‘At Large’ on Judge

While we were glad to have Tony Perry feature the latest updates to the Almanac of the Federal Judiciary in his “San Diego at Large” column (Aug. 16), we were disturbed that he distorted our findings. It is clear that he chose the most sensationalistic quotes without giving the public an overall picture of the lawyers’ comments about the judges mentioned.

For example, there is a quote concerning Judge William B. Enright stating that “he’s vicious, he’s mean-spirited, he’s cruel, and he thinks he’s none of these things.” While that quote is in fact accurate, and a number of other lawyers we interviewed were not particularly complimentary concerning Judge Enright’s demeanor, the majority view, as expressed in the first sentence of the evaluation, is that Enright is a courteous but businesslike judge.

The Almanac of the Federal Judiciary takes very seriously our responsibility to be fair to the individual judges we evaluate, while at the same time giving our readers the candid views of lawyers who have practiced before these judges. It is unfortunate that The Los Angeles Times, through the use of selected and distorted quotes, would not adhere to the same standard of fairness.

STEPHEN NELSON

Executive Editor

Prentice Hall Law & Business