Episode 23: Danielle J. Viola
Judge, Maricopa County, Arizona Superior Court
00:55:46
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Show Notes
Arizona trial court Judge Danielle Viola joins M.C. Sungaila to discuss how her policy work with the Arizona state government and law practice at the venerable Phoenix-based firm Snell & Wilmer collectively inform her approach to problem solving and decision making on the bench. She also provides some solid advice for litigators in the trial court.
Danielle J. Viola
Judge Danielle Viola was appointed by Governor Jan Brewer in March 2011 to serve on the Maricopa County Superior Court. Judge Viola currently serves as the Tax Presiding Judge and maintains a Commercial Court calendar. Prior to her rotation to the Tax Department in February 2020, Judge Viola served as a judge in the Civil Department. Before moving to the Civil Department, Danielle served as the Associate Presiding Judge for the Criminal Department and the Administrative Judge for the Post-Conviction Relief Unit of the Criminal Department. Beginning in 2011, she served as a Family Court Judge before her rotation to the Criminal bench in 2014. Before becoming a judge, Danielle worked as a partner at Snell & Wilmer L.L.P. where her focus was on commercial litigation with an emphasis in real estate and franchise litigation.
Judge Viola has served on several state-wide committees, including the Advisory Committee on the Rules of Evidence, Court Interpreter Program Advisory Committee, and the Task Force on Rule 32 of the Arizona Rules of Criminal Procedure. Additionally, Judge Viola has also served on numerous committees for Maricopa County Superior Court, including chairing the Court’s Judicial Education Day and the Jury Advisory Committee. Judge Viola graduated from Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law and completed her undergraduate work at Arizona State University.
Transcript
I'm pleased to have joined the show with Judge Danielle Viola of the Maricopa County Superior Court in Arizona. Welcome, judge.
Thank you.
We'll talk about your path to the bench and your private practice at Snell & Wilmer prior to joining the bench. First, I wanted to ask you fundamentally, what caused you to want to go into law, to begin with and to go to law school?
What caused me ultimately to go to law school was that popular question that Political Science majors ask themselves after they obtain their bachelor's degree, which is, “Now what I'm I going to do?” During college, I interned for the governor's office here in Arizona and ended up working for the then governor for a total of about two and a half years.
During that period, I had exposure to the political process and the legislative process. I was a legislative analyst working in that office and developed an appreciation for that process. I enjoyed it. I thought it was the best thing ever and wanted to do something in that arena. I was 21 and realized that the future was probably not great for doing that unless I had some further education.
I looked at those around me. I talked to a lot of folks around me. One of those people that I talked to was a woman named Mary Leader, who was formerly with Snell & Wilmer, which is where I practiced. She was working for the then governor. I had an introduction to her background and her path. She came from a big firm practice and was able to turn that into an opportunity to work in public service and a policy role. I thought that was such an interesting and great opportunity and path. I ran with that and had already been contemplating law school. I applied and then ended up delaying for about a year to continue working for the governor because we were in an election cycle.
I had the opportunity to also experience that election cycle. That’s the impetus. I never planned on it originally. Growing up, I never thought about being a lawyer. I wanted to be an interior designer. It had nothing to do with the law. My interest in politics was what initially spurred it, and then ultimately, that experience was a launching pad to opening a door to the possibility of law school.
How did you become interested in politics or decide to work with the governor's office, to begin with?
I wish I could answer that with some particular specificity. When I was in grade school and elementary school, I was always involved in student council and leadership activities. That carried over into my high school life. I was always involved in student government. I had an interest in that collaborative process and ideas of how you get people on your side. Ultimately, there's a natural transition from that to being a lawyer and being an advocate. Ultimately, it makes sense but in terms of politics itself, I wasn't interested in that idea. I’m interested in the process of people coming together to make decisions, brainstorm and talk about ideas. I liked that process.
It's different methods or forms of persuasion in that way. I see what you're saying naturally goes to the legal advocacy point. As you said, when you saw the legislative process, there's a limited amount of impact you could have on that unless and until you have a Law degree. It's the next step.
