THE CAPTAIN REPORTS:
THIS POST IS DIRECTED TO ALL OF OUR WOMEN LAWYERS .....
Nearly fifty years ago on a famous episode of All in the Family* called "Gloria and the Riddle," (Season 3, Episode 4),
To watch the episode, click here
Gloria posed a riddle to Archie, Edith and Meathead.
The setup:
A father and his son are in a car accident. The father dies immediately, but the son gets taken to the hospital for surgery. Once in the operating room, the surgeon takes one look at the boy and says: "I can’t operate on him. He’s my son."
The riddle: Who is the surgeon?
The answer might be obvious to us now, but on All in the Family most of the characters – particularly the men – had trouble figuring out that the surgeon was actually the boy’s mother.
Fast forward to 2022, and this week, Fourth DCA Judge Martha Warner made news with her Dissent in J.S. v. Department of Children and Families, and Guardian Ad Litem. 4D21-1923. (Credit: Daily Business Review).
The opinion centered around an attorney who had used the wrong pronoun when referencing one of Warner’s dissents in a motion for rehearing, calling her a “he” instead of a “she.” In her Dissent, Warner stated that it “reveals the tenacious grip that the male image has in the legal profession to the detriment of women who have joined the profession in droves since I began practicing 48 years ago.”
The Motion filed by attorney Thomas Butler stated: “Warner, J. opined he would hold that § 39.806(1)(f) is unconstitutional … ,” according to the dissent, which said “he” was repeated twice and was therefore unlikely to be a typo.
“It still is an issue that women are mistaken for court reporters or paralegals by both judges and lawyers,” Warner wrote. “No man would suffer that same misidentification, which relegates the woman to a less important role.” Werner went on to say: “We all need to be cognizant and remove from our thinking the male-centric image of lawyers and judges. It is not hard, but it requires raising one’s consciousness of the issue. ... “And it is somewhat of a surprise that it has persisted for so long. After all, the iconic figure holding the scales of justice is a lady.”
The Captain admits that he is a male and that he has therefore never experienced this problem as related to by Judge Warner; (we can all relate to being home-towned when us Mia-mah lawyers cross North of the Border into Broweird and other courts further to the North.
The DBR story went on to quote other female lawyers who have regularly been mistaken as "court reporters, administrative staff, or any other role in legal proceedings other than licensed advocates [which] is pervasive in legal culture to this day."
But we wanted to ask our female barristers about their experiences as described by Judge Warner. Please share your thoughts ... and experiences.
*All in the Family was a comedy TV show that ran from 1971-1979 and is still ranked to this day as one of the top ten TV Sitcoms of all time. (IMBD #4; Rolling Stone #5).
Captain4Justice@gmail.com
18 comments:
She is a jerk. That was a typo. Boy some lawyers are jerks.
I wish I could read the opinion but, it is blocked out of the 4th DCA website.
This is one of the reasons the universal adoption of gender neutral pronouns would benefit all of us.
Sorry to be the one, Rump, but there's also a place in this discussion to mention the all-too-often reality of African American attorneys being mistake BY JUDGES (and other court personnel) as defendants.
I am at a legal function. Which is rare. About ten years ago at a very exclusive club. I see an African American woman dressed in a light green blouse and pants. I want a drink. I’m looking at her. She appears to be waitstaff based mostly on her dress , but yes most of the waitstaff were African American women. I start to walk to her but I stop. Not sure why. I’m just confused. Something deep inside of me tells me I’m about to make an enormous Faux Pas. So I stop and wait and sure enough she is an assistant federal public defender. All these years later I still remember how I mistook her for waitstaff. In my defense she unfortunately happened to be dressed in a very similar fashion to the staff. And yet I recognize a subtle amount of sexism and racism that was at play. As I said , I am forever grateful for not embarrassing her or myself.
When I was a PD, I was mistaken for either the court reporter or JA on numerous occasions. But my worst experiences with inappropriate assumptions and comments have nothing to do with pronouns.
1. Many years pre-Covid, while waiting in the 9th floor clerk's office, I struck up a conversation with two attorneys, a female and male. The discussion turned to the then-current FB fad of "what celebrity do I look like." I mentioned that someone told me I looked like a particular actress, and the male attorney asked me to Google a photo of her because he didn't know who she was. When I showed him the photo, his reaction was (and I'm paraphrasing) that he wouldn't kick either of us (me/the actress) out of bed.
