Yield: A Judge's Fir$t-Year Diary: A Judge's Fir$t-Year Diary

by Janice Law

Book Overview

What is it like to be a judge? At nearly every event I attend, people ask me that.

My short answer is: Great or It's fine What it is like to be a judge is much too complex to be answered in any brief manner.

Shortly after I was elected as judge in Harris County, (Houston, Texas) Criminal Court No. 5, I attended New Judges' School in Dallas with other newly elected judicial colleagues from all over Texas. One December evening, our instructors dis-cussed selecting one or more of us to keep a diary about our first-year experiences on the bench in upcoming 1999.

Although I wasn't selected to keep a diary to read to new Texas judges in a future year, the suggestion gave me the idea for this book. I kept such a daily diary: detailed, meticulous, contemporaneous, unfailing.

There is something voyeuristic about reading someone else's diary, verbal eavesdropping-forbidden fruit. Reaching in the closed drawer for the book when the author is absent, surreptitiously reading the very personal entries.

My other inspiration for Yield was best-selling author Scott Turow's first book, One L, based on a journal Turow secretly kept during his first year as a student at Harvard Law School. In 1970, The Making of a Surgeon, a diary-like book by Dr. William A. Nolen, made a popular literary splash as the memoir of an apprentice physician.

"In baseball it's the rookie year. In the navy it is boot camp. In many walks of life there is a similar time of trial and initiation, a period where newcomers are forced to be the victims of their own ineptness and when they must somehow master the basic skills of the profession in order to survive," Turow writes in his preface to One L.

In my writing effort, I had at least two advantages most judges don't have: I worked as a print journalist for about 14 years before becoming an attorney and judge. (See "About the Author" at the end of Yield.) And I had served for about three years as a part-time associate judge in Houston's busy municipal court-not the same as full-time county criminal court, but helpful as background.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1733942149
• ISBN13: 9781733942140
• Release Date: July 2020
• Publisher: Judgejanicelaw
• Length: 328 Pages
• Weight: 0.97 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A stunning indictment of the Harris County, Texas Criminal Court System

"Yield" is a non-fiction work that reads like a fast-paced action novel. It is a well-written, easy reading account of Judge Janice Law's first year on the Harris County, Texas Criminal Court. Judge Law describes in chilling detail the cold blooded, heartless individuals who frequent the corridors of the Criminal Court system, preying on the innocent as well as the guilty. And those are only the lawyers and judges working the "system" for their own personal gain! Defendants brought before the Criminal Court system for adjudication are often at the mercy of lawyers and judges who should, themselves, be brought up on charges. This book is not about individual cases brought before the Criminal Court; it is about the Criminal Court itself and is a stunning indictment of the judicial system in that one Harris County court. One hopes the worst of the lawyers and judges described in this book are no longer practicing their brand of "justice" in Texas, but one is left with the uneasy feeling that politics, power, and money may still trump justice in the Harris County Criminal Court. This book was a finalist in its category at the Texas Book Festival - Violet Crown awards.

A rare glimpse into our legal system

Judge Law certainly captures your attention through excellent, entertaining writing giving the public a rare glimpse into our legal system. She uses her judge/journalist background to give us a fascinating peek behind-the-bench and at court house politics. Judge Law's diary of her tumultuous first year on the criminal bench contains marvelous anecdotes of humorous and poignant court room drama. But on a larger scale, Yield also explores the shocking inequities of the Texas criminal court system where judges are elected in often brutal partisan political combat, lawyers who practice before the courts contribute to the judges' political campaigns, and the judges appoint lawyers to represent indigent defendants. Judge Law dramatically shows why there is a $ sign in Yield's subtitle.