THE ROBING ROOM

I tried a three-day civil rights case in front of Judge Castel and was very impressed at (1) the balance he struck between letting the parties put on their case and moving the case along and (2) the speed and accuracy of his evidentiary rulings on complicated questions. He runs about as informal a courtroom as is consistent with efficiency and adversarial respect. My sense was that most of the jurors hated the case but loved him.