2. While waiting to call a case in Judge Venzer's court, a male attorney (whom I did not really know) said that he didn't mind waiting in line behind me as long as he could stare at my legs.
3. At a CJA conference, a dear friend of mine (an older male) introduced me to a fellow panel member/attendee (another older male). The man to whom I was introduced immediately assumed I was a girlfriend and commented on my looks.
4. Leaving Broward court after successfully arguing a motion, a fellow Dade attorney congratulated me on the result. He then ruined it by stating that the outcome probably had to do with how good I looked in what I was wearing.
5. Several years ago, we shared office space with a PI attorney who was a very quiet and serious guy (former military, even). One day, he popped into my office while no one else was around. He proceeded to tell me about a "crazy dream" he had in which I was having a conversation with him while naked. He then turned around and left my office. I was dumbstruck (and, frankly, scared). I later summoned the courage to confront him. He apologized and we never spoke of this incident again.
This is the type of shit that needs to stop immediately.
10:23 I didn’t wrote the post. Interesting that I’ve never had what I described above happen with a male colleague.
Female attorney practicing 30+ years here,
When I was younger and stil doing the bar scene I learned that I never told a guy I was an attorney. When asked what I did, I would always say that I worked in a law office. (not a lie)
If I told a guy right away that I wan an attorney his demeanor would change, conversations took weird turns and and it never seemed to work out well.
I'm on a plane, same time frame Rump (10 years ago or so) ... Start talking with the woman sitting next to me, and she mentions she works for the airline and this was her regular route - I ask "how do you like being a flight attendant (thinking that's a much better term than "stewardess") and she looks at me ... you see where this is going ... and very nicely says "I'm a pilot". Subtle lesson learned
The lawyer is an ass. The judge is an ass.
Now, every lawyer should know that a motion for rehearing in an appeal is dangerous. You’ve had a trial, and you had an appeal. Four judges, and their clerks and secretaries, have considered your issues and reached a decision; a decision which has passed by all the other judges on the District Court. When you file a Motion for Rehearing, know you are filing a motion which is deeply disfavored. It is bad form. There is always a chance you will be savaged, ripped apart by a hostile court, and humiliated for all to see. Good Form requires you to take a defeat with grace and good humor.
So, when you draft a motion that could get you publicly humiliated, you ought to know the case forward and backwards. You should know exactly who is on your panel. If you are too stupid to know the gender of the Judges on your panel, you are too stupid to file a motion for rehearing.
But, that Judge. Pshaw. She’s an ass, too. Maybe men would respect lady judges more if they didn’t behave so poorly. She slimed four lawyers and an intern, Thomas J. Butler, Andrew Feigenbaum, Logan Bartholomew, Thomasina F. Moore, and Sarah Todd Weitz. Who is the sexist idiot who went out of his way to insult the one judge who saw the case his, or her, way? The docket is confidential, so we have no way to tell. What we can tell is that WARNER, J., is a whiney little bitch with a chip on her shoulder.
"Maybe men would respect lady judges more if they didn't behave so poorly." Amazing, 12:56.
There are by far more female judges in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit than male judges.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/bill-maher-sonia-sotomayor-coronavirous-aoc-kyrie-irving
Sayfie pls read. Rumpole cry.
For most of the 48-year career of Judge Warner and many of us, "he" was in fact in the universal gender-neutral pronoun. This is not France so we do not have official rulings on the correct usage of words (sorry jurisprudence). The highest language authority for most of us is our high school English teacher, who PCAs all requests to change the rules. So whether usage it has changed is up for debate. The lawyer made a mistake, but only a grammar mistake. Two language errors in a legal document is not a woman-bites-dog story.
I know this is in horrible taste but I’m a kidder; you sound like a LILF
I’d pay good money to hear a female lawyer say “ I didn’t mind waiting behind you because you have a sexy rear”…that money will probably never leave my wallet
Love that Rumpole and the other guy describe it as "subtle" racism and sexism. Non apology apology.
This incident happened at the beginning of my career. While waiting in a long line to be called during calendar, a fellow male attorney who had been in and out of the courtroom confused me for the interpreter. I was upset but not surprised by this. He didnt even apologize. Till this day, whenever I see this attorney I think back to that day.
I have also been confused for a girlfriend of my older male attorney friends.
Years ago, I worked in an office with several other male attorneys. One day, it was announced we were all getting a rather small raise. One of the stupid male lawyers turned to me and said: "now, you can buy more sanitary pads".
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