I really like this story from Law360, which profiles a number of lawyers and judges across the country who are emphasizing patience and kindness in a profession too often built on time pressure and adversarialism. Some snippets:
On Thursday, [Chief Justice Ralph Gants] sent a letter to the Massachusetts and Boston bar associations, urging attorneys to work with the courts and each other “to create their own version of [mobile triage] units” to figure out how to protect the most vulnerable, preserve individual rights, resolve disputes and carry on.
“If we stand strong, resilient, and adaptive, and work together as judiciary and bar to find ‘duct tape’ solutions to immediate problems that otherwise might take years to solve, we will leave this crisis with a better, more resilient system of justice,” he said.
The judge added, “And perhaps, if we do our jobs well, a future generation will say of us, ‘This was their finest hour.’”
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U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg of the Northern District of Georgia issued an order to every case on her docket with some words of advice to attorneys battling it out in her jurisdiction: “Be kind.”
“Be kind to one another in this most stressful of times,” Judge Totenberg wrote. “Remember to maintain your perspective about legal disputes, given the larger life challenges now besetting our communities and world.
“Good luck to one and all.”
A subscription to Law360 may be required to read the whole article, but access it if you can. It’s a nice reminder that when the moment calls for it, we can surely become our better selves.
The Interdependent Third Branch 