Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] By the way, Judged, the book I'm talking about, is free on every book platform. Grab it wherever you read.
[00:00:09] Hi, and welcome to the Politics of Justice. It's me, Amy Austin. Please excuse the faux fur in my own house because it is oddly chilly. The thing I don't necessarily like about Los Angeles is that the insulation is a bit meh. And if you don't have the heat on, you're chilly. But the heat constantly blows. And I can't stand the forced air heating.
[00:00:35] Never liked it, stuck with it.
[00:00:40] Love a radiator.
[00:00:41] So I'm going on a little bit with Judged here. I left off chapter 16, and I'm gonna be a little quick in the middle of the book because a lot of the middle of book concern concerns Sheila's, I think, life.
[00:01:00] It's a lot of not necessarily flashback, but it sort of explains how Sheila got to be where she is. And what you learn from these chapters is that while she was working at the law firm, she committed, I wouldn't call it malpractice. She committed poor practice. I think that she got involved in this sexual harassment case and the partners believe that she didn't handle it the best way possible. But of course, sort of leaving her without a lot of direction.
[00:01:34] And because of that, they're aiming to push her out.
[00:01:39] What you got to love about law firms, and actually a lot of places people fail upwards or they get pushed out in a way that allows them to have a soft landing.
[00:01:53] So in this case, their idea of pushing her out is getting her appointed to be a federal judge, which in 99% of the cases is a lifetime appointment. But as I talked about in earlier videos, is a recess appointment, which means she only has a job until the next the end of the next Senate session. In this case, I think, and I'd have to don't remember, maybe she has a job for either several months or maybe up to a year and a half.
[00:02:16] But unless she's confirmed in that next Senate session, then she's out of a job. And actually, now that I think about it, I don't know if there are a lot of recess appointments who do not end in confirmation.
[00:02:30] It's been, as I talked about before, sort of a backdoor way to confirm people who may be unpopular, often who are black, like Thurgood Marshall, etc. But whether or not she got to, if there are people who get in this process and are not appointed, I don't know.
[00:02:48] I probably researched it at the time I wrote the book. But that being ages ago, I don't remember.
[00:02:55] This is book one. I'm about to start book 31. So it's not right in the memory there.
[00:03:03] So Those like chapter 17 in chapter 18 sort of concern that there's a highlight in chapter 18, which is sort of interesting, Sheila's thinking or whatever. And she says it had taken me years to work my way up from the darkened corners of the library to a corner office with a bevy of associates under my supervision. Despite all those hours where all those years, only a couple of raised hands and jutted chins greeted me when she walks into a meeting. So despite being a partner and having years in the firm, invested in the firm, and being of a certain stature in law firms which are kind of flat but do have a hierarchy, she's still not warmly received or warmly welcomed, I think, in the way that she had hoped that she would be.
[00:03:50] And what I said is that there's a cautionary tale. My note is that there are no indispensable people. There are so many people I have met who think they're indispensable to their place of work. And everybody is disposable, even welcome to America.
[00:04:05] So that's just sort of chapter 17 and 18.
[00:04:13] I'm looking here to see what chapter these do go on, these chapters.
[00:04:18] At the time, I thought it was really important to give that sort of sense of.
[00:04:24] I don't know, sense of, like, what law firm inner workings were about. So chapter 19 is called Commonplace Lawyers. It's another Sheila chapter where she.
[00:04:39] Oh, meets with Madeline Montgomery.
[00:04:42] I do sometimes base characters on real people. There is. Was, oh, I haven't looked up for in a while. A lawyer, alliteratively named lawyer in Cuyahoga county, who.
[00:04:56] There was a hierarchy, people who worked in domestic relations. And she was, like, firmly in the middle tier of lawyers who had a lot of clients who.
[00:05:07] I don't know if I thought she was successful. She certainly talked a lot, but she would say she was very successful.
[00:05:14] And there was like. So there's a higher tier of people who often win, but they're just kind of big bullies and have clients a lot of money.
[00:05:25] A middle tier of people who are either very effective as lawyers, who also charge quite a bit, those who are ineffective as lawyers, but pop, who also charge quite a bit. And it's really hard to sort them out, I think probably as a client. So she's off to see Madeline Montgomery.
