Town Hall

The Human Side of Judging

June 19, 2019

How do judges manage the personal challenges that their role often requires them to face, including unconscious bias, chronic stress, exposure to emotionally-charged circumstances, and public pressure? Current and former judges join in candid conversations about how they have managed these challenges and more.

This program was presented in partnership with the Berkeley Judicial Institute at Berkeley Law School.
 

Participants

Panel One: On the Bench

  • Charles R. Breyer is senior district Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. He previous served as counsel for the Legal Aid Society of San Francisco, assistant district attorney in the Office of the District Attorney of San Francisco County, assistant special prosecutor in the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, and chief assistant district attorney in the Office of the District Attorney of the City and County of San Francisco. He is a recipient of the 34th Annual Devitt Award, the highest honor that can be bestowed upon an Article III federal judge.

  • Eva Guzman is a justice on the Supreme Court of Texas. Before taking her seat on the high court, Guzman served at two other levels of the state judiciary, authoring hundreds of published opinions as a justice on the Houston-based Fourteenth Court of Appeals and disposing of thousands of cases as judge of the 309th District Court in Harris County. Guzman consistently receives high marks in judicial evaluation polls as well as accolades from professional, civic, and law enforcement groups. 

  • Michael Lewis has published many New York Times bestselling books on various subjects. His books include The Fifth RiskThe Undoing ProjectFlash BoysThe Big Short, The Blind Side, and Moneyball, among others. Lewis is a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion and a contributing writer to Audible. He has served as editor and columnist for the British weekly The Spectator and as senior editor and campaign correspondent for The New Republic

Panel Two: After the Bench

  • Jeremy Fogel is the executive director of the Berkeley Judicial Institute and a former U.S. District judge for the Northern District of California. He has also served as Director of the Federal Judicial Center in Washington, D.C., as a judge of the Santa Clara County and Municipal Courts, and was the founding Directing Attorney of the Mental Health Advocacy Project. He was a lecturer at Stanford Law School and taught for the California Continuing Judicial Studies Program and California Judicial College.

  • Carlos R. Moreno is a retired associate justice of the California Supreme Court. During his tenure on the judiciary, Moreno authored over 140 majority opinions on a wide range of precedent setting cases. He served 15 years as a trial judge in state and federal courts presiding over hundreds of trials covering the full spectrum of criminal and civil litigation. Most recently, Moreno served as U.S. Ambassador to Belize.former Associtate Justice of the California Supreme Court

  • Deanell Reece Tacha is a retired Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and former Duane and Kelly Roberts Dean of Pepperdine Caruso School of Law. During her distinguished career, Tacha served as a member of the Judicial Conference of the U.S. and was named in 2006 by U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to the Conference's Executive Committee. Previously, Chief Justice Rehnquist appointed her to serve two terms as Chair of the Conference's Committee on the Judicial Branch which oversees the federal judiciary's relationship with Congress and the executive branch.

  • Jeffrey Rosen is the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization devoted to educating the public about the U.S. Constitution. Rosen is also professor of law at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic.
     

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