TRANSCRIPT:
Paul Edelstein:
Hello. Welcome to Pulling Back the Legal Curtain. I am your host, Paul Edelstein. I’ll have my partner Glenn Faegenburg with me most of the time. And this podcast is for all of you out there who have ever read about a court case, seen a court case, been involved in a court case, went to court, thought about court, and wondered, “What the hell is going on in courts?” It seems like every day we have these kind of questions that get asked them. So on this podcast, we will pull back the curtain on the mystery that sometimes surrounds the court and what happens there, and hopefully give you some answers, some interesting, some humorous, some surprising. Stick with us on Pulling Back the Legal Curtain.
So we’re back here with Judge Thomas. Now everybody knows is the passionate, happy, completely energized, never jaded judge who got to witness all of life’s dramas play out in your courtroom. By the way, how many years in the guardianship bar did you sit?
Charles Thomas:
10. I did 10 years in the guardianship part, and then I did 10 years in the JHO, monitoring the guardianship part.
Paul Edelstein:
A near 30 year career, a piece of it in the criminal court, a piece of it in the civil court where I normally practice, and a really long, lengthy piece in the guardianship court where I think you see most of life’s real inner workings.
Charles Thomas:
I’ve done it all. The only thing I didn’t do, I’m happy to say, was I never did contested matrimonials because those cases never end. They never end. They go on forever and ever and ever.
Paul Edelstein:
Yeah. You left that to my father, huh?
Charles Thomas:
Yeah. Your father has a fabulous temperament. I mean, he was cool. He was cool. I always liked your father. There was something really nice. He always looked super young to me. When I saw him around, I was young again because this guy, he never aged. He always was young, with a big smile on his face. And your father, you ought to do your father. He has some of the most fabulous stories in the world. I don’t want to steal his thunder and take any of his stories, but he’s got some good ones.
Paul Edelstein:
He does. But so I’m just going to ask you one question about my father. Since you’re a judge, and you’ve been able to be judges of lawyers, whether they’re high quality, not so high quality and all of this, you know my father, and you know me now a long time, so I just got to ask you while we have it on film, who was the better lawyer? My father or me?
Charles Thomas:
It’s different type. Different type. You-
Paul Edelstein:
He’s looking at you.
Charles Thomas:
You’re not the same individual. Both of you are totally different, okay? You cannot make a comparison between the two of you guys. Your style is different than his. Totally.
Paul Edelstein:
You have a great second career in politics, Judge. We’re going to-
Charles Thomas:
Okay. You’re the ultimate. You are the ultimate lawyer. Your father, there was something very kind about him. I don’t know. Let’s go on. Let’s move on from that. Okay?
Paul Edelstein:
That’s fine. Now, I was trying to get you to say something about my dad. That’s okay. I know I’m not going to get there. But here, let’s ask you a different question because you mentioned before, and I’ve been in front of you so I know what it’s like, and I want to ask you about your court staff. Because you’d mentioned one of your court staff, and I knew one of them, named Josephine. So I don’t know if you remember. Let me tell you a little story about you. Let’s see. I want you remember.
So I think it’s got to be about 15 years ago, maybe even longer, where I had occasion to be in your part. Now, it would be rare for me, and you know that I’m a civil lawyer. And you don’t really love that stuff and you didn’t sit in that part too long. And so I didn’t come in front of you, but I happened to have one case where a child was injured really, really severely and had a guardian appointed, and it was his mother. And the case, it was a very complex case that went for a lot of money, but ultimately had to come in front of you to be approved because you were the judge supervising the guardianship. So we as civil lawyers couldn’t get a case for guardian approved for settlement without a judge like you reviewing it. So I had to come in front of you. And I knew who you were, and I knew your reputation, and I happened to know your two sons, who we ‘ll talk about, who are very close friends.
So I said, “Okay, I’m going to go in front of you.” But I also knew that none of that’s going to mean a thing, coming in front of you, that I better be ready and I better be prepared and I better not mess around. So I went in front of you on this very important case and I said, “Boy, this is real, very important, very complex.” I’m not normally in the guardianship part, so I had to be extra prepared because for questions you were going to get asked. And I walked into your courtroom and there you are sitting on the bench. How tall are you?
