 command more respect, carry more authority, and influence more lives than the federal judge. There is a certain sense of sacredness, something important and significant different about being a federal district judge than a federal bench. Being a federal district judge is a magnificent job if you're interested in the law and you have a highly developed conscience, so to speak. There is such a sense of disbelief about being nominated. One recognizes how few federal judgeship positions there are and how fortunate one is to be nominated. Judges describe learning of their nominations as exciting, exhilarating, fantastic. But that nomination is also the start of a number of changes in your life, including some you may not expect, like the size of the workload. I remember as a lawyer at any given time I might work on primarily on one case for six months, a year, a year and a half. And as a result, I knew a great deal about those cases, both in terms of the facts and the law. As a judge, when I started I had 250 civil cases, not counting the criminal cases. And the fact that most of those cases will involve areas of law you'll wish you knew more about. But even so, with the state court experience and with being a practicing lawyer for 18 years, I did not do that much federal practice as a lawyer. So I went to the federal bench, I had excellent experience in diversity cases involved in the application of state law. But the criminal, federal criminal law was foreign to me. Federal rules of civil procedure and criminal procedure. And for many, there's the mental adjustment of looking at the courtroom from a very different perspective. Every once in a while I am sitting in the courtroom and I feel this kind of inner self looking at myself and saying, what are you doing here? How did you get here and what are you doing here? And I don't think that has anything to do with insecurity or that has nothing to do with anything other than it is a very powerful position. The responsibility is enormous. There's no question that over the next year or two you'll be traveling over some unfamiliar terrain. There will be a lot to grapple with, both intellectually and emotionally. But you'll find no shortage of sources of health. Some are close at hand. Your chief judge and colleagues in your court, your clerk's office and your circuit executive's office. And then there are the judicial branch agencies here in Washington, D.C. Our jobs are to help the federal courts run smoothly, which includes making sure you get the information and resources you need. This program will tell you about the services at two of those agencies. The administrative office of the United States Courts and the Federal Judicial Center. Each has its own mission within the federal courts and its own particular kinds of assistance to offer. As the Education and Research Agency of the federal courts, the center is dedicated to making sure you get the initial orientation and continuing education you need. And with our board and judicial education committees made up of sitting judges, we're well equipped to design and present programs that meet the needs of judges. Most of your contact with the center while you're learning a new job will be with the center divisions you'll hear about in this program. Judicial education and publications and media. But you'll also have the support of the rest of the center. A research division, for example, works in areas like civil justice reform and management of scientific evidence and litigation. Planning and technology works on interactive computer-based training programs and long-range planning for the federal courts. And court education trains non-judicial staff in your court, like probation officers, deputy clerks, and secretaries. It also provides management training for teams of judges and court staff. The AO operates under the direction of the Judicial Conference of the United States. The judiciary's policy-making body. We develop the programs and guidance needed for implementing judicial conference policies or legislative changes. An important aspect of our work is supporting the conference and its network of very active committees. We're also involved in numerous aspects of your day-to-day work. For example, we provide certain core administrative services, such as sending your monthly checks. We work with the General Services Administration on courthouse construction, renovation, and maintenance. We design new software to help courts manage their caseloads. We develop manuals, handbooks, and other guidance materials for judges and court staff. We coordinate the judiciary's advocacy with the Congress regarding budgetary and legislative interests. Because the agency provides such a broad range of necessary services to the judicial branch, you and your staff will interact frequently with us. I believe you will find that every AO employee is dedicated to serving the courts and each federal judge. It's our job to listen to you, to learn what will best facilitate your transition into the role of federal district judge. It's our goal to do whatever we can to help you hit the ground running by offering our own services and by cooperating with others like the United States Sentencing Commission. As we introduce ourselves and tell you about what we do, we'll focus on services especially for new judges. Some are relevant to all of you, like the center's orientation sessions, and others are highly individualized, like the advice available on request from the AO in areas ranging from health insurance to the right robe. One of the key features of your experience with us will be our role in putting you in touch with your colleagues throughout the federal courts. There's a wealth of information and support available from more experienced federal judges who understand the practical problems of judging. And from those starting along with you, who will be sharing some of the same experiences. The judges of your court and circuit will have their own procedures to orient you and bring you into their judicial family. The AO and the center will serve as links between you and members of the federal court family from all over