Dispel Misconceptions and Misinformation about Our Courts

• Pages: 18-19
• Date: 01 January 2023
• Author: Hon. Carl A. Aveni
• Subject Matter: Civil Law

Next month, two newly elected judges will

be joining our local bench. I intend to give

them the same advice that I received from

more experienced colleagues as I was getting

started:

Take your time. Stay hydrated. Never read the com-

ments on social media.

The rst bit is good adv ice for any deliberative profes-

sion, just as the second is a no d to the long days of hearings

or trials thi s work sometimes requires. But the th ird isn’t

really about the cour troom at all. It’s a recognition of the

broader societal cl imate in which we work and the fact that

the loudest opinions i n the public marketplace are not in

every instan ce the best informed, the most c arefully thought

out, or the most objectively re asonable. And if the judicial

system deserves s crutiny and owes accountability a long with

every other government al institution in our democrac y, it

nevertheless rema ins both uniquely opaque to outsiders and

especially rel iant on the public’s trust in its integrit y.

Dispel Misconceptions and

Misinformation about Our Courts

By Hon. Carl A. Aveni, Litigation News Asso ciate Editor

© Getty Image s

This column is traditionally a place where judges share

practice tips, highlighting procedures and tools that lawyers

should use to optimize litigation outcomes. As it should be.

This one time, however, in the face of pressing need, I’m invit-

ing lawyers to turn their gaze outward, to address the steps

they should take to also optimize public understanding of the

work we all do.

Framed as a practice point, it would be this: Clients

and their lawyers are better served by having their disputes

resolved in a forum that enjoys public trust and condence. A

public that regularly hears its legal system maligned as wholly

arbitrary or entirely bias-driven is less likely to voluntarily

participate in that system as jurors, witnesses, or litigants.

Lawyers as Lead ers and Guid es

Because of their special education, training, and experience,

lawyers are uniquely positioned to help stem the tide. The

preamble to the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct

recognizes in its very rst sentence that “a lawyer, as a mem-

ber of the legal profession, is a representative of clients, an

ofcer of the legal system and a public citizen having special

WINTER 202 3 • VOL. 48 NO. 2

18 | ABA LITIGATION SECTIO N

VIEW FROM THE BENCH

Published in Litigation News Volume 48, Number 2, Winter 2023. © 2023 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or

stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association.