I saw and looked around, and it’s not that you need a Law degree necessarily to work in that area. Some people didn't have that, but a lot of the people who were in that sphere that I admired and who seemed to have a more sophisticated practice and level of input on public policy were the ones who did have a more formal education in the Law. I saw that as an opportunity, as a path and as a model for if I was going to do it, what it should look like. That's what prompted me to move in that direction.
As a young lawyer, your number one goal should be building your skills as a practitioner and learning the rules.
When you graduated from law school, did you go to Snell & Wilmer directly?
I did. I was a summer intern at Snell & Wilmer and had a great experience. I enjoyed the sophisticated practice that the firm offered. I enjoyed the presence that the firm had in our community, the opportunity for supportive pro bono work, the support to the extent that you were interested in being involved in the community at whatever level, and the professional development that the firm offered. I clicked with the people that I worked with.
They were some of the smartest and most engaging folks. Even though I never planned to do that long-term, it made sense, particularly in that early stage of my career, to be at a place that offered all of those opportunities, with the hope that someday I would return to what I had in mind, which was to return to more of a public policy arena or a role. I didn't do that but that was the initial plan. My two-year plan turned into a twelve-year plan.
You were at Snell for some time. You pointed out a good aspect of Snell & Wilmer, which matches your interest too. There's a large component of service and recognizing the importance of service to the community in different ways. That's a nice character fit with you. You have that same kind of interest.
It was great. Particularly as a young lawyer, your number one goal should be focusing on building your skills as a practitioner, learning the rules, and having opportunities for a litigator to be in the courtroom or for a trial attorney to be in the courtroom. Having the opportunity for that professional development is the first thing you should be focused on. At the same time, in developing those skills, it's important to develop those other skills of being in the community of getting to know the people in the community that your work is going to impact in one way or another at some point along the way.
Having that supportive environment, not everybody has that. Some firms aren't necessarily onboard with taking time out of your professional development to work on that aspect of your development in the community. I was fortunate to be at a firm which did allow that. It opened a ton of doors in terms of personal enrichment and experiences. Hopefully, I was able to give back as well and the community benefited. It was a win-win. I was very fortunate in that regard.
You were there for quite some time, which is how we met. I appreciated your presence there when I was with the firm as well. You then decided to join the bench, which isn't exactly a policy position that you had considered at the outset. How did that come about? What inspired you to apply to the bench?
It was a combination of things, to be honest. Over time, you do a lot of self-evaluation and self-assessment. As a professional, you should if you don't. I did. I eventually identified that I didn't want to specialize or focus on a particular area. At the time, I felt like that was probably important if I was going to continue in the role that I played at the law firm, that it was important for me to develop a little bit more expertise in finite areas in order to develop an appropriate level of business and to have a presence in those particular areas of our community. I felt like I didn't want to do that. I didn't feel like that was going to be fulfilling for me.
I wanted a broader range of experiences in my professional life. I explored a bunch of different things. The firm was supportive, whether it was different practice areas or those kinds of things. Ultimately, I decided that when I did that self-evaluation and thought about strengths and weaknesses and things about what I enjoyed in my practice versus what I enjoyed in working in the community or in doing pro bono work, I concluded that it was that breadth of experience that was more interesting to me.
I thought my strengths were better served in a role more like an objective observer or not an observer necessarily but in a mediator capacity and something along those lines. It’s less adversarial. I didn't feel as fulfilled in that adversarial role as an attorney as I wanted to be. I started to explore a mediation practice. In doing that, as you know, a lot of mediators are retired judges. I had a lot of conversations with retired judges, with judges who were on the bench, with former colleagues who had been at the firm, either mine or at other firms who had joined the bench.
I spent a lot of time doing informational interviews and gathering information. I was trying to understand whether it was something that looked like the next thing or whether it was something that I wanted to do. After all of that, I concluded it was something that I wanted to try because I could bridge the satisfaction that I was getting from the community work and the pro bono work, which is in the nature of service. It's public service.
