Dressing Down

Hugh[00:00:00] I'm looking forward to the day where it's not triggering, where I don't go right back to feeling like I'm in, in that person's shoes. Getting no shit. Yeah,

Christineno shit.

ChristineAll right, y'all. Welcome to the Judgmental podcast. We are going to talk about the viral clips of the week from judges on social media. We're gonna talk about why both of us, Hugh and I left the practice of law after 30 years combined between us. We're also gonna give some advice for how to deal with these judges. Not legal advice, but just kind of how to conduct yourself in court. Thank you so much for tuning in. You wanna jump right into the judge that snapped at the old guy?

HughYeah. Well, first I wanna say yeah, thanks for tuning in and for content ideas. We'd like to hear from you guys. Please what you want us to cover, what types of things related to court judges, those types of things. We wanna make sure we hit content that people are looking for. Also shout [00:01:00] out to three Floyd's Brewery for a phenomenal beer. Drinking a gumball head today.

ChristineSo it's been one of those days here. I'm sitting here sipping my ice tea, but. Hugh was ready to inbibe Yeah. And I'm Jelly

Hughneeded, needed to.

ChristineMm-hmm. [00:02:00]

HughIn my experience was not frequent, but was also not unheard of, where a judge would get very frustrated with someone and they're not getting the answer that they want, even though the person is telling the truth. We have an attorney who did not get any kind of written notice of a hearing,

Christineallegedly,

Hughallegedly who shows up to a hearing because allegedly they, they received some sort of tip off from someone that a hearing was taking place, showed up, and the judge was very frustrated and the judge just acted very unprofessionally and yelled and acted very condescending and getting frustrated. With the attorney. [00:03:00] And it seemed to be just sort of the last straw.

ChristineYeah. And I don't even know if maybe the attorney couldn't hear him. This guy is so elderly. I'll tell you, this one sent me to a new level of rage for a plethora of reasons. Yeah. Mainly I think this shows like the demeanor that some judges have, like this judge should be removed from the bench for that behavior in and of itself.

HughWell, I think somebody talked to him about it and to his credit, he apologized and apologized to the attorney's face. I think he was appearing, I think he was upset because the attorney was appearing by Zoom. Yeah. And I think the attorney was presumably appearing by Zoom because he had just received notice of the, he, I hadn't received formal notice that there was going to be a hearing. He. Found out from some confidential source that there was going to be a hearing and he wanted to make sure it didn't take place without him being there as an attorney for a party in interest Naturally should not go forward without him there. Right. And was being dressed down terribly for it. Now I know that clip at the end is the judge apologizing in person. So there was obviously at a later [00:04:00] date where that attorney was there in present, in person, present in the courtroom, which needed to happen.

ChristineI think it was the next week. And I, I don't think an apology suffices there. Like, and I think this is the bigger picture there is, in my opinion, there is zero way that that judge would behave like that outside the courtroom. And so that judge is aware that that's inappropriate behavior. And I think we see that a lot with judges like we've talked before on this podcast. There's no way some of the judges, the way they have spoken to me and my clients would ever speak to me like that on the street corner, ever.

HughI mean, a judge, you would never expect someone to walk up to you on the street and talk to anyone, let alone someone that they, you know, the judge has to have a professional relationship with someone that is practicing in that judge's court that if that happened outside of the courtroom, that would be completely unacceptable. But inside the courtroom it's an elderly

Christineperson.

HughWell, and [00:05:00] someone who was just being grilled on why he was there by Zoom when it's the judge

Christinestaff is the one that fucked up.

HughWell, I don't know. I don't know , who did it, but if, if what he is saying is true, he didn't get written notice of it. Mm-hmm. And it's only because someone tipped him off that he actually was there. And god knows what would've would've happened if that hearing had gone on without him there and he didn't have notice, then you'd run into so many problems. But if you were that person's client mm-hmm. How in the world. Would you have an expectation that your judge was going to be objective on your case if a judge acted that way toward your attorney? Right. And this is something that, while I didn't have that situation that often, although there were one or two judges that if they were in a bad mood, you could expect that kind of behavior either toward a client or toward, toward the attorney. And you could tell within the first minute, minute and a half of a [00:06:00] proceeding or a motion hour how that was going to go. But from a client's perspective, I, I've seen that happen to where I've had to argue with a judge over a call that wasn't correct, that was dispositive or, or was highly prejudicial to my client's case. And it was clear to me that the judge, there was something that needed to be explained and it would change the ruling on it. And. I always went about it very quietly. I like I'm not, I wasn't perfectly stoic. I showed emotion in the courtroom, but I didn't get upset and I always tried to be very gentle and in sort of explaining things. And you would be met with the kind of reaction we saw in that video. Yep. And then as happened in that case, the judge realized that he was incorrect and the attorney was correct, but and that will happen in the courtroom and the [00:07:00] judge will then reverse, , the ruling and let something in that you needed to get in or exclude something that should very, you know, should under the rules be excluded, but then the client is left with an impression. Yeah. That no matter what happens at that hearing, what I would find is I would go through the rest of the hearing if we performed very well. That moment is what stuck , in the client's mind.

ChristineWell also, do we know if this judge just apologized because the clip was going viral or because they knew someone had leaked it on TikTok, , or was it genuine? 'cause in my experience, grown men or women don't huff and puff and behave like that in a professional setting as a one-off. That's a general standard practice.

HughYeah. No, I, I would agree with that, that it's I never saw it from a judge just one time. Yeah. If I practice regularly in front of them, my guess, and it's just a guess, but from a lot of [00:08:00] experience is that that judge had good staff and a lot of times if you have staff that's been with you for a long time and can speak freely with you, when he finished off the bench, he was told in no uncertain terms by his staff that. You can't act like that. Do you realize what just happened and, and hopefully how you, how you reacted to that attorney was very unprofessional.

ChristineWhat do you think his punishment should be?

