Approach The Bench

North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls still believes in the importance of informing the public about the judiciary, but these days she's a little more careful about what she says. 

She's been subject to two misconduct investigations for speaking out about court policies to news outlets — including Law360 — during her five-year tenure on the bench.

In an interview with Law360 last year, she criticized the court for abandoning diversity and inclusion efforts, including its own Commission on Fairness and Equity, as well as an initiative that offered racial equity training to the state's judges. She discussed the ways women lawyers and attorneys of color are often disrespected in the courtroom, and her own experience of being interrupted by colleagues and attorneys as a female jurist, the court's sole Black justice and one of only two Democrats elected to the bench. 

In response to the interview, the state's Judicial Standards Commission launched an investigation into whether Justice Earls' remarks violated the Code of Judicial Conduct. It was the second such complaint brought against the jurist, who was also investigated by the commission for public comments about changes to the court's citation and precedent policies as well as a possible change to state laws governing the right appeal. She filed a federal lawsuit claiming these inquiries stifled her First Amendment rights.

On this month's episode of Approach The Bench, Justice Earls spoke about the lasting impact of her disciplinary saga, her experience of being in the court's ideological and demographic minority, and her perspective on elections as both an advocate and now as a candidate.

Judge Stephen Dillard uses every tool at his disposal to improve transparency at the Georgia Court of Appeals — from cameras in the courtroom, to explanatory law review articles, to posts on social media.

On this month's episode of Approach The Bench, a Law360 podcast hosted by feature reporter Cara Bayles, Judge Stephen Dillard spoke about how he navigates social media as a jurist, why he educates the public about his work, and what it's like to work for one of the busiest courts in the country.

On this month's episode of Approach The Bench, a Law360 podcast hosted by feature reporter Cara Bayles, Judge Douglas Nazarian of the Appellate Court of Maryland spoke about his work as an intermediate appellate court judge, how he tries to foster fairness and equity in the clerkship application process, and why working for judges prepares lawyers for their careers.

Arizona U.S. District Judge Diane Humetewa has a long and storied career serving her state. She became the first Native American woman selected to the federal bench a decade ago, but before then she spent a decade in Arizona’s U.S. Attorneys office as a victim advocate, tribal liaison, senior litigator and then eventually the first Native American woman to serve as the top federal prosecutor.

As an enrolled member of the Hopi Nation, she has also served her tribe, and is an expert on Native American legal issues. She worked a stint as deputy counsel for the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, and for five years, she served as a judge on the Hopi Tribal Appellate Court. She became a federal judge in 2014, after her nomination by President Barack Obama.

During the course of her 30-plus years in public service, Judge Humetewa has seen many changes in the Arizona legal scene. Her docket has exploded during her decade on the bench, and she's testified before Congress about her court's high caseload. But she's also seen progress in Native American representation in the legal community and in communication between federal judges-and-lawyers and tribal governments.

We asked Judge Humetewa about these shifts in the Arizona legal scene and her various experiences on the benches of the Hopi Appellate court, the U.S. District Court, and the Ninth Circuit.

Throughout a decade-long career on the federal bench, Southern District of Florida Judge Robin Rosenberg has dedicated her time to improving the legal profession.

When presiding over her first multidistrict litigation, Judge Rosenberg went through a lengthy process to ensure the plaintiff's leadership included a diverse array of lawyers — including young attorneys. She invented the “leadership development committee,” for plaintiffs attorneys who wanted to take an active role in the case, but didn’t have prior MDL experience. 

Judge Rosenberg also chairs the Civil Rules Committee, where she has fielded several proposals on how to improve federal litigation. And along with two fellow Southern District of Florida judges, and with help from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, the judge also created the Civil Discourse and Difficult Decisions program, which uses criminal statutes and mock trials to teach students about thoughtful decision making and civility while discussing controversial issues.

On this month’s episode of Approach The Bench, hosted by Law360 reporter Cara Bayles, we asked Judge Rosenberg about how the court system served as the model for that program, why diverse leadership is important to the future of the profession, and her love of the everyday, nitty-gritty work of case management.