[00:05:43] And the title of the chapter is actually called Commonplace Lawyers because there was, again, a hierarchy among lawyers, and there are lawyers who worked in common police court, which is the court of general jurisdiction, criminal, family, juvenile, whatever. And then there's like, there's the appellate, you know, Supreme Court and people who work in federal court and a lot of other lawyers who are considered more.
[00:06:09] I don't know how. How do we say this? It's like actors. There's like D list actors, B list actors, and A list actors. Nobody ever said one person is better than the other. Other people, I guess, would say that, but some are just more successful than others. So she's. Let's just say that Madeline Montgomery is like B list and.
[00:06:32] But she's the one who's recommended. And Sheila goes to her. But what's super interesting about this is that Sheila, like, talks a lot about herself and her success.
[00:06:42] And it doesn't give Sheila. Not that you get Mormon fuzzies from lawyers, but it does put her off a little.
[00:06:52] And the issue is it does put her off for a little. But Sheila, to her debit, is a little classist here because she's worked at a big firm and she is a federal judge. And so for her, she's taking, like, a step down into the muck and mire to choose an attorney who is proficient in a place where Sheila is not, as we learned from her, trying to represent herself in juvenile court.
[00:07:18] What's interesting is that she. She really puts the screws to Madeleine. And because Madeline basically works in domestic relations court, because she, too, does not want to taint herself at juvenile court and may have worked there earlier, but people do climb their way out of it and hope to get bigger cases that earn more money.
[00:07:37] So that's interesting to me that Sheila has this bias but needs the people with the expertise in the place that she wouldn't go. So then there's a chapter called Initial Consultation where she realizes where Sheila gets from one of her law clerks who actually, I think, turns up in a later book. Oh, I can't remember the law clerk's name. I'm not going to scroll back for it.
[00:08:05] She turns up in Caged maybe. No, she turns up in the second book, Ransomed. She turns up in Ransom. I believe she's the main character. Ransomed.
[00:08:16] But so she's a law clerk and she's like, you know, basically reaching deep for names. And so she gets Casey's name and Casey gets this initial consultation. So for Casey, this is a huge client. This is somebody who can pay and somebody who. Whose hand doesn't have to be held.
[00:08:33] And for Sheila, she gets somebody who does practice regularly in juvenile court, but is not Sheila's ideal, like big firm lawyer, but there's no way to marry the two. You can't get big firm people to do small cases. And if they do, they're often not familiar with the unspoken and unwritten procedure of these kinds of courts.
[00:08:59] So it's, it's, it's.
[00:09:02] Everybody's in an interesting dichotomy. But for Casey, this is a big deal because it's like a first client that's a little bit more serious and understanding, a client that Casey believes will be more compliant and easier to work with.
[00:09:20] But we are where we are.
[00:09:22] Chapter 21 is more permanent placement. This, this goes into like a lot of like what my experience was like working with kids in foster care with the moving may. The endless moving placement. So you're at least my experience in Cuyahoga county was the child's initial emergency placement was not a long term placement. There were foster parents who specifically children for a very short period of time while the social workers were looking for a more what they would call the more permanent placement, which is why the chapters named that.
[00:09:59] I did ask, I think a couple of parents who did emergencies why they did it. And they wanted to be able to help children, which I do appreciate, but did not want the long term commitment of like foster children staying for weeks, months, years so they could live if they could provide like this transient home, but did not want like that long term commitment. And I did appreciate that, to be frank, those people felt the most honest and like pure of heart. I mean, you know, that's a little like probably over the top is a way to say it. But for me, they felt like people who were like, I'm really going to help, but I'm not like in it for the monthly check. I'm here to do what I can on a short term basis, but I'm not here for the long term.
[00:10:50] I sometimes wish, and I think I probably show that in the book that it would have been lovely if Olivia could have stayed in the place that was sort of caring for the long term. But that's not how it works. And also then I do illustrate to the best of my memory. I'm not rereading this right now. I do illustrate how transient it feels to be a child because they don't get like a suitcase or anything. They get some like toiletry items. They get like a little kit. I can't remember what's in the kit, but she's like moving her stuff by garbage bag, which to me, I saw kids do this. It was the most.