the country. We're starting that function right now by giving you a sneak preview of the first year on the bench from three who have fresh memories of the process, the Honorable Benson E. Leg of the District of Maryland, the Honorable Joe B. McDade of the Central District of Illinois, and the Honorable Sonia Sotomayor of the Southern District of New York. Now, on to services the AO and the center provide. First, there's the box of publications the center sent you. Here, the center reviews the collection of publications it sends to new judges, updating the list with new entries, and deleting others that are out of date. The goal is to include a core group of essential references, things we know you'll use. Some of these you'll probably want to get familiar with now, like the bench book and the manual on litigation management and cost reduction. Others, like the manual for complex litigation with its forms package, may not need until later in the process. There are a few items in the box we'd like to highlight, those that many new judges find central to their preparation. Let's start with the bench book for United States District Court judges. It's designed as an open book procedural checklist for you to refer to as you conduct procedures that may at first be unfamiliar. For example, step by step, what are the questions you need to ask a defendant who decides to plead guilty? What special care is required when a defendant proceeds pro se? What's your next move when a witness invokes the Fifth Amendment or just refuses to cooperate? The bench book covers criminal, civil and miscellaneous proceedings like temporary restraining order hearings and also contains materials like oaths and medical abbreviations. I saw the bench book as being the backbone of the skeleton and then I would supplement that bench book with case law and other rules and things I'd come across to that would help me. You don't have to reinvent the wheel for one thing, you know. Another that gets a lot of use is the manual on recurring problems in criminal trials. In the criminal trial area, it picks up where the bench book leaves off. What do you do when a jury is deadlocked? What steps must you take to avoid the pitfall of double jeopardy? The manual is also available on a commercial database now so that you can search its contents for keywords and phrases. You can also download and annotate it with your circuits cases. The Center's catalog of publications tells you what else you can access through the database. Most lawyers are not familiar with federal sentencing law including the guidelines. The United States Sentencing Commission will send you the guidelines manual if it hasn't already. Our package includes related material to help you understand the guidelines, an introduction, an outline of appellate case law, and collected issues of guideline sentencing updates since 1987. I took a day at the beach one summer, actually almost two days, and went through all of those updates. What was useful about that process was seeing the history of the sentencing guideline cases developed, seeing how the logic developed, seeing how the policies developed, and it permitted me to understand some of the current open questions under the guidelines. This box contains just a small sample of what we have available. It also includes our catalogs of publications and audio-visual media programs, and of course, our phone number. We've also sent you this pamphlet, Individual Orientation for Newly Appointed District Judges, and annotated outline of topics that most new judges need guidance on. So if you think of other areas where a little extra preparation would be helpful, just call us. To balance all that material on federal law and procedure and on the art of judging, there are the practical details. You'll find no shortage of them. The number of health insurance policies out there in the federal system is mind-boggling. So an administrative orientation can help, both by calling the details to your attention before it's too late, and by equating you with the structure of the federal courts and the federal court agencies. As soon as your confirmation hearing has been scheduled, you'll receive an invitation from the AO. The administrative office has been conducting orientations for judicial nominees for some years. However, in the past, these orientations were informal and were arranged virtually on the spur of the moment. A nominee would be in Washington for his or her confirmation hearing and would drop by to meet the director and perhaps ask a few questions about pay and benefits, hiring staff, office space and so on. For quite some time, we felt that we could offer a better program. So in 1992, we obtained approval from the Judicial Conference of the United States to pay travel and per diem expenses for nominees who wish to visit the administrative office for an in-depth initial orientation and welcome to the federal courts. Our program permits you to schedule this orientation in conjunction with your trip for your confirmation hearing. In our program, we focus on practical issues that need immediate attention. For example, we discuss the Code of Conduct for Federal Judges, pay and benefits for judges and chamber staff, personal security for judges and their families, furniture and supplies, and automation equipment and training. In addition, we look at the administrative structure of the federal courts. One major source of transitional complications is the ethical concerns that arise in giving up legal practice for the bench. New nominees may ask themselves, must I recuse myself from all cases handled by my former law partners or colleagues? And if so, for how long? Another important consideration is personal finances. Since judges cannot use blind trust to avoid disqualification, you need to know which investments may require recusal and which ones may not. What about political activities? You probably know of the severe limitations on your own participation in politics, but how does this affect your spouse or your law clerk? And how should you respond to the stream of invitations you are probably already receiving to give a