HughOh,

Christineif any,

Hughfrom a one-off instance like that, which is all we know about. Okay. All we saw the clip. He apologized. He apologized professionally. The attorney handled it very well. I think that's it. If it's one time a face-to-face apology

Christinenot for me. Okay. You know what? I think it should happen? I think he should have to go down to like an IGA in eastern Kentucky, find the oldest person shopping there, go up to them, speak to them like he spoke to that elderly attorney, and then whatever happens, happens.[00:09:00]

HughYeah. I, you know, the way that I saw the clip, . It seems like an ancillary fact that the attorney is elderly. It didn't seem like the it doesn't seem like the reaction from the judge was coming from something that resulted in, from the attorney's age. I mean, I think that there should probably be I, growing up in, in South Carolina, certainly there's a. Level of deference and respect that you owe to your elders.

ChristineYeah,

Hughyou absolutely, but I think the two things, I can't tell if they're, if that's related or not, or if the judge was just in a bad mood and the person, whoever it was that was there appearing by Zoom, was gonna get that kind of treatment no matter who.

ChristineI guess I could see that. I just think that it's a notion that there's no. Way. I mean, we could take it outta Eastern Kentucky and we could say, let's go down to the 32nd and West Broadway and go up to somebody, an elderly person or a young person, and speak like that. And then whatever happens,

Hughyou g you would get slapped and you should

ChristineOh. I mean, you get, [00:10:00] and the thing that's the point is like, he would know better not to behave like that. Yeah. So he puts this black robe on and gets Judge iis and just thinks he can speak to someone like that. And that just like a simple apology is gonna cut it. I mean, that, that made me sick. And I think Well, it's

Hughbecause you've been through it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You, it brought back the feelings of you sitting in the courtroom and that's happening and you're powerless. Mm-hmm.

HughAnd you're wondering, oh God, how do I explain that? What do, what do I have to tell my client after this? Because ding, ding, ding, I'm right. I didn't do anything wrong. Right. But I'm being dressed down and they're gonna think. Naturally this judge wouldn't be mad if I hadn't done anything wrong.

ChristineYeah, that's so true. Also, I just posted our clips of us talking about the judge that used to get mad at everyone. Mm-hmm. And the comments and the dms and just some of the pro se people that responded. Just everyone

Hughknew who it was.

ChristineOh yeah. Actually, it's funny. One person suggested another old attorney, which she was a little out there sometimes too, but old

Hughattorney or old judge,

Christinejudge. Judge. Yeah. I'll tell you later. But the [00:11:00] traumas, the power that these judges have and the fact that they don't quote unquote realize it or if they do realize it, they're just utilizing it to be abusive. And that's where I really struggle 'cause I just struggle that any human being it's the same thing with like domestic violence, right? Like you yell at your significant other at home or you tell them horrific things in private that you would never do in public. It's because you know better. It's a bad look. And these judges in particular, the judge that we talked about previously, would never speak to any of us like that off the bench. It was something that happened the second that she stepped foot on the

HughYeah. And do you know what type of proceeding Nope. That video was from? So on this podcast we talk a lot about family court and if it were just attorneys appearing before a judge for a pretrial case management conference. It would not be excusable, but it would be easier to understand where, the judges that could talk very frankly with the attorneys, I oftentimes liked that, but only if you could, everybody could just lay it on the line and cut the [00:12:00] BS while you were talking at a pretrial, if you were off the record or sitting in chambers. Not ex parte, but like everyone together. I appreciated that. I'm not saying that just treating somebody like that in general is okay. Yeah. But when we're talking about family court, there is a much higher level of sensitivity because of the issues that we're dealing with. Sometimes it's just financial. Sometimes people are being petty about something financial that has very little value, and it's just the emotions and all, and the judges will get frustrated. But for the most part, people are there arguing over the most important things. Their life. Yeah. And when it comes to people's children, and you see a judge acting like that and getting frustrated and not wanting to spend the time to get to the bottom of something so simple about maybe everyone should receive adequate notice of a hearing. That's, that has a substantial impact on the case. When you see that happen in family court, , it's chilling. It's [00:13:00] shocking. And it's a terrible experience to have to sit through because you have to sit there and say, yes, judge. Thank you, judge.

ChristineYour honor, your honor, no matter how,

Hughyour Honor, how, no matter how, yeah. Depending on which courtroom you're in no matter how they're treating you. And you have to immediately start thinking, well, how am I gonna explain this to my client because they're gonna think I did something wrong, because the judge is in a bad mood. But it's even worse when you see that happen to a client. Yeah. And I've sat through a trial where that happened two or three times in the courts of a full day trial and. , Opposing counsel came up afterwards and said, wow, , does the judge know your client? Like, why does she hate her so badly? And it's just every time she would say something, the judge would roll her eyes and cut her off and just get to the point. And it was, but it was from the very beginning. And I'd kind of seen that before to previous hearing. So we had scripted out, not, not scripted. We had gone through question and answer the we. There was no rambling, there [00:14:00] was no extraneous information. There was, I'm asking a very specific question. You're giving a very specific answer. We're building our story, we're putting on the evidence that we needed. It wasn't something where, I mean, we've all sat through testimony that just meanders and wanders and everybody in the courtroom is tense and frustrated with it. It was not that, and the judge was treating it like it was the most pointless thing in the world. It was just so not worth her time. And. You don't get past that?

ChristineNo. It makes me physically ill to think about, and we talked on our first podcast about how attorneys need to speak up and you know, I think it's great in hindsight to think about all the things I've done since I left the practice or that we're doing now, but then if I had a dollar for every time I didn't speak up when something like that happened. Oh, yeah. You

Christineknow, I mean, there's a lot of guilt that comes with that too.

