As the new year approaches, I welcome the opportunity in this
space provided by The Daily Record, to reflect on the last almost 12 years
since I “retired” as a full-time judge and entered a very different world of
Private ADR, consulting, as well as public speaking, lecturing and teaching for
diverse organizations. I have also been lucky enough and honored, during that
time, to have been approved by the Court of Appeals to be recalled as a Judge
and have done so enthusiastically and learned even more with the added
perspective of my other work and experience incorporated into my decision
making.
That said, and with I hope the proper degree of humility, as
well as a recognition that our hopes and dreams should not be born out of
naiveté or unrealistic expectations for ourselves, the three branches of
government, or, for that matter, the human race, I offer the following,
hopefully improved over previous years, based on new experiences and additional
perspectives, Suggested 2019 New Year’s Resolutions for Judges, Politicians and
Policy-Makers.
1. Don’t refuse to reference reality when you make personal,
political, legal, and even medical decisions. You can aid that process by
listening and paying attention to people and ideas with which you do not agree,
in lieu of reinforcing or restricting your sights and sounds to those pictures
and words which reinforce your previously held views.
2. Don’t even try to defend the indefensible. It won’t work.
3. Recognize that isolating yourself, your community and even
your country, if you are a President, Governor, Legislator, political or
community leader, policy-maker, or even a Judge, will not make the complexity
of an increasingly complicated world go away. On the contrary, it will make
your decision-making progressively more flawed and exponentially more dangerous
to you and those affected by your self-inflicted defective judgement.
4. Recognize that the choices which you desire are usually not
the options that reality dictates that you must choose from. Wishing otherwise
won’t change that reality.
5. Don’t insist that “the other side” accept and subscribe to
your perception of reality as a pre-condition to further communication, whether
that “other side” is competing with you or is attempting to collaborate with
you. Better to analyze and address your counterparts’ interests in the context
of their reality if you wish to move your idea or process forward.
6. If you are trying to persuade a third party of the merits or
wisdom of your position on an issue, whether that third party is a jury, judge,
the voters of a federal, state, or municipal district or the elected or
appointed officials put there by the voters to decide your fate or your
client’s fate, do not forget or ignore who those person(s) are and the
intellectual world they live in. To do so will be fatal to your cause.
7. Be intellectually curious if it is within your DNA to be so.
If it is not, check with the best and the brightest in the medical profession
to arrange a transfusion of DNA from a known intellectually curious person.
Your life will be much more interesting and fulfilling.
8. Recognize that there are many “Monuments to Persistence”
whose success in whatever professional, business, personal field they chose
was, in large part, the result of their persistence. Persistence in the pursuit
of a good idea is worth emulating.
My favorite illustration of this came from my now deceased friend
and mentor, the first Chief Judge of The District Court of Maryland, Robert F.
Sweeney, who in an interview upon his retirement, reflected upon what it took
to accomplish what Governor Mandel had described as a “gargantuan task” – the
creation and implementation of a new Court, The District Court of Maryland.
On May 5, 1971, as he was sworn in as the first Chief Judge and
at the time the only Judge of The District Court, Chief Judge Sweeney said
“Insofar as I am able, I shall attempt to make this court what the people of
Maryland are entitled to have it be: A Court of integrity and a forum in which
the personal and the property rights of all citizens can be freely and fairly
adjudicated by judges learn in the law – judges who are dedicated to the principle
of equal justice under the law for all.”
Upon his retirement, virtually a quarter of a century later,
illustrating the wisdom and concomitant success of persistently confronting the
reality of a corrupt culture in accomplishing that goal, Chief Judge Sweeney
recounted that experience as follows: “There were judges who were racists, who
had alcohol problems, who were wife beaters and who thought they had found the
greatest 10-2 job in the world. I outlived the bastards. The whole collection
of them.”
The moral of this story is obvious. The Monument is the District
Court of Maryland!
9. Share in the optimism of Bernard Baruch, an advisor to four
Presidents, about the future based on his faith “in the power of the human mind
to cope with the problems of life.” Share in his conclusion after a lifetime of
advising Presidents that “To nothing so much as the abandonment of reason does
humanity owe its sorrows.” We should therefore heed the warning based on
history and experience that our failures as individuals and communities have
been and will be the consequences of “action without thought” which usually
follows thoughts unaccompanied and therefore devoid of analysis.
10. Believe, as did Bernard Baruch, that our society can in fact
solve our problems by placing our trust in the unfettered intellect, reason,
wisdom, and compassion of smart individuals not in crowds.
I would footnote these updated suggested “New Year’s
Resolutions” with the following afterthought based on my continued observations
of all three branches of government and the politics, economics and psychology
which drives them – the collective blogosphere, talk radio, cable TV, internet
and advocacy groups, politicians, and other public figures, whether they claim
omniscience, heavenly blessings or other supernatural powers or origins do not
address any reality except their own. That said, let’s try analytics in 2019 – We might like it. In any case, Happy New Year!