I wanted to bridge that with also the opportunity. In our state, at the trial level of Maricopa County, we serve rotations. It was an opportunity to get to do all kinds of different types of law versus what I had done for the past decade or more, which was just civil litigation in a few narrow areas. It was an opportunity to broaden my experience, my practice, and my breadth of knowledge in the law. Also, to fulfill that role of being more of a community steward and being able to bring both of those together seemed like a good fit.
When you were talking about the different parts of it, there are some patterns that are emerging from the various judges who've been on the show. One common thread is some different kinds of service. They have significant pro bono services in their background, bar service, and community service. Being on the bench is another form of that service to them.
That's part of their path and finding that that's what they would like to do. I would say that you are the most intentional in terms of investigating whether that was something that you wanted to do in terms of the informational interviews and assessing your skills and strengths, and figuring out if that would be a good avenue for that.
That's probably a good strategy overall in making career decisions. You're like, “Let's evaluate this.” I always think that there are some things you can't know until you're actually doing them whether it's a good fit. Sometimes you also don't think about what a particular role means, “What am I going to be doing? Am I going to like that? Is that something I'm good at or isn't?” Being a judge is one of those that people may have in their minds. It's one thing but there are a lot of other aspects to it. It would be nice to do what you did and assess whether those are things you enjoy doing or that you could see yourself doing well.
You're right. As practitioners, we have a perception. I never was a law clerk. I didn't have the experience of having been in chambers and having worked through that process at any level. Other than what I saw as a practitioner, I didn't have enough background or understanding of the day to day. I don't think many of us do unless you've been in that situation. I do think for anybody considering making a change, that was a huge professional change in a positive way. It's important. It is going from a situation where you have a lot more control and flexibility over many things in your career to one where you have a lot less control and flexibility.
We won't even talk about the compensation, which is an entirely different dynamic. It’s one that is well worth it in the end, but those are all big decisions. Sometimes people don't spend enough time at the front end. I've seen it happen where great, smart and thoughtful people apply to be a judge or some other type of judicial officer role.
They get there and they realize, “This is not what I want to be doing with my day. I don't like this interaction with people on a daily basis where I have to be served on, and talking with people and interacting with them in a way that might not always be a happy situation.” You deal with lots of difficult things. The workload is also something that's important to appreciate because I had a pretty significant workload in private practice.
Some people make an assumption that if you are going to transition to being a judge, that workload is going to go away. At our level, we don't have law clerks. Anything that gets written is coming from your own hand, generally speaking. Appreciating all of those things and understanding the demands on your time and what the realistic expectations are is so important.
In the end, it was a positive for me. Doing that made me much more comfortable making the decision to try to do it. It also has led to me being more fulfilled and having realistic expectations about the job itself and the career path that I've chosen, which is the greatest job ever. At the same time, I did do that homework and I recommend anyone to do it.
We need more compassion and grace in what we do.
Even as a judicial clerk, you don't see everything that the judge is doing. You may be part of it. You also don't consider that there might not be one of you with the judge. If you're clerking for a Federal judge, there are several law clerks, but you're right on the state trial court. There generally aren't any. There might be some research attorneys that are assigned to a number of judges, but your amount of staffing is different.
I also think sometimes people don't think about in the trial bench, if you want to regularly go to your child's afternoon soccer game or something, you're generally going to have to be on the bench for those days. Especially in the trial court, on certain days, you know exactly where you're going to be 4 or 5 days a week, on the bench or in chambers. To some people, that works, but you have to think about that impact on your life overall.
When I joined the bench, I did not have to worry about that, but very quickly, I did have to worry about that. I became a less flexible parent. My spouse, who by virtue of the fact that I couldn't get up and leave, had to be the more flexible parent. It’s not what I envisioned necessarily but it's the reality of what we needed to do in order to make that work and what I needed to do in order to fulfill my obligations. You're right. It is something that people need to be aware of from the appellate level.
It’s a bit more flexibility in terms of your schedule because you're not necessarily having people right in front of you. Although, I will say that the pandemic has shifted things a little bit in terms of scheduling. For the year and a half that we were in full remote type mode, things were a little bit different. Once we returned to a more normal level of appearances and the kind of appearances, and once we returned to jury trials, that is not something that you can do remotely.
You can, but they are probably not going to be as common in that setting.
