judgeships. I don't know why. Perhaps the few who really specialize in this area tend to do real well financially and thus do not want to leave practice. I simply don't know why they don't tend to seek judgeships, but it is obvious that relatively few of them do.
So, it's a problem in search of a solution.
But the good news may be that I don't think it is the crisis that the two posters(especially the first one) make it sound like. 12:11, initially concedes that the people assigned to that court are intelligent judges despite their relative lack of experience in the area. Fair point. But later on the poster paints such a gloomy picture that one would think we have cretins adjudicating these Business Law matters.
I, for one, think they do an okay job, although I concede that some of them may have had very little meaningful prior experience in the subject matter. Such prior experience would certainly have made them better as Business Law Judges, as well as made their transition a lot smoother, because there is a somewhat serious learning curve.
While you might criticize the Group (and I understand the knee jerk), lets take a deep breath.
–Gonzalez: Pretty much the originator of business court. Represented clients in massive litigation in this jurisdiction and had business litigation experience.
–Denton is one of the originators of Business Court from its origins. Whether you thought his practice was business related 20 years ago is irrelevant, he has been on the bench 20 years and has more than 10 years experience in Business Court.
Allf: While she was not always the most aggressive practitioner, she practiced business litigation in state and federal courts before taking the bench.
–Williams: Yes he practiced personal injury but has been on the bench over 10 years and handled complex litigation in the form of construction defect for a decade. He has more than acquitted himself to the Business Court bench.
Delaney—OK you got me on this one. She actually had business litigation experience through her in-house work and securities work before joining the bench. She is not fabulous on the Business Court bench and is actually pretty lost with big cases.
3:55. I don't think the above posters would disagree with you as they suggest "some" or "a few" of the five may not be up to snuff. They don't suggest that all five are lacking.
Now, while you suggest that those posters need to take a deep breath and they are being a little too harsh and negative(and, BTW, you are correct about that) you, on the other hand, may be a bit too gracious, and lenient, with your assessment.
You are spot on about Gonzalez and Denton–both as to their experience and their performance and experience.
However, as to the other three, bring a fairly complex, multi-tiered
matter to their attention, and I suggest you might be somewhat less than delighted with the result. If you insist they are adequate on the standard stuff, point well-taken. But on the really complex matters(and Business Law often involves some quite complex matters, or, at least, highly involved matters with an enormous amount of records, information, financial figures, etc.) that is where their lack of meaningful experience and skill in the area may become apparent, as the posters suggest.
That said, I do agree with your general comments about the posters over-reacting. For example, it is seldom as bad as 12:11 suggests.
12:11 almost makes it sound like these Business Law Judges were derived of sufficient oxygen at the time of their births.
If you think Gonzalez does not have experience for Business Court, but Delaney is fine, your TIP Mentor should have taught you better over the last 6 months.
When Delaney had a full Business Court caseload, there were Orders in Business Court cases that had not been signed by the Judge a year later, messes which Scann had to try to clean up.
12:11 and 1:06 are spot on. Let's be honest, very few PI or Family Law or Criminal Law practitioners have the intelligence or inclination to practice at the highest levels of business law. Next to esoteric constitutional law (which puts me to sleep….yawn), business law is where the best and brightest go. The judges in business court should (and mostly do) come from that pool. Coffing would have been amazing. I hope he puts his hat in again.
The picture of her in this article is just frightening. Maybe they caught her at the wrong moment. On the other hand, she seems to have caught a case of Michele Bachman eyes in jail.
Who are the current business court judges?
Williams, Gonzalez, Allf, Denton and Delaney (overflow)
All bright people, but a couple of them had zero business experience except to the extent necessary to run their own practices.
I realize that intelligent lawyers, once appointed as a judge, can be assigned to areas other than areas they were involved in when in practice, and eventually gain the requisite competence. Sometimes they do make the adjustment and sometimes they don't. Some civil practitioners never successful adjust to criminal cases once on the bench, and some career criminal defense lawyers or prosecutors, once on the bench, never truly get a grip on civil litigation.
But those adjustments, although difficult, can often reasonably be successful. But Business Law can be so incredibly complex and involved, I dare say one cannot learn on the go. Unless one has a real passion and aptitude for it, and practiced it like for 20 years, if one tries to learn it on the bench, they will only grasp it in the most superficial manner.
In court systems in New York City and Long Island, all areas in and surrounding L.A., and Cook County, Illinois, Detroit area, and a multitude of other larger jurisdictions, you cannot even be considered for such judicial assignment unless the majority of your practice was in such area for over a decade.
And we are by no means any longer such a small jurisdiction. In point of fact, Clark County Courts now services an area of over two million in population.
But, candidly, no matter how bright someone is, I don't want a judge who only handled personal injury while in practice, but with no commercial litigation experience, and no general business law knowledge to speak of "learning" while on the job, with litigants often with corporate matters with millions at stake.
So, I think we have two choices. Choice #1. Have the intelligence, and ego control, to recognize this dilemma and seek to match those judgeships with people with the requisite knowledge and experience(which, admittedly, is less difficult to accomplish by the appointment process since if the vacancy is designated as a Business Court positon it will hopefully attract applicants who practice in the area. But with elections, you never know what you will get).
Choice #2 is to look like arrogant hicks(which we often look like, despite our population growth) by insisting our "skilled" judges can "handle it" and "learn it", even though they truly cannot to any meaningful degree.
