Judge Who Had Sensitivity Training Is Accused Again of Rudeness

Judiciary

Judge Who Had Sensitivity Training Is Accused Again of Rudeness

Posted Jun 24, 2008, 11:07 am CDT
By Debra Cassens Weiss

A Seattle-area judge has been accused of routinely interrupting litigants and lawyers and addressing them in a manner that is “angry, disdainful, condescending and/or demeaning.”

The state Commission on Judicial Conduct claims in a statement of charges (PDF) that Judge Judith Eiler treated lawyers and self-represented litigants in a way that is “rude, impatient, undignified and intimidating,” the Tacoma News Tribune reports.

Eiler underwent behavior therapy with an emphasis on sensitivity training after she received a reprimand in 2005 for impatient and rude behavior, the story says.

A lawyer for Eiler, Anne Bremner, said her client is simply a tough, no-nonsense jurist who is well-respected, the Associated Press reports.

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Posted by bd - 3 months, 1 week, 4 days, 8 hours, 13 minutes ago

This judge would never be persercuted if she were not a woman judge. I think they are always some woman judges that are testy, but there are SO many more men judges that never make the news. They get a free pass on being a bunch of d-wipes. WOMEN don’t get any free passes if WE are testy. I say stop the unfair coverage of women, and start covering MEN who are being jerks. Well, if we did that, we wouldn’t have any space left on the website for anything else. I do see, in all candor, that you are writing about a judge in Oklahoma who pulled his pants down in a parking lot, but that article focuses on him suing for defamation. The focus is NOT on his bad behavior in the parking lot. I doubt he needed to do what he did in that parking lot.
Posted by Bill - 3 months, 1 week, 4 days, 8 hours ago

Look at “Judge Judy” on TV - she’s always screaming at defendants and telling them how stupid they are. Some of those people need to hear it. She’s telling them what someone - namely their parents - should have told them long ago.
Posted by sb - 3 months, 1 week, 4 days, 4 hours, 35 minutes ago

bd, I seem to remember several recent articles about male judges who have been reprimanded for being jerks: let’s see, there was a judge in Nevada who used bad language, a judge in Ohio who jailed a PD for contempt for objecting to defending a case with a few hours’ notice, a judge in DC who sued the dry cleaner for millions of dollars for allegedly losing his pants, etc., etc. I would suggest new glasses, or binoculars, if you can’t see any better than that from your high horse.
Posted by bd is an idiot - 3 months, 1 week, 4 days, 4 hours, 31 minutes ago

The chip on BD’s shoulder is glaringly obvious from the diatribe that she posted. Lose the special agenda and go back the kitchen.
Posted by Yep - 3 months, 1 week, 4 days, 1 hour, 39 minutes ago

Hey, let’s watch a show about how women in (name any other country) are so oppressed.

Paint the “other” in sin, and say “how great we are”; divide the other in two, and focus in on diferences, and paint the men in worse sin still.
Posted by Yep - 3 months, 1 week, 4 days, 1 hour, 34 minutes ago

Change (name any other country) to read (name any group we want to oppress)
Posted by Another lady - 3 months, 1 week, 4 days, 3 minutes ago

I remember those recent articles too, but please, lets not let one woman’s over-reaction to a particular issue move us towards the notion that just because women are REALLY bad off in other countries means that women and men in this country don’t have some work to do on real equality. This, of course goes in
both directions. There are some privileges each gender has that the other doesn’t.

Lots and lots of rude behavior in the articles lately. Feels like the whole ABA got up on the wrong side of the bed this month.
Posted by R - 3 months, 1 week, 3 days, 23 hours, 36 minutes ago

"Go back [to] the kitchen”?

Ugh. What a neanderthal.
Posted by Skirt Chaser - 3 months, 1 week, 3 days, 15 hours, 26 minutes ago

Judge Judy is an oxymor...err moron and a terrible example of anything except the caricature that Hollywood paints of our profession, that is if it’s still a profession. My guess is this judge is probably lots sharper than the so called “professionals” that come before her. Then again, maybe she is presiding over the idiots that come from Judge Judy’s show on de novo appeal. I say give the judge a break. Men are just as guilty as women of over reacting, getting frustrated and lashing out. Besides she is doing pretty good for a woman if she is only over reacting only once every three years! (Ducking!)
Posted by designatedone - 3 months, 1 day, 23 minutes ago

Here’s an opinion And since I’ve been in Judith Eiler’s courtroom, I think it has some credence. No stranger to the legal process, I’ve found most judges to be fair, professional and relatively patient when hearing testimony. Judge Eiler is anything BUT the above description. On the morning of my hearing, she seemed irritated from the get go. Rude. Obnoxious. I observed how she handled litigants prior to my case being called. She yelled often and used a condescending tone to demean those standing before her.

It was pretty clear this wouldn’t be easy. And it wasn’t. I can honestly say this judge has a “god” complex and uses her brashness to the fullest extent. As a person authority and one who should be serving for the public good, I’d feel a whole lot better knowing this judge wasn’t on the bench.

She did it before. She did it again. With the relatively short period of time between her “sensitivity training” and recent courtroom flare-ups, I hope the CJC takes matters seriously and considers something a little more substantial than a slap on the wrist.

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