AMHERST — In an effort to expose scores of future lawyers, judges and legal minds directly to the state’s judicial system, the Massachusetts Appeals Court took its show on the road this week, holding a session in the University of Massachusetts Amherst Campus Center.
Students listened as Appeals Court justices heard arguments in six cases — three criminal and three civil — followed by a question-and-answer session.
Associate Justices Ariane Vuono, Joseph Ditkoff and Maureen Walsh presided, and took under advisement appeals ranging from a firearm assault in Greenfield to a lawsuit against former presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg.
After the justices took off their robes and returned to take questions, an Italian studies major asked Vuono, who also studied Italian, about her transition from foreign language studies to law school.
“What is law in terms of language? It’s language you’re familiar with, but it’s something different if you describe things differently — there are ways of saying things that sound familiar because it’s the English language, but they actually carry a different meaning,” Vuono responded. “Studying this foreign language is actually helpful because … I was able to think about a new way of looking at the same word in a different [legal] context.”
Another student asked the justices how they address, and manage, their personal biases while presiding over cases. Ditkoff explained that while judges receive training on recognizing biases related to race, sex or sexual orientation, it’s easy to develop “institutionalized biases” from seeing similar cases with similar outcomes.
Ditkoff noted that while certain kinds of cases almost always conclude the same way, past experiences can lead a judge to subconsciously and preemptively think about a certain outcome.
“What is very insidious and hard to train against is institutionalized bias. You get certain kinds of cases, such as sex offender registry cases, and 95% of them come out the same way and then when you see the next one, you think ‘Well, I know this one’s an affirm. They’re all affirms,'” Ditkoff said. “That’s very hard to fight … the way the system’s set up causes certain things to happen the same way. You have to pay attention.”
Walsh said that awareness of potential bias and generally keeping an open mind can go a long way toward fairly assessing civil and criminal cases.
Asked about bias among jurors, Ditkoff said it can be hard to detect on appeal, because appellate judges work from written transcripts of trials rather than seeing the proceedings themselves.
“We get transcripts — we don’t hear them, we don’t see them, so it’s pretty hard for us to see bias just because bias usually happens in things that don’t show up on the page,” he said. “If the lawyer is doing their job, they put it on the record that something happened … But we’re really kind of at a disadvantage in doing that unless the lawyers have really done their job to bring it to our attention.”
When a student asked if the justices implemented any habits or practices that aided in their legal careers, Walsh explained that the best way to gain confidence in the courtroom is to know a case inside and out.
Staying calm under pressure, Walsh added, is another important skill that attorneys and judges develop through preparation and experience. She said she has a tendency to get nervous under pressure and can get “knocked off” her train of thought.
“I can get nervous quickly — my face can get as red as my hair,” Walsh said. “This is an art, this is a practice of staying calm under pressure. One of the ways you do it is by knowing that case better than anyone else in the room — it gives you this inner confidence, so that when you get a little bit knocked off your thought you can then go back and rejoin.”
Vuono suggested that carrying four or five notecards into the courtroom for reference can help refresh memory and ensure an attorney remembers key details or arguments, while Ditkoff explained that he has found it helpful to rehearse arguments to himself, or in one instance, his newborn son, before taking them to court.
Walsh, responding to a student who asked the justices who had the greatest influence on their lives and careers, credited her parents for raising her with the right values. The youngest of eight children, Walsh said her parents taught her and her siblings the importance of integrity and service in everything that they did.
“I’ve been so lucky in my whole life to have wonderful people that I’ve looked up to and inspired to be like,” Walsh said. “I was youngest of eight kids, one car in the family. My father was a public school teacher and for me, it was all the life lessons of who you are going to be … the dedication, the integrity, the public service, giving back and the hard work ethic that they instilled in all eight kids. While everything else complemented it, nothing stood in comparison to it.”
The Appeals Court, which normally sits at the John Adams Courthouse in Boston, holds off-site sessions to broaden public awareness and understanding of the state’s court system. The Amherst session was organized with UMass Amherst’s College of Social and Behavioral Sciences.
