Judges Render a Verdict on Their Job: It’s Great--Sometimes

So you think you want to be a judge? Consider first the experience of the six local jurists who spoke Thursday at the University Club to the San Diego County Bar Assn. Auxiliary.

The job has its advantages, acknowledged retired Superior Court Judge Alfred Lord. “When you’re in court, you get the best seat in the house,” Lord wisecracked. “The attorneys address you as ‘the Honorable so-and-so,’ even though you’re not.”

But often as not, the jurists said, the bench proves a rocky, even riotous, vantage point from which to view society’s foibles.

Here are a few points made by the jurists:

- Judges, after all, nearly always leave at least one party in a lawsuit unhappy.

San Diego Superior Court Judge Franklin Orfield recalled one litigant who was especially put out. He lost in Orfield’s court, then lost an appeal to the California Supreme Court.

But that wasn’t enough for this angry fellow. According to Orfield, the man next mounted a recall drive, giving up only when he realized he needed to collect 250,000 signatures. Then he tried to file a $10-billion lien against the judge, but the county recorder turned him away.

A good thing too, Orfield said in a mock-confessional tone: “I wasn’t good for half that much.”

Then there was the man whose house figured in a condemnation suit. He didn’t like the fact that a jury was bused out to look over the property, Orfield said. So while his 12 peers studied the house, the homeowner turned around and showed them the moon.

- Judges have families, who put them in their place.

El Cajon Municipal Judge Elizabeth Riggs said her eldest son, a college senior, has always been something of a lawyer for her youngest boy. Recently, when the younger son was placed on restriction for misbehaving, his brother argued for probation.

“That’s what you do in court everyday,” she said he told her, “and I think we should have the same rights here that they have down there.”

Orfield said he occasionally makes the mistake of expecting the same deference at home that he receives at the courthouse. His wife quickly straightens him out.

“Whenever I come home with that ‘Everyone rise’ attitude, Alyce Mary says, ‘Frankie, you’re not in the courtroom. Go empty the garbage.’ ”

The children of the county’s growing complement of female judges gain a novel perspective on the judiciary.

San Diego Municipal Judge Patricia Cowett said that at Halloween two years ago, her son, then 5, could not decide what costume to make with the piece of black cloth she had purchased. Would he be Zorro, or perhaps a character from “Knight Rider”? Or would he follow Mom’s suggestion?

“I said to him, ‘Why don’t I take this black material and make it into a robe, and you could be a judge?’ ” Cowett recalled.

“And he said, ‘Oh, Mom, I don’t want to be a girl.’ ”

Judges perform marriages, which often prove to be pregnant with unintended humor.

Lord recalled one set of nuptials he conducted in the ‘60s. The bride was expecting, and she noticed that the judge appeared nonplussed.

She patted her stomach, pointed to her husband to be, and said: “It’s OK, judge. It ain’t his.”

- Judges have to deal with newspaper reporters, an unseemly lot whose job at times leaves little room for common courtesy.

U.S. District Judge J. Lawrence Irving told the story of a reporter who got hold of his unlisted home phone number and called after midnight one evening for a comment about the J. David & Co. bankruptcy and civil cases, in which the judge has presided.

Irving said he and his wife, Fran, were miffed by the call. But Mrs. Irving was even more riled the next morning by her failure to think of a snappy response. “I wish,” she told her husband, “that when he asked if you were here, I’d thought to tell him, ‘No. He’s out mowing the lawn.’ ”

When they weren’t snapping off one-liners, the judges dwelled briefly on the serious side of the judge’s lot. Some said they view their job as a rescue from the burnout of long legal careers. They enjoy the surprise of not knowing what case they will hear next, and the freedom of not having to worry about preparing arguments every night and weekend.

There are the difficulties, too: threats, critical news stories, restrictions on socializing, questions about pending cases that simply cannot be answered.

And then there’s the natural curiosity that accompanies a high-profile occupation.

Cowett said she had been the target of more than her share of raised eyebrows since presiding earlier this month at a preliminary hearing that required her to watch about 20 hours of X-rated videotapes to determine if they were obscene.

Her daughter’s teacher told Cowett that her son, having seen a television report about the case, asked a simple question about the judge. “You mean,” he asked, “she really does that for her job?”