Unpopularity Goes With the Territory, Bird Tells Bar

Echoing a main theme of her reelection campaign, California Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird told lawyers and judges attending the State Bar’s annual meeting here Sunday that they can expect to be unpopular if they do their job right.

“If we judges and lawyers are not to be popular,” Bird said, “let it be because we are standing on the forefront of protecting people’s rights during a time of transition. Let it be because we have the courage to represent unsympathetic individuals and make difficult rulings in order to give life and breath to our constitutional guarantees,” Bird said.

“Should the Bar see its role as merely pleasing the Legislature, for example, or improving its public relations, should the judiciary see itself as a purveyor of popular views, as a mimic of the majority of the moment, then both institutions will have lost something fundamental to their heritage and essential to their preservation,” she said.

The 1,000 in attendance at the annual meeting stood and applauded when the chief justice was introduced and gave her another standing ovation when Bird concluded her 15-minute speech.

As she approaches the November election with public opinion polls showing her losing by a large margin, Bird seemed to be saying that unpopularity is to be expected when a lawyer or a judge adheres to constitutional principles.

“The role of judges and lawyers in our society has never been to be popular or to receive the applause of the crowd,” she said.

Bird conceded that members of her profession are at times “rigid and inflexible, doctrinaire and even arrogant.”

“We must,” she said, “help mold and reshape our institutions so that they do not ossify,” adding, however, that “at the same time, we must not lose the essence of who we are and what gives our institutions their significance.”

In a speech that sometimes sounded more like a Sunday homily than a legal address, Bird repeated her oft-stated belief that we live in a superficial age, “. . . an age of image, of popularity of emotionalism. . . .” During such a time, she said, “it is vital that we help our fellow citizens see how important substance is, how indispensable courage and rationality are, how essential the rule of law remains to a free society.”

Bird’s appearance at the Bar meeting was in doubt Friday after a death threat that her office said was received by State Police. Bird did cancel a scheduled appearance at a Bar dinner here Friday as a result of the threat.

On Saturday, Bird, who did not arrive until Sunday, drew an enthusiastic endorsement from consumer advocate Ralph Nader, one of the speakers at the meeting.

Nader told reporters that Californians who intend to vote against the chief justice because of her record on the death penalty should realize that the state judiciary stands to protect them from “corporate polluters, commercial rip- off artists and other powerful interests that prey on the average worker.”