speech, help raise funds for charity, serve on a board or commission, teach a course? The AO General Counsel's Office can help you locate ethical canons, regulations and advisory opinions relating to your questions. Most of these are published in Volume 2 of the Guide to Judiciary Policies and Procedures, which contains the Code of Conduct for United States Judges. The AO can also assist you in obtaining a confidential advisory opinion from the Judicial Conference Committee on Codes of Conduct, should you decide you need one. In the course of the General AO Orientation, you may also find sources for follow-up help with your specific questions, those that are too individualized for treatment in a group setting. Our program covers most of the questions usually asked by newly appointed judges. However, if you have a particular problem or question, please advise us so that we can ensure your question is answered during the orientation or that a special appointment is made with a staff member that can deal with your problem. The mission of the Article III Judges Division is to respond to the needs of the Article III Judiciary. If you have any concerns, please do not hesitate to call and let us help you. We receive a steady stream of phone calls about personal benefits, travel, chamber's management and similar issues. We are always available to help. I could place a telephone call and get in touch with the person who could explain to me briefly the very complicated ins and outs of the JSAS system. Whether or not to enroll in JSAS is a decision that's difficult to make and the AO was very helpful in explaining to me in my own particular financial circumstances whether it was a good thing or a bad thing. As the time you'll take the bench approaches, you may find yourself becoming more conscious of how much you don't know. Areas of substantive law, federal procedure, case management techniques. There is simply no depth of experience, simply no type of experience that can expose you to everything you'll meet as a federal judge. That was the number one lesson that took me months to realize and months to accept that I wasn't personally deficient because I didn't know more. And talking to so many of my colleagues who came aboard with me, I know that that is a feeling that most of us don't articulate openly at the beginning, that sense of insecurity about not knowing enough. But it's real, it's there, and the comfort that I grew to have was with the fact that there's no one who could have enough experience to face all of the topics that a federal judge faces. The Center's initial orientation session is designed to allay some of those concerns about unfamiliar areas. We'll invite you to attend one either shortly before you take the bench or shortly after. Because the week also includes a federal prison tour, the Center rotates the orientations among four cities that have them nearby. The choice of which you attend can be guided by timing rather than proximity to home since the Center will cover your costs of attending all its educational programs. In the small group orientation, you will spend a week watching Center-produced videos with a group of 12 or more new judges and a moderator who's an experienced federal judge. Different judges are featured in these tapes and they cover a number of basic areas. This week won't make you an expert in anything. The goal is to lay a foundation for your future knowledge. The curriculum has been approved by the Center's Committee on District Judge Education and is designed to provide overviews of the areas you will need to know first. Topics covered by the videos range from jury selection procedures to working effectively with your chamber staff to sentencing law. You won't have to depend on just the video program to explain the guidelines, by the way. Representatives of the United States Sentencing Commission present a comprehensive workshop at every small group orientation. It may look as if I'm speaking to you from a courtroom. At least, we hope that's how it looks. But in fact, this is the Center's media studio. It's where we make some of our video programs. Experienced judges come here from all over the country to share their expertise with you. We try to represent a range of participants from different parts of the country and different kinds of districts who can contribute a range of experiences, styles, and points of view. So part of what makes the week interesting is the exposure to the judges in the video programs. Certainly, criminal trials are different from civil trials. The atmosphere in the courtroom is different. If the federal rules of evidence have ever in the past, either while you were an attorney or in your brief tenure on the bench, ever intimidated you by their very weight and existence, they will no longer intimidate you after today. And of course, you'll be getting acquainted with the other judges at the seminar, the experienced judge who will serve as moderator-discussion leader, and the other new appointees. Ideally, you will attend a small group orientation before you go on the bench, giving you a chance to raise your confidence. And there you can admit that you don't know everything already. It's important at this point to meet other new judges who are dealing with the same concerns that you are. It was helpful because you had other people in the same boat, and you discovered that, hey, I'm not the only person who feels inadequate or incompetent or overwhelmed by all of this. They do too, so it's natural. We went out and had supper each night, and I have found, and I think this is a common experience among judges that I've kept up with. I call them from time to time. I see their names in the newspapers. I'll hear on the radio that they've issued some ruling. And I look forward to keeping up with this group of people for the rest of my career. And then, after the long wait, suddenly you're a judge. You'll probably find things getting off to a very fast start. The first morning that I walked in, it was 8.30 in the morning, and I walk in with my secretary and we're brand new to the office. My phone rings, and I think it's a family member calling