Charles Thomas:
Six feet.
Paul Edelstein:
And when you’re sitting on the bench, you know, you look a lot bigger. You know that, right?
Charles Thomas:
Okay.
Paul Edelstein:
You do. You got a deep voice, and you got a very regal manner about you. You even have that now, even now that you’re off the bench. And I went in there and I got to tell you, I’m the son of a lawyer. I’m the grandson of a lawyer. And when I went in front of you, I was no baby lawyer. I’d been practicing long enough, I’d been around. But boy, when I got your part and saw you take the bench and start handling cases before mine, I was a little worried. A little intimidated. You’re an intimidating guy. Anybody ever tell you that?
Charles Thomas:
Yes. I’ve heard that, but I don’t believe I’m intimidating. I’m just trying to do my job, and I try to treat people… Everybody gets treated the same way. That’s all.
Paul Edelstein:
And I could attest to that because I knew you knew who I was. You knew I was friends with your sons and this and that. I didn’t get… There wasn’t even recognition from you on the bench that you knew who I was or anything like that. Nothing. Not one thing. Zero. Do you remember that?
Charles Thomas:
Yeah, I do. I wasn’t going to play favorites. I do my job. I hang my prejudices before I come out in the courtroom, and that’s about it. That’s the way I handled things.
Paul Edelstein:
Well, I’ll tell you what. So I only had one experience in front of you, and it was that one. And I don’t even know if you know this, I’ll bet you you don’t know it, but that particular case, which was a multimillion dollar case… This was a really big, really complex case. A lot at stake for a lot of people. Very important for this child and his mother and everybody that was involved. It was a really big deal. There must’ve been, I don’t know, seven or eight people in your courtroom when I handled that case and everything, and it was multiple appearances in front of you.
But I’ll bet you what you don’t know, behind the scenes, the case blew up. There were problems on the case that aren’t that interesting for this call, but a problem arose and it got very, very heated and very ugly. And you know how that problem got solved? Your law clerk, Josephine, in the hallway, took all the lawyers that were fighting, I was one of them, everybody out in the hallway in a stairwell outside your courtroom, on a day where the case was supposed to get called. And had the case gotten called in front of you, there was going to be a very ugly, very public fight that really might’ve had some serious consequences to my client and to his mother and to other people. And I was prepared for that fight. Now, you didn’t know it. At the time, the case hadn’t been called. Your law clerk Josephine pulled us aside in the hallway, all the lawyers, really in the stairwell, and all of the problems got ironed out by her in the hallway. That surprise you?
Charles Thomas:
Not in the least.
Paul Edelstein:
Why would-
Charles Thomas:
Josephine made me look good. Josephine was the best. Josephine, one of the most brilliant lawyers I ever came across to my entire career. She was great. I was really fond of Josephine. She was a million percent loyal to me as she was brilliant. She knew how to handle people. Not everybody liked Josephine because she was all business all the time, but she knew her business and she knew it well.
Unfortunately, she passed away about four or five, six years ago, too young. And we were very close. She became part of the family. I looked out. I hired her when I was elected, before I even took the bench. She was a referral to me from Judge Bambrick who was moving from the civil court to Supreme Court. And he didn’t want to take her to Supreme Court. And I used to always remind him. His name was Gene Bambrick, nice guy. “Gene, you did me the biggest favor and you made the biggest mistake of your life when you got rid of Josephine. But you did me the biggest favor.” She was good. I was lucky. I had a wonderful staff. My secretary Rita, she’s still over there right now. She’s with another judge. And good.
How about the court personnel I had? I lucked out with the clerks. I had the best clerks. I had John Barry in criminal court, and Linda O’Connor. Well, the main names, they were good, Pam. They knew what they were doing and they stuck with me. What could I say? I lucked out. I was delighted. It was a wonderful working environment that I had with these people.
