Judges Pamela Harris and A. Marvin Quattlebaum of the United States Court of Appeals’ Fourth Circuit visited Vanderbilt Law School to discuss how their court maintains civility.
In an event sponsored by the Branstetter Litigation and Dispute Resolution Program, Federalist Society, and the American Constitution Society, the judges delved into the importance of friendly connections and the benefits of working in-person to explain how their court maintains a collaborative, collegial atmosphere.
The beneficial effects of a collegial court
The Fourth Circuit is well known for maintaining a tight-knit community amongst its judges, but also a “southern hospitality” unique to the court.
“We get down from the bench and walk down to the council’s table and [shake hands] with the advocates and visit with them briefly,” Quattlebaum said.
Judges in the Fourth Circuit also maintain polite and amicable relationships with each other by practicing the separation of professional and personal matters.
“We spend time with each other. After we meet for cases, we go to lunch together, and we don’t talk about the cases anymore, we talk about personal things—things going on outside of work,” Quattlebaum explained. “We have dinners at night during court week with one judge and his or her law clerks and another judge, or sometimes more.”
This time away from work helps the members of the court build bonds that supersede their work.
“I think the reason we have a collegial court is because we get to know each other,” Quattlebaum said. “We get to know each other on terms and issues that are not much at all about the cases we hear.”
Disagreements in the court aren’t common, but when they do arise, the judges deliberate respectfully and keep the work completely separate from their personal relationships.
“We don’t talk when we’re sitting at lunch or dinner about, ‘Why did you vote this way?’ or ‘Why did you think this way?’ We talk about stuff that I hope you all talk about with each other,” Quattlebaum said. “We talk about our families. We talk about vacations.”
Harris wholeheartedly agreed with Quattlebaum and echoed his sentiments.
“I think politeness is a necessary condition for collegiality,” Harris said. “If you’re being rude to each other, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to collaborate in a meaningful way.”
But simply maintaining polite relationships is insufficient in Harris’ eyes.
“When we come together to hear cases, we understand and lean into the idea that we are doing this as a group of three for the reason that we can learn from each other,” Harris said. “We all have different professional backgrounds; we have different personal backgrounds. We can take advantage of that diversity by really deciding these cases collectively.”
The importance of face time
Both judges agreed that working in-person was optimal for staying connected, but also maintaining civility.
“[The pandemic] confirmed for me how important the time we spend together in-person really is,” Harris said. “I could actually sometimes feel a difference in myself, in the way I felt after or during conference.”
Being away from her colleagues during the pandemic frustrated Harris, who had a harder time not taking disagreements personally.
“I would sometimes have a brief second in conference where I would think, ‘Why don’t you see that I am right and you are wrong?’” Harris said. “That never happens to me when I’m seeing my colleagues in-person.”
Harris gave the audience a piece of advice to overcome the added hurdles of remote work.
“If you find yourself in situations where you’re doing a lot of work remotely, you have to make the effort to see people personally and get to know them as people,” Harris said.
Quattlebaum similarly advocated for in-person work over remote opportunities.
“I get some ways of [remote work] being an advantage, but I just can’t emphasize enough that I would encourage you, if at all possible, to be where you’re going to work in-person,” he said. “I think we’re made to be in communities as human beings, and as attractive as some parts of remote work may be, I would encourage you to resist them.”
Lost civility in the trial landscape
Quattlebaum believes that, over the course of his career, the trial landscape has changed. With new technology and new standards for professionalism, lawyers have become disconnected from each other. Particularly, the transition over to texting and emailing has changed the ways lawyers deal with each other.
“There’s less [civility] without phone calls,” Quattlebaum said. “You don’t have the communication characteristics of a voice-to-voice conversation.”
The loss of helpful vocal cues has contributed to a decline in civility.
“It felt like our dissents got a tad sharper [over quarantine], because you didn’t have to see that person as often,” Quattlebaum said. “It’s easy to have sharp elbows when you don’t have to see or talk with someone. I think email contributes to that a little bit.”
Quattlebaum made it a point to emphasize that, when he was a trial lawyer, he would go out of his way to travel to meet in-person with the other lawyer to have a cordial meeting.
Now that trials are increasingly being settled out-of-court, lawyers are able to get away with being less polite.
“When you go to trial, you’re dealing with a group of lawyers face-to-face, and that builds an accountability community where you’re going to be nice to each other,” Harris said. “It builds in some karma to the system.”
In-person collegial environments have also helped Harris by exposing her to expertise in fields that she is less familiar with. “The idea that I can fall back on my colleagues who may have knowledge and context that I don’t have, and I get the benefit of that through a collegial relationship, is so important,” she noted.