You’re right. That is something important to keep in mind.
It’s the pragmatic things. People think about it in terms of what they will be doing is different and the pay may be different or whatever, but thinking about the day-to-day impact on things is important. You did a full investigation and you've enjoyed being on the bench. When you said you enjoyed learning different areas and doing different areas of the law, that is usually a perfect match for the trial bench because you do generally get rotated from criminal to family to civil.
You could be doing many different assignments. I would also enjoy that. What I love about being an appellate lawyer too, is I get to learn different subject areas or cutting-edge areas of the law. In each case, it's not the same subject matter all the time. There's a big learning curve but it also keeps it interesting.
That’s one of the things that I observed once I started on the bench. My first rotation was with family. I had done a little bit of pro bono work in the family arena as an advocate, as a guardian ad litem or family court advisor. I had been in family court. I was familiar with some of the terminology. I came from a family of divorced parents. I had that understanding at a base level of some of the issues that come up in family court, but I didn't have an appreciation for the number of self-represented litigants and the dynamics.
The dynamic of having people who, in some cases, aren't particularly educated, certainly not in the law, who are at a difficult time in their life, you're working through these issues with them. That's one example and being in that situation and learning that area of the law. At the same time, I was learning how to be a judge. It was an interesting process. One that I certainly carry forward. I like to think if I went back to do it again, now that I've had other experiences on the bench and other rotation assignments, that I would be a much better family court judge than I was at the time.
It gives you an opportunity to see those other areas. In the appellate arena, every time something comes in, it's going to be a different type of issue and a different area of the law. It makes me a better judge to have had that experience and then to compound that over the years with other experiences. If I were to be assigned to a case, now I have had family court experience and criminal experience, and I've been on civil and tax for the past few years. Not that tax issues come up all that often, but varied experience allows me to look at issues with a more critical eye and with a better understanding of how everything fits together. I find it enjoyable.
Even when you have to rotate, it's challenging and scary because you have to learn that new area. It may be something that you have never ever practiced. I never did any criminal law practice at all. I did a little bit of pro bono work but it didn't count in terms of what you do as a judge in a criminal assignment. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed being on trial every day and the fast-paced nature of criminal trials. They are completely different from civil trials, which go at a snail's pace for preparation and everything else.
In criminal trials, these folks can get assigned to trial tomorrow to start later in the afternoon. They have to be quick on their feet. I was so impressed to see the lawyers who appeared in front of me in how they were able to adeptly move through whatever case they happened to be assigned and deal with all the different judges that they might be assigned to deal with. Those rotations are so important. Some people don't like it. They would prefer to stay in one particular area or they like one particular area. I do think it makes us all better and it keeps us fresher and focused on the case in front of us when we have to pivot and learn those new things. I appreciated that.
It's not a perfect analogy, but when you were discussing that, I was thinking there's a corollary to how I felt when I was running to be on the board of directors for our local bar association. One of the things you do is go to all of the different sections and committees and meet everyone. You're campaigning, but I remember that experience being the bar is one thing to each of the people to the probate section members. The bar is the probate section. What is that like?
To me, it was the appellate section, but when you have that overview that you see all the different things the bar does and the way it relates to its members, you have a whole new appreciation for it. It's so much helpful to have that. If you're going to be on the overall board for the bar, it's good to have that widespread information. I thought it seems the same in terms of it's positive to see all the different aspects that the court is to the community and to the people who come before it. You can understand how all these pieces of the puzzle fit together.
This is one example of having been on family and then moving to a criminal rotation directly after. In the family arena, there are many cases where substance abuse was a significant issue that drove requests to modify parenting time or custody determinations and so forth. When I was in the criminal assignment, I saw it from a different angle because some of the same people were the parents in my family court cases.
It’s the crossover of the people.
You saw the interrelationship between what sometimes happens in a criminal court with what happens in a family court. It ties to even what would be our juvenile court when you're talking about parents who can no longer parent because they are in prison or they are not able to because of substance abuse or mental health issues or whatever it is. You see that they are all connected.
Be confident in yourself, your potential, and what you bring to the bench.
