THE ROBING ROOM

I had a civil case in which opposing counsel and I stipulated to have Judge Stevenson act as the judge through the entire trial. A week before trial, I was a little nervous, wondering if maybe I shouldn’t have picked a magistrate to handle the entire case. My concerns were assuaged before trial. We had a 2 ½ hour pretrial conference, discussing every conceivable pretrial issue. Judge Stevenson came through in the clutch. She was everything that you want a judge to be. She is smart, knows her facts, knows her law, was very fair, and was not afraid to rule against someone if the law was against them. Also, she wasn’t afraid to rule against someone who was pushing a legal argument that didn’t quite fit. She stuck to her guns, and wasn’t afraid to say “no” when a “no” was required. Best of all, she had no judicial arrogance. She simply rolled up her sleeves and went to work with both attorneys, trying to get all issues resolve before trial. Very, very refreshing. Our case ended up settling on the eve trial, but I would have been 1000% comfortable using her as the trial judge.