Paul Edelstein:
Let me ask you a question. Most people, I think a lot of lawyers, and certainly clients and lay people, when they go to court, they think, “Well, it’s the judge, and the judge does everything.” And it’s the judge and the judge and the judge. Now, I know a little differently because my father was a lawyer for a long time and his father was a lawyer for a long time. So I was kind of taught a little differently, that it’s not just the judge. And that sounds kind of like what you’re telling me. How important is it for you, in your role, to have all these people around you?
Charles Thomas:
I couldn’t do it without them. A good law secretary, it makes your day. She relieved me of a lot of the nonsense that goes on. She know how to screen people, and she would conference cases and come through. By the time they got to me, it was just all I had to do was to rubber stamp it sometimes. So the court personnel, they can make or break the judge, by the way. You know? If you don’t get along with your staff, you could have trouble. You could have trouble. I know a particular situation of a judge who couldn’t get along with his staff and they didn’t like him. I’m not going to mention his name. That wouldn’t be fair. They knew his character. One day, one of the… His clerk took a quarter and crazy glued it to the floor in front of the courtroom. And so he walked out, he wanted to pick it up. He couldn’t do it. And they were… He-
Paul Edelstein:
It was like, wait minute, and he glued the quarter to the floor?
Charles Thomas:
Yeah. Crazy glue.
Paul Edelstein:
Okay. All right.
Charles Thomas:
And he couldn’t get it up. And so they were laughing. This was like a big joke. Yeah. They fooled around with him.
Paul Edelstein:
Funny. Let me ask a different question about who you rely on now. So I know and just how much you guys rely on your court clerk, your court staff. I mean, it’s integral for any judge. We just know this. If you’ve been practicing, you know this now. But you know what? In the news in the last year or so, there’s been a lot of news about a Supreme Court justice Judge Thomas and his wife. You’ve seen any of this stuff?
Charles Thomas:
Yeah, sure. I’ve been following it.
Paul Edelstein:
Here’s a question. And I knew your lovely wife and how much you relied on her. You even said it when we were first talking earlier today, how she was sort of an inspiration for you to get on the bench. So there were times when you went home… And by the way, a hundred percent, my wife knows every case that I have, every point. There’s not even a question. And I run questions by her all the time. “What do you think about this? What do you think about this?” And she’s an amazing sounding board, very influential on the decisions I make. Do judges do the same thing?
Charles Thomas:
I did not share my experiences with my wife. She wasn’t interested, really. I mean, maybe she was, but I didn’t push it. So we talked about other things, for us. I didn’t bring it home with me, if that’s what you want to know. That was a good thing about being a judge, which was not a good thing about being a lawyer. When I was a lawyer, I brought it home. I mean, I practiced law for 22 years, whatever came through the door. And in fact, I certainly talked it up. But when you walked out of the courtroom at night, you shut the door, I’m on a different plane. I’m in a different dimension.
Paul Edelstein:
I’m impressed that you were able to do that. I think that’s hard to do.
Charles Thomas:
As a lawyer, it was hard to do. As a lawyer, you wake up in the middle of the night writing notes to yourself with thoughts, things that you should have done or didn’t do, whatever. It’s always a struggle. But the judge, it’s not that at all. You close the door, you’re gone.
Paul Edelstein:
So you slept like a baby when you were a judge?
Charles Thomas:
Absolutely. I certainly did.
Paul Edelstein:
Maybe that had a lot to do with the spouse that you had. That’s what I’m thinking.
Charles Thomas:
Well, I know your spouse and she’s a wonderful woman, and your situation, it works very well. My wife, we didn’t talk about it. If there was something really interesting, I would mention it, but that was not something where she was waiting for me to relate my day.
Paul Edelstein:
I’m impressed. I’m impressed.
Thanks for joining us on Pulling Back the Legal Curtain with Paul and Glenn. Because we get so many questions over so many years about what goes on behind the legal curtain, in the legal world, we tried to put this together so that it would be entertaining and interesting and hopefully educational. If you liked it, come join us again or visit our website at edelsteinslaw.com. Either way, we’re always going to be here, in front of and behind the legal curtain, doing the only thing that we know how to do, which is proceed. Take care.
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