In life, we tend to be siloed in the way that we think about things and look at things. One of the biggest eye-openers I had was when you ran through these rotations, realizing how much they are connected to one another. It’s not necessarily the individuals. That's obviously not the case. Sometimes it is, but largely just the issues that you see in the overlay.
You see that all of the things that are happening in the community have an impact on what we see in the courtroom. It's one of the pieces of the job that I love. It also makes me sad sometimes because you do see how lots of problems overlap. We can't necessarily solve them all, but you do see the opportunities that are there. That's a good thing to see as well.
That's a holistic view of both what's going on in the community but also the way the court system touches those in so many different ways. It's good to be aware of that. When you're in one setting, there are some other parts of the courthouse setting that might also be relevant. It’s having a more holistic and maybe compassionate view of the whole landscape.
Compassionate is a great description. With the pandemic, I certainly felt more compassion and the need for more grace in what we do. That's probably one of the biggest lessons that I took away from the pandemic for both myself as well as when I'm doing my job. Everyone had some of the same struggles and then some people had significant struggles that I could not relate to but were empathetic to.
It was a good opportunity for us all to realize that we're all dealing with things, and we don't always know exactly what they are. That has always been the case. It was on stage because we were on stage in the sense of doing things by video and dealing with dogs barking, kids coming in, the garbage truck driving by, and all of those things that we had to deal with. You realize people are dealing with those things every day. It's not always clean and pretty. That's a good lesson. It goes back to that holistic view of my role as a judicial officer and our role as the court. We do touch people in all areas of their life.
What advice would you have for those appearing in your quarter in child court in terms of advocacy? What makes the trial judges' life easier? What kinds of things can people do that make the decision process smoother?
It's always a great question and something to think about. It's probably a little bit different for every judge. One of the things that make my job harder is when folks are not focused on the issues but are focused on the other people. Oftentimes, there's a lot of noise around, "We asked them for this. They were late in doing this. We want this. They didn't give us that."
Whatever the back and forth is or not the outright negativity, but the underlying negativity that comes through in briefing or oral advocacy. For me, it's that noise that gets in the way of what the real issue is. I often encourage lawyers to take a step back and think about how they're dealing with each other and how they're presenting themselves to the court.
It's not my way to be one to sanction people as an initial reaction by any means. Sometimes I'll have a conversation with lawyers and they'll attach something that they sent to each other. I'd say, “If you sent that to me and now we're having this conversation about what you've sent to me, do you think you would send it to me again if you had the same opportunity?" It's those kinds of conversations that I have with lawyers when I see that happening because it takes away from what they're trying to present. It does their clients a great disservice. I think it’s keeping from the personal attacks.
Civility and professionalism.
That's the most important. The other thing is knowing what you're asking for. Often, we get things and you read through them and you think to yourself, "I think they want me to do X." Sometimes it's just not clear. That's the most difficult time because we don't have extra staff to help us. We're trying to work our way through a brief and we're still scratching our heads at the end and trying to figure out what you want.
One of the things that have been most beneficial to me is when people are very clear in their intro and very clear in their conclusion, “Here are the three things I want you to do.” They lay it out 1, 2, 3. It's helpful. Even though I might get there ultimately after I read your brief but if you tell me, then I know I'm going to get there and you know I'm going to get there. Those are the two things.
The second thing in terms of being clear about what you're asking for or what relief you're asking for, that's something that still comes up on appeal as well. Appellate judges say the same thing like, “You won. You get reversed. What does that mean? What do you want the disposition to say? Don't leave me hanging. Give me an explicit thing of what you would like me to do and maybe alternatives for that.” It seems like it's a good reminder in the trial court as well in terms of what you're asking for.
Civility is always a good thing but I think it also can distract. I don't know how many times we’re looking at a record or hearing a story from child council and if there's a lot of that, I think of it as noise too. A lot of noise about, “This person did this and this other person did that.” I'm not listening anymore because that's not going to create an appellate issue or that's not a legal issue. That sounds like a similar thing. You're fighting over a particular thing and there's a dispute over something else. There are other disputes going on during the process. Unless those are directly in front of me, I would like to be able to focus on this and what you want me to do about this.
