Tribute to Judith S. Kaye.

• Author: Kaplan, Roberta A.
• Position: New York Court of Appeals chief judge - Testimonial

It would be malpractice for me to begin this tribute to Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye without a few words about what she has meant to me in my own career.

I clerked for Judge Kaye more than a decade ago and during that time came to know her as a result of working through the arguments in briefs, drafting opinions, or just plain talking on the many long car rides to and from Albany. Aside from her advice on my wardrobe during our (perhaps too) frequent trips to the shopping center at Woodbury Common or her advice on the opera or theater during weekends working at chambers in New York City, what made the most important and lasting impression on me was the mentoring I received from her as a young lawyer.

In a speech recently given by Judith Rodin, former President of the University of Pennsylvania and current head of the Rockefeller Foundation, Dr. Rodin explained that in her view, there is a difference between a "mentor" and a "role model." (1) A role model, according to Dr. Rodin, exemplifies "what's best, what's strongest, what's most impressive. They set a standard that might encourage you to reach higher or struggle harder." (2) A "mentor," by contrast, creates a relationship based on "mutual learning." (3) It is the "two way nature of the connection" that makes mentoring "both challenging and powerful. It involves not just displaying our best and strongest side, but opening our lives, and entering into another person's life...." (4)

In her own tribute to retired United States Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Judge Kaye remarked on the value of mentorship. (5) She noted that she and Justice O'Connor shared the unfortunate experience of "years as women lawyers in an era with few female mentors or peers." (6) Times have changed and Judge Kaye, of course, is a role model to many thousands of young lawyers who have looked to her leadership and strength as an example of what's best, strongest, and most impressive about the law and the judiciary. But for me and others who have been lucky enough to be in my position, Judge Kaye was and is a mentor--she opened her life to me, and in so doing, allowed me to be a stronger person and a better lawyer.

But that is not even close to the end of the story. Judge Kaye is not only a wonderful role model and mentor; she is also a superb jurist, on a par with greats like Cardozo and Learned Hand. While there can be no question that Judge Kaye combines her skills as a jurist with her herculean efforts at reforming New York's court system, (7) what I'd like to focus on here is the unique empathy she shows for the litigants in the cases before her. For Judge Kaye, the real story behind the statutes, regulations, and precedents is always the human dimension--how the decisions of the Court affect ordinary people in their everyday lives.

Indeed, what I think is perhaps most distinctive about Judge Kaye's jurisprudence (and, let there be no mistake, there is no question that Judge Kaye has her own "philosophy of law," or jurisprudence) is the fact that she never loses sight of the fact that behind every case and every controversy, there are real people, with real problems, living real lives. When she herself has described the process of judging, Judge Kaye revealed her own thinking in quoting Justice Brennan's observation that the "process of deciding each case with its own parties, facts, and issues ... involves a ... dialogue between head and heart, a dialogue legitimated by the inarguable fact...