Ohio Supreme Court Justice Melody Stewart not only the first Black woman to join the state supreme court back in 2018, but the first elected to any statewide office in Ohio. During the course of her 30 year legal career, she’s been a litigator, a law professor and an intermediate appellate court judge. She is also a classically trained pianist. But her latest role as the 2024 incumbent Democratic candidate is one she does not relish.

State judicial elections have grown more competitive over the years as state courts are increasingly recognized as a battleground for contentious policy issues. But Justice Stewart’s bid to stay on the bench is even more rancorous than most, because her Republican challenger is fellow Justice Joe Deters, who took office in 2023 after being appointed to his seat by Ohio Governor Mike DeWine. He could have run a retention election for a two-year term this fall, but instead chose to challenge Justice Stewart, potentially unseating her and getting a six-year term.

We spoke to Justice Stewart about running for judicial office in increasingly partisan elections, what it’s like to sit next to her political opponent on the bench, and reforms she’s championed during her tenure on the high court.

After reading news reports about attorneys writing briefs using artificial intelligence that fabricated case precedent, Judge Michael Baylson of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania was one the first federal judges to write standing orders on the use of AI. He requires all attorneys disclose if they’ve used AI to write their briefs, and to certify that they’ve checked each citation.

He’s also advocated for reforming cross-border discovery procedures to help deal with the challenges of getting evidence that’s stored in a different country. In his own courtroom, he’s seen first-hand the need to address the issue as corporations continue to grow an international presence and more documents are created and stored digitally. Judge Baylson wants to amend the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to create a framework for requesting overseas evidence. The changes would include a requirement that attorneys give judges a heads-up as to what can be a lengthy process. 

We asked Judge Baylson about writing instructions for lawyers and jurists with the future of litigation in mind, how technology is changing the way law is practiced, and the history of his own legal career. 

In the summer of 2020, Nick Chu, a young justice of the peace in Austin, Texas made history by presiding over the nation's first virtual criminal jury trial.

The misdemeanor case involved a woman accused of speeding in a construction zone, and while that might seem uncomplicated, Chu and his staff worked through numerous procedures in order to translate an in-person proceeding to a video conferencing format, including crafting jury summons with a URL, assigning Zoom breakout rooms for sidebars and creating Dropboxes for evidence.

On this month's episode of Approach The Bench we speak with Judge Chu about trials via computer screen and other innovations he oversaw as a justice of the peace, as well as his efforts to retain his seat as an elected judge in Texas and the difficulties of running for judicial office in partisan elections.

State constitutions are something of a pet issue for federal Sixth Circuit Chief Judge Jeffrey Sutton, one that he’s written two books about. He believes lawyers, judges and law schools all put too much emphasis on federal constitutional law, while ignoring the fact that state constitutions often enshrine more rights, account for regional idiosyncrasies, and are far easier to amend. And he says that local constitutions are growing even more relevant, as the U.S. Supreme Court keeps kicking issues — from abortion rights to redistricting — down to the states.

On this month’s episode of Approach The Bench, we ask Chief Judge Sutton about why lawyers ignore state constitutions at their own peril, how he became a Supreme Court feeder judge, and the difficulties of deciding high-stakes appeals on a tight deadline.

About a year into his tenure on the bench, Judge Juan Villasenor of the Eighth Judicial District of the state of Colorado hadn’t given much thought to a quirk in his state’s rules of civil procedure that allows jurors to discuss a case during trial. Then an attorney in a medical malpractice suit filed a motion seeking to bar deliberations before closing arguments. That sparked a sort of research project for the judge, who learned all about the history of the practice in Colorado and in other states.

He then sought to educate other judges about the benefits of allowing jurors to deliberate as a trial progresses and about another Colorado rule that allows jurors to ask questions of witnesses. He wrote in Judicature magazine praising both unusual practices.

On this month’s episode of Approach The Bench, we asked Judge Villasenor about how those practices play out in his courtroom, and about the lessons learned during his relatively young judicial career.