I am none too happy with the Ninth Circuit right now. Various federal statutes give the circuit courts the power to appoint bankruptcy judges. In effect, those judges are "servants" of the district court, with all the powers of judges in supervising and adjudicating the cases that are before them, but without the lifetime tenure that marks the federal judiciary. They serve terms of fourteen years, after which they usually are reappointed by a panel of appellate judges. In rare instances, the circuit court will politely ask the judge to retire, to enter into private practice, or just to get lost, but that contingency is usually reserved for those who are either incompetent, crooked, or are simply ill-suited to sit as judges.

Last week, word came out that Kathleen March would not be reappointed. There was no public word on the Ninth Circuit's rationale in nixing her reappointment, so for all I know, she's been taking home satchels of cash from the local paralegal lobby, or has a double life running a high class prostitution ring. Maybe she has several husbands. All I know from my experience as a humble country lawyer from Woodland Hills is that she was a damn good judge. I should say, is a damn good judge. Her opinions have always been reasonable and moderate. She is a stickler for procedural requirements, which can be a drag, but the thing about having a case before an anally retentive judge is that, you know that going in; you just spend more time preparing ahead of time to make sure that all the parties that need notice get noticed, and all the exhibits are tabbed and all the pleadings paginated. In any event, making sure that attorneys follow the local rules is not likely going to be the reason a good judge was not reappointed.

Rumor has it that a group of "debtor's attorneys" got together to lobby the Ninth Circuit, and alleged that she was rude to counsel and was often unprepared. The former criticism is almost certainly true, a fact I can attest to from first-hand experience. When counsel didn't bring their "A-game" to court, she would be snappy, and her tongue would wax sarcastically; I occasionally felt her wrath, particularly when I first began practicing. In all honesty, appearing before that sort of judge, seen in retrospect, is character-building; at the time, all you think about is taking revenge in a manner prohibited by federal law (oops, a left-wing blogger fantasizes about violence; better not tell Kausfiles). But hell, lawyers have a state-enforced monopoly, an exclusive license to make money. If you can't take the occasional sarcastic zing, get into accounting. Or entertainment law.

As for the latter charge, her alleged lack of preparation, that is, to put it politely, bullshit. I have never appeared before a judge who knew as much about the cases on her docket as Kathleen March. As a habit, she would recite the details of each case on to the record at every hearing, which was a royal pain if you had to be somewhere else that day, but it also ensured that a complete record would be on the transcript if your case was appealed. I have no doubt that what bugged those attorneys wasn't that she was unprepared, but that she knew their cases better than they did.

I lightly passed over the group purportedly behind her ouster, the "debtor's bar". Lest you think I am attacking the heart and soul of my practice, understand that the "debtor's bar" does not refer to lawyers who represent the humble citizen who runs up credit card debt, or has a medical bill they can't pay; it consists of Chapter 11 attorneys, people who represent Enron and WorldCom, if those companies only had the good sense to file in the Central District of California. When I say "debtor's bar", think corporations that have cooked books and laid-off employees, and the attorneys who represent them. I hate them. They represent everything that is despicable and odious about the legal system. For example, last year I attended a bankruptcy forum dinner in Beverly Hills, on the issue of procedural changes. Any hope that I would actually learn something that might assist my practice was shot when one of the panelists gave a presentation discussing the new streamlined local rules for Chapter 11 cases: her argument was that California had gained a reputation for being a lousy place for companies to file bankruptcy, and that firms such as hers were losing business to New York and Delaware. Now that's something for Jimmy Hahn and Gray Davis: how do we make California a more bankruptcy-friendly state. Well, contribute enough money to him, and I'm sure Gov. Davis will get right on that.

As I said, there may have been a good reason to deny reappointment to Kathleen March, but I haven't heard it yet. I don't know what her political views were; the word was that she had been a Republican in New York, but she was a law school classmate of Bill and Hillary Clinton, and I never saw a hint of bias in her opinions. I have not seen any statistics indicating that her opinions were reversed disproportionately, or that she favored debtors over creditors, or vice versa.

By the way, while I'm on the topic of the ideology of judges, my position is that the only criteria for the nomination and approval of District Court judges should be temperament (does the judge have a professional reputation for fairness? is there any reason to believe that the nominee is a bully?), qualifications (did the nominee pass the bar in a reasonable time? did he spend a lot of time fending off malpractice suits?) and integrity (has the candidate always been in a member in good standing of the local bar? is there a history of domestic violence/drug use/boozing?). Ideology should play only a miniscule role: is the nominee is part of a very broad spectrum of mainstream opinion on legal issues. As much as I may disagree with them, people who oppose abortion rights, support the death penalty, or believe that the federal government should play a more limited role in enforcing civil rights are part of that broad mainstream; a judge who believes in the superiority of the white race, or that public school classrooms should be devoted to Bible study, or that government should play no role regulating private property, is not. It is an opinion that I have come to through first-hand experience appearing in court; the best judges are men and women who differ enormously on political issues: the best judge I have ever appeared before was a Reagan appointee, while two of the biggest stiffs in the Central District were appointed by Johnson and Carter. The two worst judges on the bankruptcy panel are liberals, but so is the best judge.

On the other hand, ideology should not only be a factor in determining who should be approved to sit on the Court of Appeals, it should be the preeminent factor. Considering the circumstances by which this President gained office, the Senate must exercise its discretion in vetting his appellate nominees; if any doubt exists about where a judge stands, he must be defeated (so sorry, McConnell and Estrada). And under no circumstances can the Senate approve any nominee for the Supreme Court until February, 2005, so long as the Democrats are in control. The notion that the federal courts are undermanned at the moment is true, but its only relevance derives from the backlog in District Court judges, not from a shortage of appellate judges (after all, if a District Court seat is not filled, that means that no cases can be assigned to that courtroom, increasing the number of cases that get assigned to other courts, and justice gets delayed; if an appellate seat is not filled, that only means there are fewer judges hearing appeals, but the appeals still get heard, albeit by fewer judges).

Well, I'm getting off the track here. Judge March may have been a real, er, witch, at times, but I got over it. We all have our idiosyncrasies, and if having a stinging wit is the worst thing you can say about a person, I can live with that. It's a shame other people didn't. I will miss her on the bench, and hope she has a successful career in private practice. I especially hope that she is not blacklisted the same way Rose Bird was by the local bar, after she was voted out of office. The bankruptcy court of the Central District will never be the same.