You oftentimes are presented with situations where maybe in the same day, you have two briefs, two oral arguments, two issues or whatever it is. You have that compare and contrast where it's happening in one case and it's not happening in another. In a trial, it’s the same thing. You have a trial and the lawyers are great. They work well together. They're professional. Courtesies are extended. It's this professional collaborative experience.
Obviously, we need to get to a result, but it's in a professional environment. You have other situations where it's exactly the opposite and you come away feeling like, "I like this aspect and they don’t like this aspect.” Sometimes it's the personalities and you have to remind them that that's enough and other times, it's not. You’re right. It's easy to get caught up in all of those collateral issues. As a practitioner, it's easy to do that.
I can see where it is, especially when I think about it. As appellate counsel, I'm parachuting in for particular things. I'm not part of that ongoing relationship and dialogue, which may have completely deteriorated over the 2 or 3 years that people have been involved. That's the same thing. This whole dynamic is going on outside the courtroom and then it comes to court every once in a while.
You haven't been part of that 2 or 3 years of whatever they've been having with each other either. It can be hard to separate that out and move forward. I know we always talk about stability and professionalism. We think we know what it looks like and why it's important, but you're reinforcing why it is from a decision-making standpoint as well.
It gets in the way, for sure.
As practitioners, we know about that but we don't think about that impact. You got a lot of cases. You have to make decisions. Get straight to the root of the issue that you can decide and do something about at this point in time. Do you have any advice or insights for those who might want to consider applying for the bench or moving from law practice to being a judge?
Share your experience and help your community.
Some of it we've talked about in the context of doing your homework in advance, whatever that means for you and whatever level is your comfort zone. I tend to be over-prepared versus under-prepared. For me, that was important. The other advice that I would have in addition to that is to be confident in your own self and in the potential that you have and what you bring to the bench. I say that without knowing individuals who might be taking that advice, but we all have strengths that we've developed that we don't necessarily appreciate in the way that perhaps others do.
Doing that homework allows you to identify those strengths hopefully. If you decide that this is the path that you want to take, particularly for women, women tend to hold back and sometimes there is a little bit more self-doubt and less willingness to put yourself out there for a variety of reasons. Being bold in that way and taking that chance is important, and understanding that there are so many advocates. One of the things that I tell people and law students who are interning or something like that, and they're interested in figuring out a path, is that they should call people and ask them questions, “Let's get a coffee. I want to ask you about your path, your role or your area of practice.”
Particularly for folks who don't know what they want to do necessarily in their professional practice, I tell them that I've never received a phone call that I wasn't thrilled to take. I talk to that person about my experience and share with them my context, and put them in contact with a former colleague or a judge that might be interested in having a clerk or whatever it is. As humans, we tend to think people aren't necessarily going to be supportive in that way. They were a little bit apprehensive. In reality, in the professional world that we're in, I've seen the opposite. I've seen people who want to help you.
My familiarity is not necessarily with elected judges because we don't have those here in my little world, except at different levels. From that perspective, my colleagues want to help other people make that transition. They want to help them understand what the job is going to be like, and they want to share their experiences. Primarily, that advice would be to reach out and ask for that help because by and large, we want to give it.
We want great colleagues to work with. We want people to share the experience and to help the community in the ways that we've been able to do that. That's something that is so important. People are hesitant to do that. I would encourage people who are interested in doing that. Reach out and ask for that help. They will be pleasantly surprised at the response that they get. If they're not, then they should call me because I'll tell them.
You'll have a positive response. I know that the courts out here in California and the appellate courts, in particular, have started wanting to be in a position to provide mentoring and advice to those who may not have otherwise considered applying to the bench and pairing up formal mentoring relationships and things like that in order to have those kinds of discussions that you're talking about.
Your point is don't wait for those programs. You can reach out yourself. It can seem a little intimidating to begin with. There are those who do want to help and provide advice. People like to be asked for advice. Generally, they're happy to provide some of it. People forget that. They're happy to be asked and to help.
