Virginia Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth McClanahan said the most challenging part of her job is the sheer volume of material that she must read.
It’s three or four times what was required at the Virginia Court of Appeals, where she served before, McClanahan said in an address to the Bristol Noon Rotary Club on Tuesday.
“Most of my days are reading and writing morning to night,” she said. “I’m in court a lot less than I’m reading and writing.”
The Buchanan County native was chosen for the state’s highest court by the Virginia General Assembly in July.
On Tuesday, she gave candid answers to three questions she said she’s been asked a lot, and then took questions from the audience.
The first question: What are some of the things people say in court?
She shared a few stories about accused individuals – including one who, in explaining why he was indigent, admitted to manufacturing methamphetamine prior to his arrest.
The second: How do you get out of jury duty?
“I just want you to allow me to guilt you into never asking not to serve on a jury because I feel like it is extremely important to our judicial system in this country,” she said.
The third question: How do you become a judge?
“I was reading a book that someone gave me, and it said you know a judge because it would be a person who always knows a governor or a state senator or a delegate or maybe all of them, and that’s the pragmatic answer to the question,” the judge said.
On a question about the lifetime appointment of federal judges, McClanahan pointed out that Virginia only allows its state judges to serve until 70 – a limitation that, interestingly enough, comes from the Talmud, which is part of the Jewish faith.
Based on conversations with judges in Israel, she said that culture, from which the American legal system draws some of its moral basis, feels very strongly that people should not work after age 70.
McClanahan said the best training for a job as a judge was service on boards, including the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia and the College of William & Mary.
“You have to figure out how to get along with everybody, and you also have to be able to state your dissent or your average position in a way that is civil and allows your colleagues to respect you, but yet disagree with you,” she said.
She began her speech with a more lighthearted topic: a theoretical Christmastime legal scenario. In a story presented to the audience, Santa and Mrs. Clause buy a washer and dryer that include a warning label: “It is unsafe to put fabric containing flammable liquids in this washing machine.”
Santa, however, did not read the warning and threw some oily rags in the washer. One of his elves later adds clothes and starts the wash cycle; the resulting fire causes $300,000 in damage.
The court’s dilemma: who is at fault for the damage?
The answer, of course, would differ depending on whether the case was heard in Virginia or Tennessee.
“They put the warning on the label because they obviously thought that was a possible misuse of the washing machine,” McClanahan said before stopping to say, “I’m not commenting on the case.”
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