[00:11:30] I don't even know, demoralizing.
[00:11:36] I found it deeply upsetting. I just found it so.
[00:11:40] Just so upsetting. I can't imagine having to put your stuff in, like, a. Like a black trash bag and, like, carry it to the next place. But I saw it happen more than once, and it was.
[00:11:53] It was a lot to witness. I got no more words than that.
[00:11:57] It was a lot.
[00:11:59] So we talk about that. But anyway, chapter 22 is called Change of Heart, and it is a Sheila chapter.
[00:12:10] So Sheila, Much of the issue with Sheila is that she believes that she is better than other people. And I believe that working at a big firm or going to a certain tier of law school can instill that belief in people and attorneys. And it is often reaffirmed by other people's behavior. And so she. Even though she has hired Casey, she sort of wants the big firm treatment. So I think Sheila has this fantasy that she's going to go in and all the people that she worked with when she worked at the big firm, which is called actually Bennett Freihofen Baker, which is actually based on a firm in Cleveland. I don't even. I think it doesn't even exist anymore. Wow. Yeah. Think it went defunct, like, 10 years ago, as they do. I think it merged itself out of existence.
[00:13:12] But I knew two people from law school who work there. One in Cleveland briefly and then one in another state before they merged out of existence.
[00:13:22] So many mergers. It happens. Actually. It doesn't just happen for corporations. It happened for law firms as well. So many large mergers, they became mega firms. The smaller ones all merged out of existence. Sense. So Bennett Hoffenbaker, it was based on a firm in Cleveland that had the reputation for hiring.
[00:13:42] I can't believe I'm gonna say this. Like, it's like. It's like 1952, hiring Jews and blacks. So they would hire.
[00:13:51] They had Jewish partners and black. A black partner, I believe was a black man partner when I lived there. I don't even think they ever had a second black partner. Certainly not a black woman partner.
[00:14:04] But they did hire black associates. So if you were black and went to a certain tier of school in Cleveland, you knew you could get an interview and possibly get hired. Where other law firms that were larger and like super global now did not have black associates and did have Jews, but not as many as this firm.
[00:14:28] Just staying it like it was.
[00:14:30] I don't even know if this landscape.
[00:14:32] I want to say I don't think the Landscape is the same. I don't know if it's the same or different nowadays. I don't keep up any longer. I'm like many, many, many decades away from that whole rigmarole.
[00:14:46] So anyway, Sheila. So Sheila was like a black associate at this firm.
[00:14:52] The. Her mentor at the firm was Peyton Bennett, who I've talked about before. Kind of have a love for probably not a.
[00:14:59] But Peyton Bennett was her mentor. And I'm going to spoil this because this is well known spoilers was her lover. So she had an affair with him while she was married.
[00:15:14] And that she thinks buys her or bought her a certain loyalty in the firm.
[00:15:24] It didn't work out in the fact that she was pushed out of the farm.
[00:15:31] And in these chapters she's like, this is so. I don't know why this is sad. It's sad because she misunderstood what was happening.
[00:15:43] So she in this trouble of having lost her child to foster care and not being able to like single handedly get her daughter out herself. And Casey sort of, you know, explained to her that this is a rigmarole and this is a process. And just because she's a judge doesn't mean that there's going to be some magic wand waved and she was going to be able to get Olivia out of the system and get her daughter back. She's going to have to go through some process. Maybe not the same process as somebody who is poor and minimally represented would, but the.
[00:16:20] It's like being in the criminal justice system.
[00:16:23] Being rich and having other advantages can get you out, but once you're in, you still have to go through a process.
[00:16:32] So it's why. Why you gotta not get it, not be charged. So anyway, I have some thoughts about that, but not. Not Germaine. So she invites Peyton to her chambers. It's.
[00:16:45] I have a certain love of atmosphere in books and it's one of the things that I really appreciate about Cleveland because it has such like extreme weather changes. It provides that certain atmosphere that I love. So in this case it's cold, it's drizzly. She works in the courthouse. Actually the judges no longer work in this courthouse. They now work in a brand new building. But at the time federal judges worked in this old courthouse. It had lots of wood and fireplaces and molding and was a WPA building of beautiful architecture.
[00:17:25] So she has this beautiful chambers and the chambers were. They're nice. They're nice. Actually, I don't even know what's there now. I'll look that up later. But they're nice. And so she's got like a fire crackling. She's like in this like wood room with a wood desk. And you get this sense of history when you walk into these older chambers before they move to the new language I think is hideous.
[00:17:49] Anyway. I'm sure it's architecturally lovely, but it's just so bland.
[00:17:55] So. And she.
[00:17:58] So she invites Peyton in. Now Peyton, having been a lover and a mentor, she is hoping that when she explains this really embarrassing situation to him that he is going to save. Save her.
[00:18:16] And in that she. He comes in and she like lays her hand and he's like, that's. That. That ship has sailed at this time. He's gotten remarried. He's got a new young wife as one does he. His relationship with Sheila and like he had like a loft downtown or whatever was sort of like an act of rebellion. And he being the son of a named name partner in the firm, has come back into the fold, married the right woman, bought the right house, lived in the right neighborhood and has become who he probably was always going to be. And the Sheila part was the outlier.
[00:18:57] And that's. It's. It's a hard reckoning to come with. Come to.
[00:19:04] So this. There's a. It's this conversation and the series of flashbacks and the highlight is at some point she said when he's.
[00:19:17] She was on. Okay, let me say this. The highlighted part is. Peyton, there's something I need you to know. I slid my hand up to his rough. And John forced him to do something he hadn't done in a long time. Look me directly in the eye. Olivia is not Keith's daughter.
[00:19:31] And this in my posted note is that this has always been one of my favorite moments in this book. There's something bittersweet about this scene that's always touched me because earlier, and we're going to get to that, she had sort of subtly like said it.
[00:19:48] But I don't know if he didn't get it. He was being deliberately obtuse. She was too subtle. It's a different thing. But she is hoping that this is the push to get the help that she needs to get her daughter back.
[00:20:05] So he says. Well, it says after this. His blink was slow and involuntary. What are you saying? Abruptly, I dropped my hand. Nothing. I'm saying nothing. Go home to your wife. Think about what I said about the confirmation. I turned my back. I knew I was alone when I heard the chambers chamber doors close behind him.
[00:20:23] Why had I said that last thing? The issue had been dead and buried years ago.
[00:20:28] Why did he need to constantly bring up the past?
[00:20:30] It's so.
[00:20:32] It's kind of sad. I don't know. She probably. Well, I mean, she did have an affair. She's messy. She's messy. But sometimes I think you hope that the messy people in your life come and save you.
[00:20:44] And he didn't come and save her. He had in the past. He helped her with her divorce, he helped her with some issues in the firm. He helped her have this smooth exit into this recess appointment and as a federal judge. But with this last thing, he is not going to save her.
[00:21:10] So then there's a flashback because I want it to be clear to the reader what's happening because the previous was a little ambiguous and so you get the sense that they had this relationship or whatever, but it's not clear that she was having sex with two men and the other one is the father, the one who's not her husband.
[00:21:28] And her husband doesn't know in this book. He.
[00:21:32] I don't believe he ever knows and never suspect it, but he's a nice guy.
[00:21:37] Not as successful as she wanted, not as present as she wanted, but a nice guy nonetheless.
[00:21:45] So the flashback is Peyton visiting Sheila after she had given birth. I think he brings flowers or whatever and so Sheila is the point of view character, and it's swelling past the lump that had formed in my throat when my lover and husband shook hands. I handed Olivia to Peyton. He awkwardly cradled her in his cupped hands while he gazed at Olivia, Keith, and Deirdre, who's her sister, wait. While he gazed at Olivia comma, Keith and Deirdre picked up their conversation where they left off. Peyton, I said softly, I'd like you to meet our daughter, Olivia. The baby's eyes blinked open, squinting into the bright fluorescent, staring unfocused on her father. So I want the reader to know that Olivia's father is Peyton.
[00:22:33] But what she was saying in front of her husband and sister was really subtle because when she said our daughter, it could mean anything. It could mean our Keith and Keith and my daughter, or our you and my daughter. What she meant is you and my but I wanted reader to know that the reason she had to be a little bit more direct, although not as not direct direct, is that she had tried to like say this earlier and it wasn't picked on upon. And then the posted note that I like added that you can see on Goodreads, is that I've always loved reading and writing about love triangles. I do. I love It. I don't know why.
[00:23:17] It's the thing I actually did like about new adult books. There's some things I do like new adult books, but a love triangle. I love that tension between people.
[00:23:27] Yeah, I just love it. Don't have a good reason.
[00:23:31] There's a lot of book elements I love and love triangles. One of them. Although in the Julia Spencer Fleming books, the Van Allstein Claire's last name, I just finished the book too Mysteries is that she too has a love triangle which she resolves with a spoiler ahead. Death of the wife.
[00:23:54] But there's so much tension between oh, Claire Ferguson, this Episcopalian priest and the chief of police of Millers killed this tiny town. And at some point I remember they're sitting in the cab. I don't remember maybe book two or three sitting in the front cab of a pickup truck and Claire like does something with Russ. And it came after my book, but it gave me that same feeling. It seemed like we're in love. We're not going to talk about it at all whatsoever because you have an obligation. And Claire had some boundaries, in my opinion, not necessarily enough boundaries, but we, we all loved her as a character. I think we're willing to forgive that behavior.
[00:24:40] So in here we go.
[00:24:43] This goes on to chapter 23 is puppy love. Oh, I will say this because I. It's not my favorite thing to talk about and for reasons I just rather not.
[00:24:57] So it's called Puppy Love. It's an Olivia chapter. It is her.
[00:25:03] There's. She's in a new foster care placement with a boy about the same age.
[00:25:12] In my recollection. He has some developmental delays, but that doesn't stop him from being sexual.
[00:25:21] So the, the chapter 23 is entitled Puppy Love. And in that chapter he makes like what I would say like immature overtures toward Olivia. But they're.
[00:25:35] They're immature, but I mean not overtly sexual, subtle, asexual. And it makes Olivia really uncomfortable but because she's like then this like era of only just figuring out like a little bit about boys and her feelings and some like low level dynamics of heterosexual relationship. She doesn't quite know how to parse it, but it's a precursor to inappropriate behavior in her foster care placement.
[00:26:10] So the next chapter is 24 called retained counsel.
[00:26:17] And so in common police court in various cases there would be like appointed counsel, which is what the court appoints. In Cuyahoga county, they appointed a lot of the private bar in a public capacity. So in some places either the public defender or Some quasi governmental legal aid type agency handles all of the indigent cases, cases for people who are below the poverty line, but for which council has to be appointed.
[00:26:54] In Cuyahoga county, that was felonies, some misdemeanors, not all. Depending, I think, if there was a possibility of jail or the.
[00:27:05] In juvenile cases where parents could lose their parental rights. And then also, like just the juvenile criminal cases matters.
[00:27:16] So when you go to court, they do often ask if you're retained or if you're appointed.
[00:27:23] And my recollection is that retained counsel was taken more seriously and treated differently. I had been both.
[00:27:34] So you get the dynamic.
[00:27:38] I mean, I got the dynamic. Let me say it that way.
[00:27:41] So in chapter 24, retained council, It talks about this is Casey. So Casey has a whole history which is dealt with in disgrace. It's like the prequel that I wrote is the fourth title in this series.
[00:28:00] But she had a relationship with somebody called Tom Brody. Tom Brody's family.
[00:28:06] Family is hooked in. There's like a couple judges, attorney general, like former county prosecutor, like, they're hooked in.
[00:28:15] I forget what they used to call them. I don't call them Diagnostic, but they had a phrase for it, which I'm sure is in the book, but they had a phrase for those kinds of families. When I was in Cuyahoga County, I think there were two of them who I will not name, but there were a couple of those families where they. They were. They were hooked in. County clerk and the judge and the this and that, and they were cousins, brothers, whatever, whatever, whatever.
[00:28:42] So when she was dating Tom, she thought that she was going to be able to take advantage of that Diagnostic legacy.
[00:28:52] But he broke up with her after she blew a whistle.
[00:28:58] And so people were like, oh, you know, do you know the Brodies? And she encounters it every so often. And she says, I was disposable and I was disposed of.
[00:29:10] And the note I wrote is, I love this line.
[00:29:13] Occasionally I like my own lines.
[00:29:16] So later in the chapter, she is talking to her neighbors, actually featured in a short story called False Positive. In other places in the series, she's talking to her neighbors, and they're discussing with her reasons to take on Sheila's case.
[00:29:35] And so her neighbors Greg says, you need more money per hour than with more money per hour with known maximum.
[00:29:45] So she says, and that's where this potential client comes in. She's willing to pay through the nose, right? Greg asked.
[00:29:50] Probably. And I handle cases in juvenile court all the time. I just worry about what you said. Earlier. Can I work for a professional? Will be. Will she be scrutinizing every damn st step I take? Am I good enough to work a miracle and save her daughter and her job?
[00:30:05] Whoa, pull back on that God complex there, Casey, Greg admonished. You didn't get her into the situation she's in. You own you'd only be one player and what sounds like a very complex system.
[00:30:15] Which is true.
[00:30:17] I don't know.
[00:30:20] Let me say this. I'll read the posted note and the posted note says lawyers often feel like they're the only ones who can save their clients. While clients often feel helpless, the truth lies somewhere in between.
[00:30:31] I I did have clients who thought that having a lawyer was going to be the savior.
[00:30:36] And it can help in a lot of cases. But clients in some ways have to save themselves. They can't engage in egregious behavior. They can't do things while on parole. They can't.
[00:30:46] One of my clients did have a gun possession. While you're in the middle of like probation, like you like, sometimes people don't help themselves. And I as an attorney often felt like culpable and mixed up in their stuff.
[00:31:02] But I couldn't save them for two reasons. Sometimes the client, sometimes the structure of the system, and sometimes the. Yeah, those are the two reasons.
[00:31:14] And maybe also a limitation of my own skills. Who's to say? Anyway, so the next highlight is when I got back to my own apartment, Simba was nowhere to be seen. Simba's a cat. But my answer machines insistent red beacon pulsated in the hallway's telephone alcove, playing the single message I was surprised to hear Judge Grant's disembodied voice. I suppressed suppressed a shiver that the judge had somehow gleaned to his that she was the subject of tonight's dinner conversation. Ms. Court Judge Grant, I would appreciate a call back regarding the matter we discussed today. Though you're the youngest, least experienced attorney I consulted with, you're the only honest one. I'd like to retain your services. Call me when you get this message so we can set up a strategy meeting and get my daughter home. I pressed the button on the machine, saving the message. I'd sleep on it. That passive aggressive message made my spidey senses tingle as I got further further into the slothing. I was learning not to take every client who walked in the door. Judge Grant could be more trouble than she was worth.
[00:32:12] And so Jason, who's Greg's lover than husband. But the law had to change for gay marriage for that to be the case.
[00:32:20] Like Jason said earlier, doctors made the worst patients. The same can be said of lawyer clients that lawyers sometimes make the worst clients. And I had a couple friends who were doctors who had doctor patients and they also said the doctors didn't make the best patients because in both cases the professional cannot treat themselves, although they do try and cannot represent themselves, although they do try.
[00:32:49] And they are the hardest to take advice on from the professional they hire. They hire a professional, I think sort of like a front person but in the back they want to get what they want. And in the case of doctors is often get the test they want and get the treatment they want based on their self diagnosis, which I'm not saying is wrong. I'm just saying it's hard on the professional they hire. And the same is true of lawyers.
[00:33:18] So my, you know, she was going to come in and the message was, the message was a red flag. Casey probably shouldn't have taken the case, but then the book wouldn't be over.
[00:33:27] So she's going to come in with like guns blazing and getting from Casey, which she was unable to get from like the law firm associates that she thought were going to like come in and save the day. And she like, I'm going to get you to do what I want you to do as the frontman, but I'm going to get what I want out of this.
[00:33:46] This has been the politics of justice. I'm Amy Austin. If this, if you enjoyed this video, you can like subscribe or share it with someone who cares about how justice actually works. Justice is political. Pretending otherwise is the real fiction. I'll see you next time.
