THE ROBING ROOM

He was well-prepared and absolutely on top of the issues, and he let my adversary know that he saw right through the baloney that had, until this judge got involved, been floating through the judicial system for nearly a year. It was a pleasure to behold, for a change, a judge who has done his homework on a case before coming out on the bench. He completely 'got it.' He is very young, however, and while that is hardly his fault, it was particularly unpleasant to watch him rather gratuitously 'bench slap' my 60-plus-year-old adversary for 'talking over [him],' which the lawyer really had not done any more than is typical in an animated conversation. When the man tried gracefully to apologize, the judge smacked him again on the way out. This was really unnecessary and even made me feel uncomfortable -- it took away some of the joy I was experiencing from how thoroughly he was communicating the actually deserved impatience for the other side's baloney litigation posture. That passed, of course. On the whole, I am looking forward to working with Judge Orenstein and wish there were a lot more like him, notwithstanding the harshness -- I would still take him over a Jed Rakoff in a heartbeat -- but I will certainly be on my best behavior. Well, one more thing. I would say that if a judge is going to smack around attorneys solely on the strength of being the guy with the gavel, he would probably do well to bother putting on a robe so as to endow his post with the dignity and authority from which he is drawing so generously.