None of us got to where we are by ourselves. I can't speak for everyone but I understand that part of me being where I am because there were people who encouraged me. There were people who trusted me. There were people who went out on a limb. There were people who supported me. In my view, part of what I am charged with doing is to pay that back and make sure that those people are having those opportunities going forward.
Whether it's mock interviews, writing letters, making phone calls or just sitting down. Sometimes it's sitting down and brainstorming about who you know and how that person can help you. Is that somebody you want to help you? Maybe there's a better person or champion or somebody to be on your side, depending on what it is that you're seeking.
It can come in all kinds of forms in terms of assistance, help and mentorship. It doesn't have to be formal. It can be informal but even lunch with someone so that you know who they are and they know who you are. When their name comes up, you're able to say, "I met with them. They had this great thought about X, Y, Z." You're able to share that.
I don't want to say it's expected of people who have had the opportunity to serve on the bench. I think among my colleagues, we expect that each other is going to be supportive of our colleagues but also of those who want to be our colleagues. It's important for us to get great people. The more we are involved with that process, the better.
That’s a good point. You benefit from having strong candidates apply and people you would like working with because you're not in a position where you can hire your colleagues directly, as it were. People get appointed or, in other cases, elected to have that role. It is in your interest also to do that because you want good colleagues.
I'll give you a great example. We have about 60 judicial officers who are commissioners. They were not appointed by the governor but were hired by our presiding judge. Those commissioners go through a process similar to what judicial officers go through in terms of their interviews with a large group. In this case, it's an internal commission or committee of judges who interview candidates, evaluate their applications and so forth.
Even in that context, outside of the appointment process, that process is an opportunity to identify people who you see in the community who are curating before you and you think, “They're a good advocate but I think they would be a great judicial officer as well.” Oftentimes, we reach out to them and encourage them to apply. If they do apply, we encourage them to come and talk to us or shadow us.
Sometimes you might know somebody from a particular assignment and you see them in criminals but they have no idea what a civil judge does or a family court judge. You want them to have those opportunities. We do shadowing opportunities and give those kinds of recommendations either when asked or sometimes unsolicited. It’s an attempt to make sure that we're filling the bench with people who we think are going to be well-suited for the position and who bring the right kind of experience and demeanor.
That's an important aspect of our job. We see that in the courtroom. We're able to share that with folks when we do see it and encourage them. That often happens in that commissioner application process, where we are able to give that feedback. To your point that it's important to have those colleagues, those folks help us because they're sharing our workload. If we have great people, it's going to make it easier for all of us. It's in our interest to make sure we recruit great people.
Sometimes from the commissioner ranks, people will then apply for or seek appointment to the superior court bench as well. There's also a feeder aspect to that of additional colleagues. That's a helpful explanation of how that all works, the interaction, and maybe cause people to be a little less concerned about asking for advice or reaching out to judges if they're considering the bench. Are you ready for a little lightning round to close our discussion here? These are just a few questions. The first question is, which talent would you like to have but don't?
I've always wished I had any musical talent at all. I have none. Musical instruments, playing, singing, any of the above, I’ll take it.
This is a two-parter. Which trait do you most deplore in yourself? Which trait do you most deplore in others? It might be the same but it could be different.
For others, pessimism and negativity. That's two but they're related. I don't feel like I'm particularly pessimistic or negative myself. For myself, I would say patience because my job is all about having patience. I will always take more on any given day, both at home and at work.
If we have great people, it will make it easier for us; we want to make sure we recruit great people.
It's a helpful thing to have. Who are your favorite writers? They don't have to be legal writers.
I have a story connected to one. I like writers like John Irving, Ian McEwen, and Jonathan Franzen, big story writers with lots of character development. I like that writing. My story with John Irving is he will always be my favorite. The reason is that it's how I met my husband because I was hosting a get-together. I happened to be reading that summer all of John Irving's books.
I decided I was going to do that because I liked him and I thought I should understand the scope of his work. I had a stack of books, 5 or 6 of them, on my desk. At this gathering, one of my colleagues was there who I didn't know very well and started to talk to me about why I had all these John Irving books. We started talking about books and several years later, we're still talking about books. John Irving will always be my favorite for that reason, if not for his writing.