To:12:11–But but nothing will change. They may call it a specialized court, but it really is not if they rotate people in and out, and new judges need to keep getting trained in such court. A truly specialized court selects the people who are a good fit due to their legal experience, and pretty much leave them in there.
One reason it will not attract skilled people in this discipline is the way vacancies and new judgeships are filled, which you allude to. Whether it be an appointment or election, you may get very few applicants with this highly specialized training. I suppose, as you suggest, if a vacancy is designated in advance as a Business Court positon, and only people skilled in that area are urged to apply, that such could possibly help. But I'm not certain. Most applicants would still be from the Criminal Law field,Plaintiff's Personal Injury field, Insurance Defense and from Family Law.
12:11 and 12:24 make some good points about how it is optimum if we are able to assign Business Court judgeships to people who had substantive experience of that sort while in practice. But as both posts also identify, a main problem is that attorneys who practice in this area tend not to apply for, or run for, judgeships. I don't know why. Perhaps the few who really specialize in this area tend to do real well financially and thus do not want to leave practice. I simply don't know why they don't tend to seek judgeships, but it is obvious that relatively few of them do.
So, it's a problem in search of a solution.
But the good news may be that I don't think it is the crisis that the two posters(especially the first one) make it sound like. 12:11, initially concedes that the people assigned to that court are intelligent judges despite their relative lack of experience in the area. Fair point. But later on the poster paints such a gloomy picture that one would think we have cretins adjudicating these Business Law matters.
I, for one, think they do an okay job, although I concede that some of them may have had very little meaningful prior experience in the subject matter. Such prior experience would certainly have made them better as Business Law Judges, as well as made their transition a lot smoother, because there is a somewhat serious learning curve.
While you might criticize the Group (and I understand the knee jerk), lets take a deep breath.
–Gonzalez: Pretty much the originator of business court. Represented clients in massive litigation in this jurisdiction and had business litigation experience.
–Denton is one of the originators of Business Court from its origins. Whether you thought his practice was business related 20 years ago is irrelevant, he has been on the bench 20 years and has more than 10 years experience in Business Court.
Allf: While she was not always the most aggressive practitioner, she practiced business litigation in state and federal courts before taking the bench.
–Williams: Yes he practiced personal injury but has been on the bench over 10 years and handled complex litigation in the form of construction defect for a decade. He has more than acquitted himself to the Business Court bench.
Delaney—OK you got me on this one. She actually had business litigation experience through her in-house work and securities work before joining the bench. She is not fabulous on the Business Court bench and is actually pretty lost with big cases.
3:55. I don't think the above posters would disagree with you as they suggest "some" or "a few" of the five may not be up to snuff. They don't suggest that all five are lacking.
Now, while you suggest that those posters need to take a deep breath and they are being a little too harsh and negative(and, BTW, you are correct about that) you, on the other hand, may be a bit too gracious, and lenient, with your assessment.
You are spot on about Gonzalez and Denton–both as to their experience and their performance and experience.
However, as to the other three, bring a fairly complex, multi-tiered
matter to their attention, and I suggest you might be somewhat less than delighted with the result. If you insist they are adequate on the standard stuff, point well-taken. But on the really complex matters(and Business Law often involves some quite complex matters, or, at least, highly involved matters with an enormous amount of records, information, financial figures, etc.) that is where their lack of meaningful experience and skill in the area may become apparent, as the posters suggest.
That said, I do agree with your general comments about the posters over-reacting. For example, it is seldom as bad as 12:11 suggests.
12:11 almost makes it sound like these Business Law Judges were derived of sufficient oxygen at the time of their births.
I can think of a couple of them that may have been deprived of sufficient oxygen–but they do not serve in Business Court.
I shall elaborate no further.
Smart enough to know how bad Gonzalez is. Denton and Delaney are fine. Williams sufficient. I have not been in front of Allf.
Wanna know why experienced business court litigators don't run for judicial openings? Ask Coffing…..
If you think Gonzalez does not have experience for Business Court, but Delaney is fine, your TIP Mentor should have taught you better over the last 6 months.
When Delaney had a full Business Court caseload, there were Orders in Business Court cases that had not been signed by the Judge a year later, messes which Scann had to try to clean up.
Gonzalez, 9:24, just insulted all new attorneys. You are slipping.
12:11 and 1:06 are spot on. Let's be honest, very few PI or Family Law or Criminal Law practitioners have the intelligence or inclination to practice at the highest levels of business law. Next to esoteric constitutional law (which puts me to sleep….yawn), business law is where the best and brightest go. The judges in business court should (and mostly do) come from that pool. Coffing would have been amazing. I hope he puts his hat in again.
Nothing smarter about Williams or Gonzalez than other judges, sorry.
Any news on the current bankruptcy judicial candidates?
Feel free to give your not so friendly officer the respect that he or she so rightfully deserves.
https://www.ktnv.com/news/national/appeals-court-sides-with-woman-who-gave-police-officer-the-finger-citing-free-speech?fbclid=IwAR1y0edU9Gwkk8gxOk9Sm4BoWgxa99_BUF-SqdC-yXOKBSa_9slo_TDkjbU
Alexis Plunkett got denied bail. https://news3lv.com/news/local/attorney-alexis-plunkett-denied-bail-faces-charges-in-two-cases
The picture of her in this article is just frightening. Maybe they caught her at the wrong moment. On the other hand, she seems to have caught a case of Michele Bachman eyes in jail.