HughOh no, I agree. And, and, but, but it's, it's always the question of what do I do? This is not, so if a judge is acting or any, it's like anyone acting irrationally. Mm-hmm. [00:15:00] You want to have a rational response to it, but then you have to think, is that going to make a difference? Because they're acting irrationally anyway. So if they are mad about something and. They're treating someone in some outsized way. How? Like what is the appropriate thing to do? , If we were giving advice to young attorneys who are experiencing that, what would you say? Because if you bring it up, no matter how politely you bring it up. I'd say it's a coin flip. Whether or not you made things worse or not,

ChristineI don't disagree with that at all. I think what I would tell young attorneys now is to DM me, send it to me and I'll put it all over social media. And I'll put it all over and I'll put money behind sponsoring it. 'cause I tell you what, like, that one judge in particular, I heard a story that this judge said, if y'all can't get along, I can just put this kid in foster care.

HughYeah.

ChristineAnd if I, you ever heard that?

HughNo, no, no. I, I've heard this example.

ChristineOkay. And I'm gonna tell you right now, if I find video of that, I don't even care if it's [00:16:00] confidential. I'm gonna put it online. I won't do it associated with us. But that is, that is sick. That is disgusting. That is immediate removal from the bench. Even, even if it's,

Hugheven if it's just a threat to, you know, yeah. You, you threaten. You threaten people to get their attention. That's, it's just a, it's a different arena in court. Yep. You're not dealing with your own, you know, five-year-olds who are fighting. Right. It's like those types of threats are a big deal.

ChristineAnd I think that that is just next level. , The scary thing. 'cause I talk to some judges now and they're like, do you realize how stressful our job is? Like we have people that threaten us. We have all of this stuff. Well, if you have a judge that's threatening to put a kid in foster care because parents can't get along, your beef is with that judge. Because what would you do as a parent if you're going in and you're having some debate about, ah, hell, I don't know, a vaccine, whether or not somebody's gonna play soccer. And the judge is like, y'all don't get it together. I'm gonna take your kid away. Yeah.

ChristineI mean that's, you would not [00:17:00] have a, you wouldn't be a normal parent to be honest if you didn't have a visceral reaction to that.

HughOh, and it. Completely changed my perspective when I had kids of my own. And I saw that for the first time. And I thought if I was sitting in a hearing in front of someone who has full power to do whatever he wants or she wants with my children. Yeah.

HughIncluding take my custody away. Mm-hmm. And they were acting that flippantly about my kids. I don't think I could sit as commonly as my clients do, but I think so much of the time people sit there very commonly because they are in such shock. Mm-hmm. They don't know how to react. And let me tell you, when people speaking to people who aren't represented, when you do react. Usually gets much worse.

ChristineYeah. And I think that's kind of the cycle that we need to break. I mean, really and truly, it's a cycle, like a cycle of domestic violence, a cycle of alcoholism, a cycle of coercive control. The cycle that these judges have gotten themself into where it's just, it's one big club, you're not in it. [00:18:00] And we can do whatever we want without consequence. Time's up, you know? I think that's the point.

HughBut you see the opposite as well. I mean, you see judges , especially judges who have kids, and that those moments where they relate to people that are sitting there, yes, I know you think this is a big deal and I'm here to solve this and help you through it, but let me tell you, my kids are a few years older and this is gonna be nothing like I, I'm okay with sometimes you sort of, you know, it Family court requires sort of a different touch. Yeah. I think than, than certain other things. I, I think airing on the, like the compassionate side and completely ruling out any of the overreactions or being flippant is the only way you should deviate as a judge on the family court.

ChristineHell, I can't think of a time though that empathy is not gonna be beneficial to anyone on the bench. I mean that why else take the job if you can't empathize to see two sides of every story? Even even in criminal court though, I mean, , you have to understand like, have you ever read a PSI.

HughI don't believe I [00:19:00] have.

ChristineThat's a pre-sentence investigation. So every time you're charged with a felony, before you get sentenced they'll do a PSI. And in that PSI, they'll talk about literally every twist. And that is the, basically the background of any sort of dependency, neglect, and abuse action that's happened to somebody. And you will see the scenario. You know, a lot of times people don't get where they are in a vacuum actually most of the time. And the horrific things that people experience in their childhood or experienced in their life, and maybe this is why they're addicted to substances, or maybe this is why they act the way that they act. And so when sentencing them, you know, the best judges I ever practiced in front of didn't point their finger like, how dare you, you son of a, it was just, this is your sentence, this is your consequence, please, while you're in custody. Get treatment, address these issues, you know, you're still a human being. Yeah. And so I, , I just don't think this isn't Venezuela, you know, we aren't supposed to just decide one way and then stone someone, not that they stone [00:20:00] people in Venezuela, or do they? I don't know. They may, I mean, I don't,

Hughyeah. It may drag 'em off to a prison they're never heard from again. But I, I don't believe stonings are general practice. , You know, and I've had, I remember, I'm trying to think if this is confidential. No, I, I was involved in the case. I, and the father was had been shot six times in the chest and was still ended up without custody of his kids. The, the wife and mother of the kids shot him six times, invited him to the house, had him sit down on the couch, went to the back, grabbed a gun, walked in, and blew him away. And so you can imagine all of the things that the judge might have to make her the better bet for having custody of the kids, how bad it must have been. But I remember him in court sort of impassioned when he realized [00:21:00] that no matter what he did, you know, things weren't gonna change that day. He said something. But I was their father and I've done and the judge stopped him and I thought she was gonna dress him down or something. She said, no, I'm gonna set the record straight. We're gonna get this really clear right now. You are their father. Mm-hmm. Not you were their father. My ruling today does not take that away and I want you, and it was amazing to me mm-hmm. That the judge. Said, okay, we've got things we need to work on. There are things that we need to remedy. This is step one. You are, I'm not taking you out of these kids' lives. These are my expectations. You will always be their father. You're important to them. That kind of stuff I thought made a difference in people's lives.

ChristineAbsolutely. And I can go down the rabbit hole of talking about all the negative stuff that judges have done, but I have, I mean, there was a reason I was an attorney for, 15 years and I had some great judges, , and I did have a judge that yelled at me once and I appeared before him. Thousands of times. This is when I was a public defender and he did, he [00:22:00] snapped at me one time and I remember , he looked at me afterwards and was like, my bad, you know, after court was like, the look on your face was just sheer shock. And it was kind of like, oh my god, daddy just yelled at me. Like, because he'd always been, now he was stern and all of those things. Yeah. But that is not how he conducted business. This is Willie Roberts out of Eastern Kentucky and one thing that he always did in particular and I hope he doesn't get mad about me talking about that, but he did juvenile court and he would tell those kids every client I had, when you graduate high school, I'll be there. Like, you know what I mean? And or when you have this big thing, I'm gonna be there. And he went, he actually followed through with it. And now we're not talking about a district judge in Louisville. They, they have to, they have dockets, all they handle four counties. And he always went and he never took a picture of it. But that's the kind of stuff. Did he change every person's life? No. But did he change some people's? Yes. Yeah. And those are the stories that we need to highlight for the good. I'd love to hear from some of like prior public defender clients about things that [00:23:00] judges or attorneys did for them or how the system really helped them because there are so many of that. So yell at me when I go down my rabbit hole.

HughWell, I've also seen judges that say, look, I can empathize. If you were asking me just as a human being and this, these would happen in civil cases where you were having maybe a pretrial or you were talking in chambers about. What issues you were gonna proceed on, which ones might be good for mediation or mm-hmm. Or something like that. So, docket control. Yeah. Yeah. And you'd be sitting in the back and the judge would say, I could empathize. I would feel exactly the same way your client does, but legally you're gonna have to prove X, Y, and Z before I could see that there's a claim there. Mm-hmm. Just because, you know, this obviously happened, this was a bad thing that was traumatic. It doesn't mean that there's a legal claim. So there's a difference between empathizing and ruling for someone. Oh, true. It's just being human while still carrying out your duties as a judge.

ChristineYes. Yes. I think that maybe one of the missing components for a lot of judges is just that human component. And I think that we've seen that [00:24:00] just in the last three to five years. Like really, I think it has dramatically escalated. Am I wrong?

HughYou know, it's always hard for me to tell I've I litigated for almost exactly 20 years before. I decided to try to, to take the next step of my career in my life and oftentimes I, I think people look back on the past as better. Yeah. You know, there's this fallacy that, you know, things were better in the past, but I tend to think that you are correct, that things have gotten far worse, they've gotten more, they've gotten far less formal, and there seems to be, and I think honestly this mirrors society in general right now. There is a, there is a difference in the level of respect that's being given to other people, but I think it's mirrored in the courtrooms. And I think attorneys get frustrated and don't show the same respect for the judges as they used to. But it's sort [00:25:00] of like with kids, when parents. Or nasty to kids and they say, why are you disrespecting me? That's all you've taught. Mm-hmm. That's a reaction that you have to expect if you treat other people with disrespect all the time, you're gonna get it back. But I think that that's happening throughout society and we're seeing it reflected in our courts. But what you and I saw being family practitioners is how that change in the discourse had huge impacts on families. Yeah. It wasn't just, well, I'm not going to find that your offender bender was all his fault and I'm, you know, it'd be one thing. But when you're talking about someone's kid, something that is going to have lifelong implications. You're doing it flippantly or not paying people the respect of listening to their case and you're just watching your watch and watching your computer screen, it makes a big difference.

ChristineTotally. And that's just a segue for everybody listening. We're both licensed attorneys. We left, I left for sure because I just, I was at [00:26:00] my breaking point. I mean, there was like many straws, but there was one thing that broke the camel's back and you're a licensed attorney 20 years in. Let's kind of talk a little bit about why you left. How long did you wanna leave before you left finally?

HughOh that's hard to say. It's once I was out and I realized how different I felt as a human and how much healthier I was and how my mindset was after I left, I realized that I had been in a bad place for years. Mm-hmm. I think I started noticing it getting very bad. I'd say about five years before I left and. It involved panic attacks. It involved just being generally unhappy and early in the career, when you're building a practice, you work long hours, but you're into it. Mm-hmm. And you, you just, you care about your cases. You wanna fight. If you're a good attorney, you wanna fight for your clients. You personalize it oftentimes in family court way more than you should, and it's unhealthy, but you work those long hours. That's not what was getting to [00:27:00] me. It was, it was a lot of what we, we are talking about. And I pulled back further because I built a big practice in, in, you know, six offices in five states and we were growing very quickly. That part was very satisfying.

ChristineYeah.

HughBut the times I was spending in court, you were just there, there were a lot of problems for me, part of it was this breakdown that we discuss on this podcast. Mm-hmm. Another part to me was , the law office model, I think doesn't. Serve clients very well. I think the legal industry is broken in a lot of ways and something I will discuss more on my personal podcast, but I think there needs to be innovation, there needs to be some change in it. And I sort of hit the 20 year point and reflected back do I want another 20 years of doing the same thing? Do you making a lot of, you know, I was making very good money. Yeah, I was at a great stage in my career. I wasn't having to practice day in, day out, but I just, I wanted [00:28:00] something different. I wanted to make a difference.

ChristineSo let me ask you a question, and this is kind of heavy, but if the judges weren't how the judges are, would you have stayed longer, you think?

HughIt's hard to tell. Yeah, I think, I think a lot of it was just, there's a significant point in my career as it 20 years and I just sort of had to decide if things were changing or anything interesting was happening in it. I think I would've been in a more optimistic place when making that decision. I think I came to that decision, that inflection point, feeling like I was working just in a broken system from every single direction. Mm-hmm. And it felt you felt kind of defeated. Yeah. Like you just weren't able to make the difference that you wanted to? Yeah, so I don't know. It's very hard to say if it was different, but I think if I was able to feel I was making the difference in clients' lives that I felt like I was making 10 years [00:29:00] ago.

ChristineYeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I

Hughmet, I might have stayed there. That different level of satisfaction may have been there.

ChristineAnd I think it's because you used to, I mean, I love going to court. Like actually when we did our walkthrough the other day, you were like, I don't miss this at all. And I'm like, I miss, I miss so much. Like I really do miss practicing, but I couldn't go to court. Like I knew every single time I went to court that it was gonna be, for lack of a better term, just a shit show. There would be no order. It would either be. A continuance would be granted without it anyone asking for it. Yeah. People would be 20, 30, 45 minutes late. The judge hadn't read the motion, or you would be yelled at. Or even worse, it would be like just you go down a rabbit hole of something that wasn't even before the court, and somehow get an order of something that had nothing to do with what we'd prepared for in court. And it just, you couldn't prepare your clients. And I, Dr. I dreaded going to court with every ounce of my being. Yeah. Because I knew one. I [00:30:00] mean, you can't prepare and be productive in that environment, and that's our job. And two, you're gonna have to go out and have a conversation with your clients. Like, if I could record some of the conversations that I had after we left the courtroom, it would be a TV sitcom.

HughI started that conversation while we were sitting in the courtroom. I found that passing notes back and forth, or leaning back and whispering just to get ahead of. This is not, you know, yes, this is different than what I told you was gonna happen. Here's why it's different. And you know, sort of to prime them for it. Mm-hmm. Because I wanted them to pay attention to the next, you know, to take very seriously the next things that happened and not be too distracted by something just out of the ordinary that, that would happen that was not proper earlier in the hearing.

ChristineI mean, it would be a regular occurrence. And this is kind of off topic a little bit, I guess it's not, but I get a lot of calls from attorneys. I think last week I got 21 calls from different attorneys. And I had one of the attorneys be like, oh my [00:31:00] gosh, I told you not to say anything about something. I'm like, I didn't say anything about something. And they were like, I watched your TikTok about how an FOC didn't meet with a client. I'm like, honey bunny, bless your heart. That's happening. That's happening in this moment. Oh,

Hughyeah. All over the place. Right,

Christineright, right. I

Hughmean, I, it Oh. I would regularly, very regularly subpoena the billing records from the FOC before my hearings, just so that I could substantiate from their billing records that they did not have meetings to prepare for that hearing. And so,

ChristineFOCs are investigative bodies for the court, their attorneys, but a subpoena is a court order, and you're entitled to that. Right. And

Hughpeople treated me like it was the worst thing in the world. I was Whose people FOCs. Sometimes the courts when I would try to enforce those because they oftentimes were ignored or told that I'm not answering that I don't ha I'm a court appointed FOC I don't have to answer your subpoena. Oh, yeah, you do. You're a witness. You're an expert witness in this case. [00:32:00] And it, it was sometimes hard to get judges to enforce those. They, they always did to their credit, but it, it was very unusual to be doing that and people would get mad. But it was very important because I would say, okay. You say you met with your clients. You say they provided this , amount of information. I'm looking at your billing records. You didn't bill anybody for meeting with a client on those days. Could you be wrong about the days? Can you check your phone and check your calendar to see what days you had those meetings? And most of the time when I would ask that, they wouldn't look at their phone. They would just kinda look at me just like, yeah, I'm caught. What? What's gonna happen?

ChristineSo they were saying they met with the kids. Oh, yeah.

HughAnd hadn't, oh yeah.

ChristineI mean that's the kind of thing, like I just did a TikTok about how if your GAL or your FOC is not meeting with the child or children, it should be reported to the judge. And I think that goes without saying. Now, I don't know that the judges will do anything. In the

Hughinstance that I'm thinking of, the judge ruled strictly along the lines of the FOC report, despite the fact that never met, despite the fact that I think had not returned a call or an email to my client in four [00:33:00] months. And the ruling came out. Exactly as the FOC report went, now it got overturned. So, but you know, the client had to wait almost two years. And meanwhile what we were talking about is the suspension of his parenting time. So during that two years while we waited for the appeals. No unsupervised parenting time for kids. And the expert witness hadn't

Christinetalked to the client Correct. Or talked to the person for four months

HughYep. And actually admitted that all of the information he got was from , the therapist, not the children.

ChristineMy word. And I think talking about some reform stuff, you know, we can really, I think we need to change rule six which is a family court rule. But I do think that talk, talk about rule six. Well, rule six is the appointment of third party individuals that get immunity and they're court appointed. They get billed a, they bill hourly, blah, blah, blah. Cannot speak today. A friend of the courts, guardian ad litems, custodial evaluators, parenting coordinators. We need to have much tighter regulation on that. And I think it should be standard operating procedure for the FOCs to [00:34:00] include their bill in their report. Sure. And I think that's, without question, something the legislator has the authority to do. Yeah.

HughWell, I mean, you know that we have rules. Very specifically about FOC reports that say they have to file reports and they have to do it 10 days ahead of time. They have to give it copies to everyone and make their file accessible. How often was that happening when you left the practice? 0, 0,

Christine0. Need that. How many

Hughtimes in the last week have you heard people talk about cases or you've seen people arguing motions where there's been no report filed whatsoever in violation of the rules and nothing done about it.

ChristineI think when I told you that the attorney was like, you told my story, and I was like, I have 14 examples. Mm-hmm. And calls this week of either FOCs or GALS, that would include both not having met with the child or children in relation to that hearing coming up. And that's the other weird thing that GS and FOCs will do, is they'll meet with the kid like [00:35:00] September, 2021. They'll be like, of course I met with a kid. It's like, well, it is July, 2025. Right. You know what I mean? Like you, I just don't understand how judges, how they don't see it,

Hughdo

Christineyou?

HughOh I know that they see it, but they, I, from my experience is that you have this small group of people that do this work for the courts, and they are such an indisposable part of the court system. And I think that, you know, from what I've, I've I've heard nationwide, they're part of most family court systems and the judges have gone on to rely on them to do part of their work. And so they look the other way when those things happen. Because what can they do? Stop appointing this person. It's, it's not like every attorney is holding themselves out there to do it. Now there are court systems, I have colleagues and friends that practice in, in, in jurisdictions where everyone is one big pool of attorneys and you get [00:36:00] appointed to do that job and there are guidelines to it and you get in trouble if you don't do your job. So they have a large enough pool. Now, when you're dealing with family law cases, do you want to have GALs or FOCs that haven't been through training or anything that, you know, you've got other issues with that, but what we're really seeing is contracting out fact finding for the judges. And , you can sit in a hearing and you can prove on the record that the FOC didn't, didn't speak to the children, only got input from one side of the case over the last four months prior to that hearing. And you, I just regularly would see whatever the FOC went anyway. The judge didn't make any findings about them not doing their job or that their. What they reported to the court might be old 'cause they haven't spoken to one side or the children in four months, and they would rule just on what the FOC said because it makes their life easier, the person they appointed. And they know that most of the time, if you rely on what an expert says in court, [00:37:00] you're probably not gonna be overturned.

ChristineWhich gets to the bigger picture of just the nefarious cycle of all of it, which is why anyone that participates in that knowingly, I mean, it's got an aspect of it that feels, I don't wanna use the word criminal, obviously. I mean, some people may, I mean, if you're talking about like the mafia or something, some people may, but it feels like a machine that is designed to protect the people within it without any regard for how it affects families or children.

HughSure. No I agree. And one of the bigger examples, I mean we talk a lot about the jurisdiction where we practiced in largely Jefferson County, but I think, from people reaching out to us is clearly applies everywhere or it applies a lot of places nationwide.

ChristineYep.

HughWe have statutes that talk about if there is dependency, neglect, or abuse of a child. The case has to go through certain steps and has to go through during a specific period of time. There are ways to waive that period of time. But there are very specific requirements for [00:38:00] waiving that time period and moving forward in a certain way. It is such regular practice for things to go three to four times longer than the statutory period with no explanation to the parties who have to waive those time periods. And when I've raised it in my practice, I've always been told, you know, that's just the way we do it here. Yep. And you just hear that phrase made me. More upset than anything I heard during my whole practice where there's something that's so clearly against a statute violating people's rights, but it's just the way we do it here.

ChristineYep.

HughAnd it's the same people that would say it. It's the same people that are utilized by the courts over and over, and you're right, it's a machine. Mm-hmm. It's a system, and it no longer serves the purpose that it's there for and it doesn't serve the children that it's there to protect, specifically dependency, neglect, and abuse cases are there to protect children's safety. Mm-hmm. And when you just start coming up with your own rules and your own practices for [00:39:00] convenience rather than for the protection of the child, you're no longer. Carrying out what the statute established jurisdiction in that court for

Christinea hundred percent. And that's where it just gets weird to me because we wanna talk about all these good judges. And again, there are great judges, but the fact that they know this is happening and still pose for photos with them or still like their social medias, you know, I was even talking there was something that came up with one judge and it was so frustrating because I know that this judge, how one particular judge may feel about the way other judges behave. But, you know, posting with them doing that stuff is, is condoning it, in my opinion. Is it? Yeah.

HughI, I, if you know what's going on. Yeah, yeah. If you know

Christinewhat's going on.

HughYeah. I mean, I, I've had conversations with some judges. About the behavior of others, and they have done things been behind the scenes, but speaking to the right people to try to get things changed. Yeah, I know a particular judge this is probably 10, 15 years ago, who had her [00:40:00] computer screen taken off the bench because another judge received too many complaints from attorneys that judge was shopping online during hearings. So I know some judges do speak out. My question is, again, I think we covered this in, or we talked about this briefly at another podcast. If I'm two floors up from you, you're a judge that's acting improperly. I am doing my job and sitting up on a docket. , How do you know how someone is behaving on a very specific closed door docket? How do you know that your colleagues are behaving that way? And I think, oh, part of what I want to do here is make sure that everyone knows it. Yeah, yeah. And then maybe people can change their behavior.

ChristineBut I just think that it's one big club. We ain't in it. And I don't understand why they wanna be in it so bad. Like you are gonna sell your soul for $160,000 a year.

HughNo, I don't believe that at all. I think people, I think a lot of people, just like in any political position, go there for power. But I think there's [00:41:00] plenty of people that want to do. Do right by their community and do a good job in the community. And I've seen some judges who just genuinely want to get it right to the point where they also ignore the law. I've seen issues there, but it's just, I've never had any doubt where, why those judges work in those jobs. Well, intentioned

Christineright. But what I'm saying is. The ones like we have this very clear, like why I left the practice mm-hmm. Was because of one particular judge, an ex parte situation. Why I got on social media is because of what I refer to as the TikTok judge. But the backstory there is the judge had a set up on the bench where she could secretly selfie record herself during court proceedings. Now we're unclear of how often this was happening. I think it was happening much more than what she posted. But there are pro se people coming, crying about a domestic violence scenario, talking about their children. And she uploaded it to TikTok, hashtag [00:42:00] TikTok Judge, hashtag Domestic Violence. And I thought, surely to Christ and all the things, this will be enough to have her held accountable, sent it to all the judges. I don't know a single judge in Louisville that hasn't seen my post about this and yet. That judge is still on TikTok today. She's still on the bench, and the other judges associate with her. Why?

HughThat's a good question. I, if I were on the bench and that was happening, I don't think I could, I, I don't think that I could handle that the same way. They, I just, I wouldn't be able to, there's

Christinenever a scenario in which I would, even if I was friends with someone, I would be like, listen, Lizzie, you crossed a line. You can't be in charge of that anymore. Anyone that thinks that's an inappropriate, the conversation

Hughwould go, what the hell were you thinking? That's how the conversation would go. Like, how and what planet would it be acceptable for you to be hearing someone's domestic violence case that [00:43:00] affects crying custody and affects their children and for you to be live like, like recording? For your TikTok channel and using that for self-promotion.

ChristineYeah, it's insanity on every level. Yeah. And I just think that that's the same thing, like if you watch like George Floyd for example, it's like the cop that actually committed the M word. But there are three other law enforcement sitting there watching, not doing anything. And it's like, you wanna look at how many times was that cop, you know, did that cop do something that was out of bounds? And the other cops are like, oh, well, I mean, that's just my cop buddy and oh, Christine, you don't understand. We were at a Christmas party and we had a cocktail together, so we took a selfie. It's like there has to be accountability. The people you associate with and the behavior that you're well aware of, that you still continue to associate with that person, in my opinion, almost you're more culpable than the person that did it.

HughWell. There weren't other judges [00:44:00] sitting in the courtroom when that happened, but we do know, they all know that it happened. Yeah.

ChristineNow,

Hughnow do we know whether someone spoke to the bar, anything's been done behind the scenes? Because, you know, as well as I do that these things are handled behind the scenes, whether it's attorneys or judges the regulation of it, the, you know, any changes, redirection, any you know, polite punishment that's private, all of that stuff. Handles is handled behind the scenes. So we can't know whether colleagues went and said, what the hell are you doing?

ChristineRight. But we do know the judges still post with her, which to me is just, I don't understand if there's 39 of 'em, why 38 of 'em haven't gone to her and been like, listen, we got a good gig here. Okay, yeah. We're not in a courtroom at one 30 on a Tuesday and you done pissed Christine Miller off, so could you please just get off TikTok for like one week?

HughYeah. Well, wouldn't you do

Christinethat?

HughMaybe. I mean, I think I, I would, [00:45:00] yes, I would. Personally, I would say you, you're bringing heat on all of us and you're making everybody look bad.

ChristineAnd what you did was terrible. Unequivocally.

HughWell, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, absolutely. But the continue there, there are rules, for instance, that, that say that you shouldn't be. Promoting one political party or another, or political candidate. You shouldn't be online attending political events because your job as a judge to, is to be impartial and to seem like an impartial arbiter of whatever's in front of you. Mm-hmm. I think for the same reason there has to, I mean, I, I think you cross a line , with a lot of the social media that we see. Oh yeah. I think judges accounts that use the name judge in the account should by the public, be viewed as official accounts, even if they are not set up by, you know, the state or the city or the county or , the federal government. If you're holding yourself out as Judge Soandso [00:46:00] Absolutely. And you're posting pictures of you at lunch with attorneys. Then clients on the other side of cases are watching. They look at everything that their judge does. They look up what the opposing counsel does. Mm-hmm. They watch of course, what their, the other litigant does, and when they see a judge, you know, having drinks and celebrating with the other attorney on the case. There is simply no way in the world that they can think that you are impartial.

ChristineExactly. I couldn't agree more.

HughAnd, and do can judges have friends? Absolutely. And all of that stuff has to exist and you have to do your job. But the appearance of impartiality is an important part of the the canon of. What is it? The judicial candidate of ethics?

ChristineYeah. Well, and the other thing, they can have friends just don't post it on social media. I mean, it's a campaign tool. But the things I have found since looking into this I mean, there's one judge on the bench that endorsed another candidate. There's a judge that called candidates liars a week before the election. There are [00:47:00] former judges still using the judge name that are helping campaign for other judges that are now elected. And all of it just feels insanely wrong and inappropriate. And I think it's because a lot of judges don't have the prestige that they have and that they should have and the respect for the office that some of what I believe to be the old guard. I, I just can't imagine you, you want me to say something controversial?

HughSure.

ChristineI just can't believe that old men would've done stupid shit like these women do. I mean, we got too many women on the bench. They're outta control.

HughI didn't, didn't see that coming.

ChristineI've said it on other podcasts, but, and not that I think all women, but at all, obviously I am a woman. I, my nana, my nanna that's my grandmother couldn't go to law school. I first generation attorney. I aspired to be a judge in the past. I ran for Judge. But the way some of these women behave doing makeup tiktoks and just wanting to get social media likes or to, you know, [00:48:00] make the perfect cocktail, it makes me physically ill. You know,

Hughone of the things that I've, the ones that I've seen that I've had the most issue with with my clients' cases have been male judges. So,

Christineand maybe we're harder on the, like what we see ourself in, like I do think I hold, I think that's fair. That's female judges to a higher account than I do male judges.

HughWell, I think there's a sense that. It's been a job for white, for old white dudes. That's what it has been historically. You want to see it become diverse and women on the bench and you sort of, it's one of those things that, , that's great. It's family court. We should have judges that represent every group, it, both genders, all of that agree. And, but when that's just starting to happen, those first people that are sort of breaking through that barrier, everyone's watching and thinking, oh. Like, you're not making anybody , look good doing this.

ChristineYeah. I mean, you shouldn't be dancing on the bench literally, or dancing in [00:49:00] chambers or endorsing products from the bench. I mean, that is, to me, radical. And maybe I'm wrong, and maybe judges used to do that sound

Hughquite old

Christineobviously I have a personal grudge with her for a plethora of reasons. And anyone listening should be traumatized by the fact that if you go to court, you, if you are sitting at home right now and your significant other punches you in the face. And you call 9 1 1 to get help. You run down to the courthouse to file for an emergency protective order. You need to understand that when you go to court and you cry and you say, I didn't cook dinner right, and my significant other punched me in the face. You need to understand that that judge may think that is click bait. That is how egregious what she did is well

Hughimagine if the person, if when you called 9 1 1, if you just had to have the expectation of the person taking the call, might just record it and be posting it or live streaming it to social media at the moment. Exactly. And

Hughhow far, how f, how [00:50:00] big a step is it from that? To the point where you're posting a poll, you're posting the clip, then a poll to figure out who's telling the truth or not, and letting you know, letting your followers tell you who you should rule in favor of.

ChristineAnd I think that's why I have so many followers that are in law enforcement because they have been held to accountable by society. Obviously there's still outliers and stuff like that, and I'm not saying there aren't problems within the system, but the Sheriff's office that are bailiffs in their courtrooms, LMPD, they know good and well, if they ever behave like that, it would be on the front page of the Courier Journal. Oh, sure. I know I've said it before, but they are just appalled by their behavior.

HughWell, and I'm not saying it shouldn't be on the front page of the Courier Journal if they do. Oh yeah. But I just think that maybe this should also be on the front page of the Courier Journal. Oh,

ChristineI completely agree. And the Couri Journal,

Hughfor those who aren't in the Louisville area, is our big local newspaper,

Christineair quotes. For newspaper.

HughOh wow.

ChristineThat's my sarcasm. I

Hughthink they're like every other newspaper. It's like in any, in any city.

ChristineIt's [00:51:00] funny. It's I would say that I am How would you describe me compared to you? That's a weird question.

HughThat's a really broad open ending question. Right?

ChristineThis could go a plethora of ways.

HughYeah. I don't know. But

Christineit's I just think I'm more

HughI think you like the word plethora more than I do.

ChristineI do love that. I say that in fundamental every five seconds. If you watch a podcast, it makes me nuts. And I counted on the Love Doc podcast how many times I said that's the fundamental problem. It's like there can't be 14 fundamental problems, you know? But I would say I'm a little bit more dramatic than you.

HughSo you, you are also prone to understatements, I would say.

ChristineYou know, so it's like, but it's, that's I think what makes the fact that we've teamed up, I think some people are a little bit like shocked about it too. I think that

Hughstatement might come as a surprise to some of the people that worked under me on my litigation team, my former job. What's that? That they would, they would they would know exactly how court went. Be if I was in my office on [00:52:00] a Zoom motion hour or a Zoom hearing, fair enough. They would hear the screaming and they would hear things getting knocked over or whatever, and they'd wait for me to call or to calm down and then come out before asking me anything. Oh,

Christinethat's funny.

HughBut yeah, see

ChristineI didn't throw that many fits. I do have have thrown fits at the office for sure, but, and like, been so upset about the way a ruling went. But usually I like get it all out and then I'm like, chill.

HughOh yeah. I have to do the same. Mm-hmm. And I, and I just, I won't want to talk about it. I won't want to postgame it until I'm over that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Especially like after a hearing. If I have had like a half day hearing and I'm in court, I will go sit down. I'll have lunch, I will totally change gears. Like either call a client on another matter. That was always a way that I could, you know, make use of the time. But you force yourself to switch gears or just. Call, check in at home. Just get your mind off of it. Yeah. And then you can come back and speak more objectively. What went well, what didn't go well before you came back? When I was in the moment, it was always, I needed some space before I could talk objectively about what happened. [00:53:00] And sometimes, sometimes I would, I would just be raving. I would never be angry with anyone on my team or do anything like that. Yeah. But I would come out and they would know that if you asked me about. Right after it happened, I will probably just pace around in circles and just talk for 15 minutes straight , and do a mind dump of like how I felt about everything on it. So I could be a little bit dramatic that way. But that was, once I got it out,

Christineit was over. Sit

Hughdown, organize my case file, put my notes together, get ready for the eventual appeal once you get a ruling in six, seven months.

ChristineYeah, I actually have like wicked low blood pressure. Like I'm really healthy in that regard. And everyone's like, that's crazy because you're always like, da, da da da da. But I think it's 'cause I just get it out. Like I don't hold it in. So maybe I could find like a happy medium, but to circle back to what we were talking about. Is when I was a juvenile public defender, we're talking at right after the crux of the opiate epidemic. At one point I represented a granddaughter, a mom, and a grandmother. And heavy stuff. I mean, really sad [00:54:00] stuff. And I used to cry after court sometimes and things like that. But it got to be, I would say probably the last five or six hearings after court, I would, I would not cry in front of the client, but I would cry. And it wasn't because of even the facts of what happened, it was because I had no control of the situation and felt like a failure. Does that make sense?

HughYeah. And, and , I haven't said much about that aspect of it because it's hard to get people to be sympathetic for attorneys. We're over, we're highly paid professionals. Mm-hmm. No one should think, oh, poor you. But when your job. You know what's on the line in your job. Mm-hmm. When you're, I mean, when you're defending defendants in, in criminal cases, their freedom, their life is on the line. When you're defending, when you are representing people who are fighting over their children, it's personal. No matter how good you are at compartmentalizing it. And I always tell my clients I can't be personally involved because then I would be a bad legal advisor. You've got, I've [00:55:00] got to be neutral about certain things, but you're always personally vested. But you spend so much time preparing, it stops everything in your life. You don't talk to family. You spend time away from your spouse, your family. I had a couch in one of the offices at work where I would sleep and I would just pull allnighters and work and take naps. You get prepared for those things, and one of the hardest things to handle for me was going in and all of the prep. Came to nothing because either it was, oh, by the way we double booked something. You just have to go home. You're not gonna have it. Or, oh, I, I don't feel like hearing about that today. What I really want to hear hearing here let's change the hearing over to these things and just not following the rules. And you've put so much time, and I don't, I don't know about you, but for trial prep, that's thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars sometimes. Mm-hmm. That is just, has to be completely redone when you don't get to go in there [00:56:00] and, and, and you don't go through the how, you know, the proper hearing that, that you were preparing for that day and prepared your client for, and they've taken off work for and kids outta school and all of that. It, that was just one of the most jarring things that it, for most of my career. If you were the hardest working and most prepared person. You didn't have to be the best attorney. Mm-hmm. You would get good outcomes and then you would get better every single year as an attorney and you would get even better outcomes when you got to the point where no matter how hard you worked and how much you prepped, it was a coin flip because you didn't know what was gonna happen in court or the mood that the person presiding over it was gonna be in. That changed everything for me as a practice.

ChristineYep. Yep. And I think this is probably a good place to wrap for the day. What we would like from you is to go to judgey judge-y.com. Also on social media, [00:57:00] especially TikTok, if there is a viral lawyer video, you want us to analyze tag judgey, judge underscore y, or at Kentucky.

HughI'm excited to see some more videos. It I'm hoping I'm looking forward to the day where it's not triggering, where I don't go right back to feeling like I'm in, in that person's shoes. Getting no shit. Yeah,

Christineno shit.

HughLooking forward to being desensitized on some of it \\

Speaker 2Yeah. Yeah. We need some. Justice. Justin found justice.