It was a good conversation starter and it led to a longstanding marriage. That's good. That's funny. I thought you were going to say you met him or had some conversation. Who is your hero in real life?
Hero is a hard definition for me. My mom is probably my hero from the perspective of growing up, it was just her and me for the most part. I watched her work hard with not a lot of support. She gave up a lot of things to make sure that I had a lot of things and we didn't have a lot of money. I feel like she made sure that I had all of the opportunities that I could have that she was able to provide. When she wasn't able to provide them, she was able to explain to me why not. From my perspective, she worked hard for so long. I feel like she allowed me to have the path that I had and to become the person that I am. I will be forever grateful for that. I would say that she's my hero.
That's a good overview of everything that she's provided to you. Giving you the opportunity to become the most and the best that you could be. We're benefiting from that. Thank you to your mom. Given the choice of anyone in the world, who would you invite as a dinner guest? It could be more than one. You could have a dinner party. They can be historical too if you want someone historical.
To be honest with you, I think that I have a group of girlfriends that I don't get to see often. Because our lives pull us in so many different directions and we have family obligations, we don't get the time to come together and share stories and laugh. I would put that group of people. It's nobody that anyone on this show is necessarily going to know.
Would you have to travel from different places or nearby?
Yes. Particularly someone from the East Coast would have to come here or we would have to go there and different states. The reason I say that is because coming back to the pandemic again because it's the most recent life experience, we did a couple of Zoom connections, dinner, drinks or whatever. You forget how important those connections are for people who are actually in your life. There are many amazing people you can invite to dinner and have great conversations with, but I don't know that they would have the same lasting impact or the same positive impact on me as being able to reconnect with people that are meaningful to me. That's probably why I would choose them.
I try to think of the positive aspects or the silver lining of things that have happened over the last couple of years with the pandemic. That's one of them in terms of coming back to what is most important to you and recognizing what's most important to you. In many cases, that is close relationships often with people far-flung that you didn't get to see as much when people aren't traveling. It reinforces that and reinforces for each person who's important and what's important.
It's important to make time for those people that you've realized are important to you. The dinner party is one of those. That's a good thing. It's the case when you think about it. There are many friends that you've had over many years. Some of whom I've interviewed for the show. We don't talk to each other maybe in depth, for a couple of years, but the minute you start talking, it's like you talked to them yesterday. Those relationships are so rare and special. It seems like you were talking yesterday and you talked to them two years later. It would be nice to talk to them and enjoy that relationship more often. Last question. What is your motto, if you have one?
I'm not really a motto person but I have two things that come to mind when I think about a motto. I read something about asking yourself if something is going to matter in five years. I have started to ask myself that question when I am either choosing to do something or choosing how to react to something. I find that it is centering and affirming of making a choice about how you want to spend your time and how you want to react to certain situations. I've definitely tried to adopt that of late. Parenting, there's probably a piece of that too that is connected.
The other thing that I aspire to is to think about, "Am I being kind and am I helping someone?” The reason that I pick those two things to think about is my father-in-law passed a couple of years ago. We were attending the service. Person after person commented on how helpful or kind he had been to them in whatever moment over the course of their lives. It wasn't about the awards that he had, how far he achieved in his profession, accolades or anything like that. It kept coming back to simple things related to the way that he treated people and how he made people feel.
I try to remember that when I am interacting with people, whether it's for the first time or the only time. We meet a lot of people in our lives that we're never ever going to see again, service providers, other parents, may be in the community or people that you come together with for a short period of time. I hope that when they think about me at some later point, they're able to say those two things that I either helped them or at least that they remember that I was kind to them.
Even in my profession, I hope that people who appear in front of me maybe not agree with what I ultimately decided, but I hope that they conclude that I treated them with kindness and maybe not help them because that might not be my role, but at least in the process. I hope that they come away with that positive feeling. If I can do those things, I'll feel pretty good about that.
That’s a sobering lesson in terms of legacy. When you see that in a tangible way, that's what matters in terms of what people remember about you, like how he made them feel, it's a good reminder. Thank you so much for having this discussion and joining the show. Judge Danielle Viola, thank you so much.
Thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure.