S-Y-B-A-U

Christine[00:00:00] Shut your bitch ass up. S-Y-B-A-U. Never seen it before. I neither. I like it. I do too. Welcome to the Judgmental podcast. Today we discuss the feedback that we got from the community with our bet and how many judges were in court. Hugh is still traumatized by the lack of judges. When we did roll call, we discuss family court judges that have the time to visit schools and their extracurricular activities, including one judge that has recorded numerous podcasts.

ChristineAll right, let's start by talking about our reporting on Tuesday. Have you seen the feedback online?

HughI have. Um, and it's funny, the different platforms have completely different feedback. I noticed on like one of the platforms, everything is positive and everyone's talking about, you know, good on you for [00:01:00] exposing this and like, you know, all this supportive stuff. And then you'll go to the next platform and it will be. A little bit more antagonistic.

ChristineYeah. I think TikTok for sure, I can tell that some of the judges, I would believe have told their friends to go and post, like, my besties a judge, they work hard. Um, which thank y'all so much for that because that boost us up in the algorithm. Yeah. So get us out to as many people as possible. We love the love, we love the hate, we love the questions. We love it all because the goal of judgy too. And I do think we should talk about this because I have my own perspectives on judges, some judges that I may think do a good job. You may adamantly disagree with me. Yes. But judgy is not you. It is not me. Judgy. We kind of created, from my perspective, we're gonna just judge is gonna allow people to judge the judges. Um, we want the good, we want the bad, we want the ugly. We just want accountability. So,

Hughyou

Christineknow, what

Hughare

Christineyour

Hughthoughts on that? I think it's really important and it's gonna be harder to get the good because it's not sensational. It's not the kind of thing that's gonna be viral [00:02:00] and. It's sort of the world we live in, but it's really important that we have the good on there. Mm-hmm. We have people reach out and talk about stories, and we have actually had people you know, I've seen messages about Yeah. You know, that are supportive and we want to, we want to have those stories too. The vast majority of people that reach out to us are with sort of horror stories and, you know, related to what we reported on Tuesday. I, you know, from my, my perspective, I know that there were some judges there that weren't running, you know, that, that weren't sitting in court and having hearings that day. There were probably some that were in the building, and that's fine. And I get that just because your docket isn't open doesn't mean you're not necessarily working. Right. But I also know that was important to me to show what I experienced fairly recently as a practitioner, when I would go over and I would have. Orders that needed to be signed, I would have simple orders that would take 20 seconds for [00:03:00] someone to sign that would let me get into a case so I could avert an emergency. Right. Things like that, that I just couldn't find anyone and be constantly being told by staff when I try to, uh, that there's a way you can reach the judge's chambers at the end of the hall by, you know, buzzing back and the staff member will tell you, you know, uh, the judge is out or the judge is on the bench, you know, but if you wait around 15 minutes, she'll be off and you know, I'll bring you back and you can, you know, she'll sign that order for you to have access to a case or something like that. Yeah.

HughThat it just, there were certain times of day, usually in the afternoon or certain times of the week, usually on Friday, that I would just regularly be told that, oh, the judge just isn't here. And I just wouldn't go. Even when my office was a couple blocks from the courthouse, I wouldn't go after three o'clock ever to go try to find a judge. And so. I think that's one of the reasons why we didn't go over there at three o'clock. I mean, when, when we said, let's, let's talk about going over just at random times and seeing, [00:04:00] seeing who's there and what's going on in the courthouse. We said we'd never go over after three, certainly never after four, because we, we know that, I mean, it's just hardly anybody's ever there. Now I have

Christinethe full expectation at three o'clock there should be judges in the building.

HughOh, I have the full expectation. And I think people would be interested to see that. Yeah. I just, it was more interesting to me to go after lunch and 30 minutes after lunch so people, you know, you're not just seeing if someone got back, you know, 10, 15 minutes late for lunch or something like that. I mean, if you have a hearing, your first hearing after lunch gets canceled or something, and you will just take a little bit longer at lunch. Everybody's gonna do that. I mean, that's, everybody's gonna do that at a job. I'm sorry. I mean, people, that's just, I would, I mean, 10, 5, 10 minutes, but we, yeah. 30 minutes in. Mm-hmm. The day has started back. And so my, my issue with it is I don't have a, I guess I wasn't coming at that from any particular [00:05:00] perspective other than it really shocked me and I thought people would be shocked by it. Yeah. And when the next part that we talk about when we start reporting on how far out hearings are in divisions, that's gonna be really interesting because, okay, let's just assume judges are in the courthouse. Every single one that wasn't on the bench, that, that at least, you know, there was one judge in family court that had, uh, that they were off that day, right? That there wasn't a docket that day. That's fine. Every, everybody does that. Everybody takes time off. And, and maybe it was just set aside to write orders or whatever, but of all those judges who had things on their calendar and weren't in the courtroom. Why couldn't there be a hearing? And I know, so we were there on a Tuesday, on the previous Monday, there were hundreds of attorneys that were getting hearing dates from the court and they were going in the back. And they have an issue that, [00:06:00] you know, a lot of them can wait. A lot of family court issues, surprise, surprise, deal with important urgent things related to kids medical care, education. I mean, there, there are a lot of motions that we're on about school selection for the next year. And you might think, okay, there's still a month and a half left. That's not enough time. It's not even worth bringing the motion now over there because it will take so long. And those attorneys, some of them were being told that there wouldn't be even a short hearing time in court until the end of the year or early next year. Yeah. And so that's why that, that was my issue, is like, okay, if that's the case. It's not because you have so many things scheduled on the docket because nobody is over there.

ChristineWell, and it's also like, I mean, you look at district court six of the 16, which, you know, I guess in hindsight, if I think about it, and I thought about this last night, juvenile court should have been, could have been going on and it could have been closed and we didn't see an open courtroom. So that's entirely possible. We need to check for that next time. Um, and if we made a mistake and there were [00:07:00] seven of the 16, I'll still have won the bet and have that would be 12. I still would've been owed the beer, but I will apologize. But district court, they're not doing a whole heck of a lot of written orders. Okay. There's a lot of, in the dockets stuff being argued, you know, preliminary hearings, it's just a matter of finding probable cause, ending it up to circuit court traffic tickets. They're just disposing of stuff. Um, and so the fact that there were six in the afternoon and I believe online now they have six in the morning, six in the afternoon, you know. There's a significant backlog in district court, from my understanding, significant. And now we don't have enough data on that because they don't collect it for what I consider to be obvious reasons. But, um, that being said, what, what are they've set up a system that effectively allows them to work part-time on $141,000. That's a problem. That's a big problem.

HughYeah. I mean, if that's, if that's what's happening,

Christineif Yeah.

HughThat that, that should bother people. It certainly bothers me. I [00:08:00] have, I've practiced in district court, but it's been many years. And nothing that I had was the kind of thing that would just get delayed in court. They were smaller things that you could put on the docket, you know, being a private attorney, you could put it on for the next day usually, or two days later. Every now and then, you'd have something in probate court that you would schedule, you know, further out. But it's usually because there's a waiting period before you can have a final hearing or something. Yeah, yeah. And, and so I, I just didn't encounter it. I did encounter on every single case that I practiced in family court for 20 years, but especially in the last five or six. Right. Like, and there is a great variance between the divisions. Some divisions can get you in much faster or have a good system of, if there's a cancellation, we will reach out to people to say, this canceled. We, we know you were trying to get in there, we're going down the list in order. And maybe in

Christine10 years I never had that happen. Oh, that could have been the old guard. I'm literally, and if I'm [00:09:00] wrong, I'm wrong. I'll ask my old paralegals, but I never had that happen.

HughYou know, you have to ask for it. I don't think it's something that, you know, that people know about, but I, there are, I would always ask, so if I had a client that was gonna be prejudiced badly by the delay in a hearing, and if you, uh, in a family court action are representing the financially disadvantaged person in the situation, let's say somebody just emptied the bank accounts, took possession of all the money at the very beginning and ran off, and, and your client is left without access to any funds and sitting in a house that where stuff has to be paid for, maybe has the kids with them, you need access to the courts. And so I would always ask, okay, I understand we can't get a hearing date before this date, can we, if you have a cancellation, would you reach out to me? And some of the divisions would absolutely do it. And. It wouldn't happen most of the time because there might not be a cancellation that, um, and, and sometimes if there was both attorneys, you know, had to be also be available. So, yeah.

HughYou know, it's, it's also hard [00:10:00] to match schedules with attorneys. I mean, uh, to have a court have a hearing date and both attorneys be available and your witnesses be available, that is, that is difficult. But more and more I just found that I would just have to tell the client it's probably gonna be three to six months before we can get into court to resolve this. Well, we don't need much time give us like 15, 20 minutes. Right. We can go in there and it is just really simple. That's just not how it works. There is, the shortest hearing that we're gonna get is 30 minutes. The next 30 minutes hearing in, you know, two weeks ago when I was in motion hour was six months out. That's insane. Insane. I can't only imagine that we're gonna get anything sooner than that. And some of the divisions, like I said, it would be. It might be a month and a half, it might be two months. And if you were scheduling it I always found if you were scheduling it at a case management conference, which is midweek not in the cattle call docket of a motion hour where you're competing against everybody else for days. And so, well, a case

Christinemanagement conference though, I would say for listeners is what I would consider kind of like a pretrial it, if you're, if you think of criminals. Yeah. It's just like

Hughwhen I first started practicing, they were called [00:11:00] pretrials, even the family court. So yeah, I, I think they may have had a midweek, you know, something cancel and at the, and I would regularly get those at case management comes. We had somebody, something cancel. Uh, would this work week work for you? You might get in, you know, in the next 3, 4, 6 weeks or three months. But by and large, if you are scheduling a hearing, let alone a trial. I mean, a trial takes, if you need a full day trial or even a half day trial, you're looking at many months out and it just, you just have to sit and wait.

ChristineYeah. We just had, I just know when I follow up on the docket, like I'll look at somebody's docket and then I'll go back and see if a settlement happened. And I know Division seven had a full day trial, but that was canceled. And I don't believe any hearings were conducted. But I do think, like, let's, for example, you know, let's let the TikTok judge have a break for today. But we have one judge that has done, I believe, like sixty podcast, a family court judge. Um, and we're sitting here doing a podcast. How time consuming is this?

HughOh, nothing at [00:12:00] all. Just a few hours during the work week

Christineand then the editing.

HughYeah. I mean, I don't know. I'll let you know how long, once I finally finish editing our first one. So it's, it's, it's time consuming. Beyond and your courtroom is sitting empty.

ChristineYeah. It's time consuming. And then also, like, it's just obviously right now, you and I, but this is Censored Censored, um, and he had the perspective, a matter of perspective with Judge Censored Censored which if you notice there was a name change there, which I'm just, you know, being very speculative. But I think there probably was a complaint for using the judge name on a podcast.

HughOh. But I, I was, I didn't, I didn't know anything about any of that. Yeah. You didn't know he had a podcast? I did not.

ChristineOh my gosh. Okay. It's like tons of episodes. And it is actually shot at Frazier Museum.

HughOh, that's nice. It is

Christinegorgeous background, and you can tell the editing has done very, very well. Which I also think is kind of begs the question of,

Hughthat's a lot more time consuming to do something on location and deal with Yeah.

ChristineAnd also what's that cost? Well,

HughI mean [00:13:00] that's,

Christineto rent the Fraser Museum, I mean, maybe, but maybe, I

Hughmean, if it makes money or you're using your independent money, I mean, I don't.

ChristineWell, I looked it up. I couldn't find an LLC and I actually called Frazier Museum when I was interested in starting the podcast and was like, Hey, I wanna start a podcast. You guys have this an option. And they were like, what are you talking about? Um, which also kind of begs the question to me, are these any of these judges getting favors using their ju judge status? You know what I mean? Like, Hey, I'm a judge. Can I get access to this? And I, I, I have, I'm just asking questions. I'm not saying anything for sure. Yeah.

HughBut also, I mean, saying, hi, I'm judged so and so, do you have space? Like if somebody says, oh, it's a judge, maybe we would let them do that. They're not gonna trash the place. They're gonna be, you know, better. And, and the ordinary reasons for us not renting the place out maybe would be different. I don't know. I'm

Christinegonna have to consult the federal statue on public corruption on that one. I don't know. That makes me nervous. I certainly wouldn't advise that a judge do it. And of course, I'm not making any sort of allegation. I agree. I'm just saying what I've seen.

Hugh[00:14:00] I agree. No, I, I agree with that. I'm just, yeah, I mean, I would imagine that it's a title that opens doors, whether you. Actively seek it or not. Yeah.

ChristineWell, and people

Hughknow who you are.

ChristineThat division is one. And, and to give the benefit to Derwin Censored, that is a division that I can say with pretty much a hundred percent certainty. You, there is demeanor from the bench. You are not gonna be chastised, you are not gonna be spoken to in a way that is just like soul crushing, whether litigant, pro se attorney, there is definitely a decorum from the bench in that court. It,

Hughyeah. And it's, I mean, I would say more so than most any place I've ever practiced. In fact, I've had some cases Yeah. That were just crazy and you left exhausted and they were fun to practice. Mm-hmm. But you just, what is gonna happen today? I have no idea what's gonna happen in that courtroom, but the one thing you did know was you just never expect anything out of the ordinary from the bench. And you knew that everything would be the decorum would be maintained by all parties, a hundred, all the parties. You would make [00:15:00] sure everybody acted correctly. He would do it. In a very authoritative way by, but still very professional. A hundred percent. And, uh, yeah, it was always just a pleasure to try cases in that courtroom. Now, now

Christinepleasure is a, like a, a different word for me just because of the rules of evidence and things like that. Yeah. But knowing your client wasn't gonna sob and like on the way out was definitely something you could guarantee.

HughOh yeah. No, no. That I am, the client experience intent was that, you know, I may not win. The judge listened. Mm-hmm. You could tell he paid attention. He wasn't looking at his computer screen or his phone. And if, well, in my experience and if an objection was made or you were arguing some finer point of law, I loved the fact that he was curious enough to wanna know more about it, ask, you know, and ask you to explain and to tell you where you got that from and hear it out. And then if it was complex enough and he wanted to go read about it before he ruled on it, he would. He would take that under that issue under submission and [00:16:00] move on to the next thing so we could properly take the time to look at it instead of a knee jerk reaction about it. There was actually a curiosity there. Yeah. To get it right. I.

ChristineAnd so yeah, now we said all the positive things, but now talking about the, the podcast, I will say, and I'll say this pretty confidently, and especially from the people that I've talked to that are pro se as well, his division takes the longest to get an order in Louisville. I mean, you're talking in Louisville? Yeah, in Louisville for sure. Um, I mean, it's not

Hugheven close to, to the longest if you're looking the Louisville region, but Yeah. But in Jefferson County, yeah.

ChristineAnd so he takes the absolute longest to write orders. You know, I have people that have reached out to me that I've verified, you know, that you're talking about if you're being denied access to your child, and even if you win and get access to your child, but if you're waiting six months, nine months, 12 months, yeah. To get that, you know, that is, there's no way, shape, or form. I don't care what, there's no way that that outcome is in the best interest of a child, which is supposed to be the goal and the standard for family court. [00:17:00]

HughYeah, no, that, that was, it was very frustrating. We had. I've had cases that had safety issues mm-hmm. That had big decisions. Yep. After, after hearings that, and I'll be honest, there were, there were hearings that had some safety issues. I, I had a case that got transferred out of his division just because of the amount of work it would be. I think he got another huge case that would be very time consuming and they reallocated hours just so that one judge didn't end up with cases. We, we were, we, our case management conference were a day, day and a half each, and we would have them often, so we probably needed 14, 15 days of trial in the case. And he got us in within two weeks for the emergency hearing and heard everything. And it was like he was taking it very seriously. And I, I felt very good about that. But then the order didn't come for a long time and there was this sort of status quo that was going on with both parents having access to the child. That was, at least from our perspective, our client's perspective. Dangerous. Yeah. And [00:18:00] by the time. The order came out and it was really only after it got transferred and the, and the new judge reached out to Judge Censored to say, we're, you know, we can't move forward with certain things until you rule on this. By the time it came out, the status quo had been going on long enough that the friend of the court, or I guess the guardian ad lit him on the case. Had just sort of said, well, it can't be that dangerous. But who knows would've happened during that time if all of the things that we proved at that hearing. Yeah. Were, you know, had actually had actually, you know, our worst, the worst case scenarios had come to light just because we were waiting and there were no protections in place.

ChristineAnd then you have time, um, to go record a port, uh, podcast and you have a time to go visit and take pictures at school with children, you know, and, and on a regular basis. And I do, I taught at a Title one school. Loved it. Love the kids. If you wanna have hope for this country, you need to go do that. Um, hardest job I ever had. But that being, and it's great for judges to go meet, but when I was in Asia, and I know you've been to Asia several years ago, [00:19:00] I, I distinctly remember. In Cambodia, and this was probably a year, year and a half ago, seeing all of the pictures on each street corner of like the politicians, the kings, all of that surrounded by children. And it really struck me because I thought about a lot of the propaganda, or I won't use the word propaganda that our judges do, where they're taking pictures at elementary schools and middle schools and in the middle of the day, which is also their workday. And just the notion that, that is so disarming to the general public, oh, hey, they care about kids. And I'm not saying that they don't,

HughI was about to say, I, it would be hard to, hard to want to be in that position, in that job without caring, not caring about kids. I would think,

Christinewell, what's, I mean, what's more important? You know, you got a kid that's serious, in serious, you know, risk and you can't issue an order to protect that child. But you can go have a photo op at a Title one school. Well,

HughI, I'm not saying that that's incorrect. What I, what I, what I think though is that. [00:20:00] The, the court process, it, it just becomes like a machine. And the cases are like pieces of a machine and they're less actual real kids. I mean, I, and that's speculation, but it has to happen. I, right. If you're, if you're sitting up there and there are tens of thousands of new cases coming in, those individual facts, scenarios and cases stop looking like individual fact scenarios and cases. And if you're sitting in one hearing and you know, you got five more directly after you're sort of mentally about halfway through one, you're mentally preparing for the other. And I think that's just natural. I think it's a, a problem with, with the system and, and I will always say that family court is a court of last resort. It is the last place you should be actually making decisions for your family. And it should only be for emergencies and people who just cannot be reasonable with each other to get things done,

Christineor victims of people that can't be reasonable. But yeah, I know exactly. Oh, victims. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No,

Hughyou're right there. There are. There are a lot of dockets that I did [00:21:00] not practice very often that I tend to sometimes forget about, but there are, yes. The, I, I consider those emergencies. Yeah. Yeah. Like if someone's in danger, whether it be kids, adults, anybody that's being victimized or in danger, there are provisions within our statutes that require those cases to be in front of a judge within a very specific timeframe. And that's,

Christinewell, there's a new movement and I think this is a great way to like segue on and we'll come back to division 10, maybe at, maybe at a later date, but there's a huge movement and we call 'em high conflict cases but within the family court reform, you know, and I've been dabbling in that for like a year now, the notion that it's two people that can't co-parent when in reality it's one person that can't co-parent. Sure.

HughNo, I agree with that.

ChristineAnd I think, I agree. There is a fundamental, we have this saying and it's terrible and oh my gosh, don't, don't get mad at me. But when I first started practicing, I heard it and it was like, green bugs. You know what I'm talking about? You remember that? I have

Hughheard this, but I don't remember.

ChristineIt's like green bugs. Like attract green bugs. Green bugs, like green bugs. Oh yeah. And it was like, if you've got a crazy person on one side, the other person might be crazy. Um, or you've got a difficult person on [00:22:00] one side, the other person might be difficult. And I do think after practicing and then being out of it, oftentimes when you're going to, like, I, I know you told your, I mean, I told my clients, you do not want this person making a decision about what color you do your hair, let alone your kids for crying out loud.

HughUm, especially given, okay, imagine we have a half day trial. Well, each side gets half of that. The attorney's gonna be speaking 80% of the time. You are gonna be giving some of the answers. But I gotta get some testimony from other people and then we've got some documents. That is the only thing the judge is ever gonna know about your life. Right. And you're asking him or her to make. Que uh, decisions on the most important aspects of your life, your children's life, your fu, your financial future, all of that's gonna be decided based on that small amount of evidence. And that's if you're in a county like Jefferson County where you have 10 divisions and they can devote a half day trial to things, or like in [00:23:00] my case, a multi-day trial. You know, you, you're gonna, I fully expect I'm gonna be waiting a long time for a long, multi-day trial. We're taking up an entire division for, for a period of time. I get that. But in a lot of counties, you're gonna do your full trial in two hours or less. Oh yeah.

HughAnd you're dealing with custody, parenting time, safety of children. You're also dealing with retirement accounts, maintenance, child support, all the financial stuff, who keeps what bank accounts, whether you're gonna have to sell your house. All of that is being taken care of in a two hour period with the attorneys. We love to talk and, and then the parties that really matter just get to answer questions and have to be reminded, oh, you're only here to answer that question. Don't talk about anything else, just yes or no to this. And give us the short, the short version of everything. 'cause we're in a time crunch and your whole life's gonna be decided on that.

ChristineTotally. I mean, dude, this is crazy. But you know, I tried a whole sa case circuit court jury trial in one day. I mean, voir dire trial, sentencing. Oh, all of it. When in the [00:24:00] counties, when I was a public defender. Um, that

Hughhappened. I mean, where I, I mean some of the towns, uh, where I grew up or where I lived when I was younger. Yeah. The smaller towns in the South, that's, that was just how it was done.

ChristineYeah. I remember like the first time I got a hearing date for something in, you know, or one of the first times when I first came into family law in Louisville and I was like, two hours, we don't need two hours for this. I can do this in 15 minutes. You know what I mean? Like, and the other side it was, uh, d Craig Osco. Did you ever case with her? Oh yeah. Yeah, I will, oh my word. She put her finger in my face one time, um, during mediation. It was so bizarre. And I remember being like, uh, I didn't know. I almost wanted to giggle. And obviously I respect my, you know, elders, but it was so shocking to me. 'cause you, you have a yeah, sa pretrial about, with a prosecutor where like something real bad has happened. Like, and there was, you know, you didn't get spoken to like that from a prosecutor. We're doing our job. And this was, Dee was so mad about, I, it was something like so arbitrary. I remember being like, well, uh, you know what I mean? [00:25:00] I ain't in Kansas anymore.

HughWas there client there? Yeah.

ChristineOkay. No, no, he not in front of the client. 'cause if it had been done in front of my client, I don't know. Like I do remember being like just looking at the wall. 'cause I did, you know, I can be reactionary and you. Don't, like, that's an aggressive stance to take with somebody. It is. And I just remember being like, I, I don't actually know what to do other than like, and I told you this story off the record, like, I won't, not about this one, but another judge that one time was like, I remember I was up there and you just were like, you backed up to the podium and I was worried that I'd offended you. And I was like, honestly, you were just screaming and embarrassed yourself. Like, and I didn't know what to do other than to just be like, oh, another

Hughattorney you mean? No, this

Christinewas a judge. Oh, this was one of the judges that, um, a female judge. But I just remember, I digress. But being so, it's so shocking to me when people lose their control like that about something so minimal that it, it's, it makes me feel embarrassed for them. There's some people

Hughthat practice that way, and I'm, I'm not saying Dee was one of them because I, I got to know her pretty well. One of the things that surprised me coming [00:26:00] from a non-family law background was the showmanship. Yeah. Yeah. Like I, I saw plenty of posturing. In politics and lobbying and that kind of stuff. But the showmanship, especially if a client was in a room, and then how the demeanor could change immediately when it's just the attorneys like in the room with a mediator and everyone's totally cool. Yeah. And it's a show, and then once you figure it out, you react differently to things. Mm-hmm. Then there are the people that only practice by getting angry and they figure that a certain percentage of the time they're gonna win just by being the loudest person in the room and they don't have to prepare all that much. And then there are those, and I always found, uh, my, my former business partner was phenomenal at never getting riled up and would make people melt down by just not taking the bait and like smugly smiling and then just waiting for them to finish and then talking about something totally different and not reacting. And it worked so well and I've, I've never been great at that. I'm terrible at it, but I've realized exactly there are certain types of people that that's how you deal with them. And boy it works. [00:27:00] I've had judges tell me after I've just stayed calm and let people rant and rave and then just gone about getting my proof on and sat down calmly afterwards that they just really enjoyed watching that, that there was, you know, no, yeah, no. A good way to handle it. I know. For being

Christinecrash out, Christine, no doubt.

HughOh, I can be, and yeah,

Christinebut I've never put my finger in somebody's face unless I was expecting it to escalate. That bother me. Yeah. Yeah. And I

Hughfound that, uh, I don't know when that was. I, I

Christine2014.

HughOkay. So, yeah, I, I remember practicing with her as she moved a lot more toward mediation, uh, before she retired. And it just, you know, people, I guess they, they mellow and practiced differently, but I, I had more cases then, and I came in expecting. Yeah. There were some, some older attorneys also that I'm, I'm thinking of that. When you got a case with them. Oh boy. Yeah. You prepare your client and they're gonna be very aggressive and they'll be in your face and they're gonna just, at this deposition, they'll dig into anything and everything to wear you down. And then they'll get to the important stuff. And then you, you, you get in there and they're just laid back and you realize that Oh yeah. Just people, yeah, [00:28:00] people do tend to mellow and it's just like, oh, this is very different than it was like five years ago when I had to sit through a deposition that you were conducting.

ChristineWell, I think too, I was like, I came back in 2014. She didn't know me. I don't think she would've talked to somebody that was like one of the regular practitioners. Like I think she just thought, who is this girl? You know what I'm saying? Like, I was brand new and I got that a lot from the bench. But I got a funny story about Dee, she called when I was pr uh, teaching and she was so desperate to come to speak to the kids as far as like for a media appearance as far as like for a woman's group that she was in, just about how important it is to vote. And I did ask her, I was like, are you gonna tell the kids that they should or shouldn't put their finger in someone's face? When they're an attorney. Um, what did

Hughshe say?

ChristineShe, I mean she just said, oh, how are you, you know, the typical like da da da and then somebody else from the organization react came. How react. Well, and you realize too, like there's so many people, you know, from how I was raised, it's like you can't, the person that could be the low man on the totem pole could be the smartest person in [00:29:00] the room. Oftentimes they are the smartest person in the room. Um, and so you gotta be careful at the battles you pick with people that you don't know just for the sake of picking them. Oh, sure. You know what I mean?

HughOh, I, I agree completely. I agree completely. Because one of, one of the things about family law this very different than a jury trial is if you're trying to, you have a style that is, I'm always gonna be angry. Yeah, yeah. And try to make the impact, or I'm the one that is always going to be where we're gonna somehow be the victim. And you know, it's gonna be like every little thing is an affront to this or to that, and make it something bigger. That's a style that could work if you're in front of a jury the first time and only one time. Right. But if you're in front of the same judges year after year and they see you and you do that every single time, it has no effect whatsoever, other than your client might think, oh, that was brilliant. It looks great. Yeah. But the, the, it's almost like you have a playbook and the judge presiding over it, or opposing counsel if they've tried cases with you before they know exactly what's coming. Yep. Almost word for word. Oh, this is gonna happen. And, and sometimes you [00:30:00] just, you get it out of the way. You plant something just to get them going off on a tangent because you know that they can do it and that you, you use it to steer the trial. I've just never found that, that kind of practice to be

Christineeffective, to

Hughbe effective long term. But boy, I remember people trying to rattle me when I came in and I was young kid coming in there acting like I knew what I was doing and ugh. Oh man. And it just, but yeah, I, I also remember those same people that gave me a lot of hell. And messed with me when I, when I was younger, if I came out and I did a good job at a hearing, they were, it was like sort of your rite of passage. Yeah. Everybody was cool with you and you were, you know.

ChristineWell, yeah. That was the weird thing for me though, was I was like, y'all, I've already done this. I went to Eastern, I went from Boston to Eastern Kentucky. Can you imagine? 25 years old, like, oh my gosh, I'm here to like, you know, I mean, just arrogant, ego, all the things they put me in their place, but I was just like, I've already paid my dues. You know what I mean? Like Yeah. But if

Hughyou haven't paid your dues there, yeah. I mean, it is different. You get, oh hell. I mean, I, I know you had to have experienced it years into [00:31:00] your career. You go out to some other county and you get you, you know, unless you look like an old, an old withered, uh, grizzled attorney. As long as you look somewhat youthful, people are gonna try to rattle you and, and see, see what you're made of. Well, I feel you're new commodity.

ChristineNo, I feel at home in the counties. That's how, well, you know, I was raised like, like, not like actual, but like legally raised by that old school homecooked. So I understand the notion of like, Hey, go introduce yourself to the police officer. Hey, introduce yourself to the sheriff. Yeah. Hey, go to the clerk. Like, hey. And then if they start to say something, obviously I got an accent too, which does help, but I'll just be like,

Hughoh, it's huge.

ChristineI will say something. You know, I'll be like, y'all, if you're trying to home cook me. I used to practice in Eastern Kentucky and I got a, you know, prosecutor's cell phone you can have, they'll show you how it's done. We'll

Hughjust go work the room and talk to the other attorney. If the opposing counsel's in the courtroom, go introduce yourself and. Yeah. I mean, it makes, it makes a big difference. But I, Jefferson County is a foreign

Christineto me, the way it's handled. They, Louisville thinks it's the most important thing to ever live, and we've got, it's a nearly [00:32:00] $6 billion judicial budget and it is the most inefficient part of the judiciary in the whole, in the commonwealth of Kentucky. In my opinion.

HughI could point out tons of problems with decisions being made without a hearing that should be made without a hearing. But I, I always found that in Jefferson County, that happened far less than anywhere else in so many places. It was just, alright, we're all here. Let's just hash it out right here at motion hour. Or, here's what I think should happen. Why don't you guys go do this? We don't need to have a hearing on this. And you're thinking that's not the way it works. Might make a lot of sense for practical reasons. It might save a lot of people, a lot of money if they can't afford for their attorneys to go have a hearing. I get why it happens and it happens very organically in a lot of courtrooms where. Clearly the judge is familiar with both parties. They've been in front of the judge a million times. Mm-hmm. They brought this other issue, but it's still a court of law. It still requires a hearing with people sworn in before you can make a decision. Totally. I just, I saw [00:33:00] that far less in Jefferson County, and in fact I became, you know, it was a little bit when I, you got so used to it happening outside of Jefferson County that you almost didn't get upset about it when it happened, but when I would see it happen here in Jefferson County, I would get really upset about it. 'cause Oh, that doesn't happen here. We get hearings, we actually sit down and, and if I need a two hour hearing, I can have a two hour hearing on one issue, which you can't get most other places. Oh,

Christineyou're gonna be shocked. Some of the video I've gotten recently where judges are, aren't swearing people in here in Jefferson.

HughOh, I listen, I, I, I wouldn't be, I wouldn't be shocked. I remember,

Christinesorry, go on. I interrupt. Oh, no, no,

Hughno, no, no, no, no. I just, I remember walking out of a hearing. My former, uh, law partner walked out of a hearing on a different floor and we met and we were gonna go back to the office. And I, I said, how's it going? Well, we started without swearing anyone in and go straight into testimony. I was like, he said how about you? And I'm like, same [00:34:00] exact thing happened with me. Had to stop and go back through everything because we all realized that we had never really start, no, mine was, uh, maybe didn't go on the record and started the hearing without going on the record. Never had the record running, had to start over, and the other, and his was, no one got sworn in, so they had to start over and go through it.

ChristineYeah. I mean, because what is the definition of testimony? Sworn statement. Yeah. A statement that is not sworn is not testimony,

Hughand it's not an affidavit that can't be cross examined.

ChristineSo it's just, and this, this kind of, and I mean this is so basic that it is, it's shocking to even have the conversation. Um, the level of, I mean, is there a word other than incompetence? Uh, I don't know. I

Hughdon't know. I mean, I, I mean,

Christinemake a checklist, you know, swear parties in, check.

HughYeah.

ChristineTurn cameras on. Check.

HughIs it the result of a system where you just have too many things going on and you're processing it like a fam uh, a factory and it just, things fall between the cracks?

ChristineOkay. Well, what [00:35:00] happens when a factory falls between the tracks? Or like, what happens? Like there's a massive lawsuit because somebody gets hurt or like,

Hughoh, I, I, I'm not, I'm not justifying it. I'm just trying to think of, you know, there, there are explanations other, I mean, because I've, I see it happen. I mean, frankly, I've seen it happen in the judges. I like to practice in front of most people that I know are intelligent people that I have known personally, that are fascinating, smart people that just in any other aspect of their life aren't doing those kinds of things. So it,

Christineyou know, I mean, we could make 'em a checklist and send it to 'em. I don't think that would be ex parte.

HughWell, you know, honestly, I, I've practiced in front of judges who had lists. Of the, these are the only objections you can make. Here are the rule, there are the proper objections when you make an objection, state what your objection is. And it was so clear that when you did it, they weren't familiar with any of those objections and didn't understand how they worked. Even though they had them put, you know, right there and, and, and taped onto the, [00:36:00] uh, litigation table. So I don't know that that would, that would help.

ChristineYou can't make it up. You really cannot make it up.

Speaker 13Yeah. Yeah. We need some. Justice. Justin found justice.