to congratulate me again and tell me to have a good day, and on the phone is a litigant advising my secretary that his case has been reassigned to me and that they want an immediate trial date. My secretary turns to me and says, Judge, what do I do? The Monday after the Friday I was sworn in, I had seven cases to try. It so happens that they either settle or they got postponed, so that we did not have a case to try. So I spent a couple of days in a courtroom of my colleague watching a couple of his sentence and procedures and change of plea. But even as you're running to catch up, you'll probably find time to feel some trepidation. You're very apprehensive because, generally speaking, you don't know how a judge acts because you have never focused upon a judge as a litigator. You've been cognizant of your role as an attorney and your adversary, but you've never pictured yourself as being the judge and what a judge does. You just accepted that a judge does that. I spent my first month holding conferences and chambers, and when I think about it, I did it because I was a little frightened about taking the bench. And it was a little easier just to do my conferences and chambers and get used to having people call me judge and getting used to speaking to the litigants and assuming my new role. Well, I waited for three weeks before going on the bench, and I made sure that my first, my maiden voyage was something that I could handle. I think I scheduled a rearrangement, but even though I had reviewed the bench book to make sure that I knew exactly what to say, I talked to the other judges so that I knew exactly what would be said to me, I was still terrified. One of the first things that becomes clear at this point is that nobody can do this without help. As you're getting started, keep the center's individual orientation pamphlet in mind. Its publications and audio-visual catalogs can also help you with unfamiliar areas of law, but during the first few months, you'll probably find your most valuable source of help right there in your court, more experienced judges and court staff. Your court may offer a mentor program or you may develop more informal contacts. I developed a relationship with a judge on my court who'd been around for a long time who was perceived by the bar and the other judges as being an excellent trial judge, and as problems would crop up, I would not hesitate to give him a call. I also made sure that I would ask similar questions, although not as frequently, from other senior judges on the court to make sure that I was not getting just one perspective. It may be tempting for a new judge because of the apprehension and anxiety to pretend to know more than he knows, to pretend to be more confident than he really is. And I have absolutely no reservations about indicating and confessing my apprehensions or my fright or my need for help and advice. And people just go out of their way to help you. And this is true not only with the other judges, but it's true with all the other support personnel, whether it's the probation office, the clerk's office or what have you. And it's perfectly acceptable and expected to keep on asking for help because situations will continue to arise where you'll need it. So when I encountered problems in the courtroom, questions that I simply couldn't answer, procedures that I was unfamiliar with, I'd ask the lawyers, for example, when does a person who's been sentenced have to report to the prison, and if he has to report to an out-of-state prison who pays the cost of transportation. There are many, many wrinkles and small problems that arise that the judge simply will not know the answer to for the first year or two. I ask the lawyer if he had discussed the sentence and guidelines with his client. And he said, no. No, I said, why not, counsel? And he says, well, judge, I don't understand them. So, you know, what do you do now? Well, you've got to remember that a judge can do anything he wants to do. So you take a break and you go ask somebody else, what do I do now? The problems that arise during this time can't all be solved by increasing your knowledge. Many find other, more personal adjustments necessary. I was accustomed to seeing, to being in a large firm, to a large firm politics, to seeing a great many people, to popping into other lawyers' offices to talk about their cases and to ask them questions about my cases so that there's much more of a group synergy or a collective effort in a law firm. Being on the bench, the scope of your circle is a much more circumscribed. Generally speaking, you'll see each day your secretary and your two law clerks and your deputy courtroom clerk and that's it. The most difficult moment for me was my first sentence. It is very or was relatively easy to be a prosecutor and to advocate to a judge that someone had to be put away for X number of years. Well, you're in a different position when you're the one signing that judgment of conviction and it's your name that's on that line and you're making the choice about how much time that person's life is going to be abbreviated in terms of their liberty. In my state court experience, we were not quite as formal. The bar almost felt free to walk into your private chambers almost any time they wanted to and they would stop by. In court, they would normally sit rather than stand when addressing the court. Well, in federal court, certainly you don't allow that anymore. You require a certain degree of formality. You stand when you address the court. You usually speak from the lectern. And you have to deal with the reaction of the lawyers in a bar to the new you. Very strange to wear the title judge. Walking to the courthouse and having people call out to me, judge or having old friends not know whether to call me sonor or judge seems a little strange and has seemed strange to me. And defining those lines or drawing new lines or defining how I want my relationships to continue and with whom has been a difficult question during the year. About midway through that first year, you'll be invited to the center's second one week orientation seminar. This time, the program features