Content area
Full Text
Miriam Cedarbaum had been a judge on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York for six years when I joined that court in 1992. I count myself as lucky for so many reasons, but getting to serve alongside and learn from Judge Cedarbaum falls high on that list.
Judge Cedarbaum mentored me in my first few years on the bench and served as a steady source of strength and wisdom in the years after. This relationship began when she stopped by my office during my first week on the bench, a tradition she followed with every new judge on her court. It continued afterwards because our offices were on the same floor of the Thurgood Marshall Courthouse, just around the corner, and we kept the same arrangement when renovations moved us to the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Courthouse. I learned much from Judge Cedarbaum. In this space, I want to record those lessons so that other judges, those not fortunate enough to be paid a visit by her during their first week on the bench, can learn from her still.
Be careful. A district court judge labors in the boiler room of our judicial system. Alarms constantly sound, work never stops, and thanks rarely materialize. While toiling away, a district court judge may be tempted to cut corners, to make the job just a little easier. Not Judge Cedarbaum.
Read any one of Judge Cedarbaum's decisions and her attention to the facts and mastery of the legal issues leap off the page. Her opinion in Walt Disney Co. v. Goodtimes Home Video Corp. 1 is a perfect example. The first paragraph tells readers exactly what they need to know: Disney thought that the packaging of Goodtimes's Aladdinvideocassettes resembled Disney's own packaging closely enough to violate federal and state law. The next section of the opinion precisely, and concisely, presents each relevant fact as an easily digestible narrative. 2 Then, in resolving the legal issues, Judge Cedarbaum takes pains to explain the law, explain the parties' arguments, and explain her reasoning. When she states, in her final sentence, her conclusion that Disney did not prove its case, the reader cannot be surprised. Every phrase, and every link in the chain of logic, already...