in-person lectures and panel discussions. It's held here in Washington D.C. The Washington D.C. portion of the orientation seminar is geared for judges who have been on the bench for a few months already. It provides a more in-depth treatment of the nuts and bolts subjects that all judges face every day. We also hope to provide more in-depth treatment of case management and the art of judging itself. The goal is to build on the small group orientation program and on a few months of experience the judges already had. I found some substantive areas that I had no prior exposure to exceedingly helpful, like the habeas sections, the 1983 sections. The federal jurisdiction questions seminar was probably the most useful of all of the seminars on a practical basis because if you can figure out early on whether you have jurisdiction over a case or not, it makes a big difference in being able to manage your case load. Questions arise as to how does one handle a difficult attorney? How does one handle problems when attorneys are late? How far does the judge go in allowing an attorney to be rough with a cooperating witness? This Washington orientation seminar comes at a point when the opportunity to compare notes with colleagues and hear different viewpoints is very much valued. If you're a lawyer, you'll appear before a number of judges, federal judges, state judges, appellate judges, and as a lawyer, you can see what works and from a judge's standpoint how judges handle their courtrooms, whether they're accessible, whether they're hard, whether they're patient, whether they're impatient, and you can learn from viewing these different styles. But as a judge, the only style that you ever see is your own. As you continue through your first year, you'll gain experience and feel much more comfortable with areas of law you knew nothing about before taking the bench. At some point along here, you'll stop thinking of yourself as a baby judge. You'd be all set if only the law didn't keep changing, but it does. It took me completely aback my first six months in rendering a decision and having the litigants come up to me in another case a month later, arguing my own case to me, arguing my own decision and interacting with them on my own thinking process. And that only happens because we were on a cutting edge of an issue. And new areas become relevant in your court. Maryland has not executed anyone for the past 30 years, but there are two prisoners now in the pipeline, and I anticipate that federal habeas corpus petitions will be filed early next year. My court has no institutional memory on habeas death penalty cases. And that's why we have continuing education. The curriculum for these programs is developed after a survey of judges and in consultation with a committee of judges. In the past, we've included updates on habeas corpus, on sentencing, and a review of recent Supreme Court decisions. The Center will notify you of upcoming continuing education programs. 15 hours per year are offered to every judge at every level. And again, the Center pays your way to all these programs. Because the programs are audio taped, you can also have the benefit of those from past years. So I called up the FJC and was sent five tapes on a federal habeas seminar that took place, I think, two years ago. It included judges, prosecutors. It included people from State Attorney General's office, defense lawyers, people from the clerk's office, so that the problems of habeas cases could be examined from every theoretical and practical level. Our special focus programs provide an opportunity for a small group of judges to attend an intensive program on a specific topic. In the past year, we have done such programs on immigration law, environmental law, and financial accounting. Our Princeton program brings together leaders in the liberal arts community, such as Joyce Carol Oates and James McPherson, and gives judges an opportunity to step away from day-to-day issues. We try to add a special touch to each one of these programs. At a recently completed maritime law program, we had an evening discussion of Herman Melville's novel, Billy Budd. We want to remain flexible. If a judge expresses a need, we will try to come up with something to meet that need. In addition to the in-person seminars and workshops, the Center is constantly adding to its video, audio, and publication offerings, particularly to help you keep up with new developments in the law. For example, the Center responded to the latest changes in the federal rules of civil procedure with a videotaped analysis by a panel of three judges with particular expertise in the area. AO publications, like the Third Branch, also keep you informed of legislative and other developments affecting the business of the courts. The administrative office sends out a newsletter periodically, which is good to read, because it usually addresses matters of concern such as where is the Gender Violence Act, where does it stand, and the legislative process. How will the new Alnibus Crime Act impact your caseload? Even later in your career, when you're far beyond the orientation stage, we think you'll continue to find these releases helpful for yourself and your staff. Speaking on behalf of everyone here at the AO and the Center, we hope you've enjoyed getting acquainted with us and the services we have to offer. We're always here to try to help make your job easier. I look forward to working with you and your staff. Welcome to the judicial family. Don't forget we want to hear from you. If there's ever a service we can provide for you, a question we can help you with, or an idea you have to help us improve our services, don't hesitate to contact us. That, I guess, is a summary of what this first year is all about. It's just learning that you can only learn at your own pace. I found that over a period of several weeks, I became very comfortable on the bench that now after two years, I am completely comfortable sitting at the bench making decisions. The message is that you become comfortable quickly. Things turn out fine. You just go through it, do it, use common sense, and things will work out.