Page 18 and those were the best lessons. One time, we got a motion for attorney’s fees after a disa- bled-access case had settled. The plaintiff’s lawyer was asking for $103,000, and the de- fendant, a restaurant, said it should be $13,000. I split the baby and recommended an award of $65,000. I argued that the lawyer’s hourly rate was reasonable and that the award, even if generous, would compensate him for the risk he took in bringing the case and his success in obtaining defendant’s com- pliance with the law. Or so I thought. After the Judge reviewed my bench memo, he posed just one question: Could I research the court dockets for cases involving this plaintiff and lawyer? Sure thing, Judge. And so I did, and what I found was quite interesting. In the past three years, the plaintiff had filed at least 21 of these lawsuits in the California federal courts alone. In each case, his com- plaint made the same boilerplate claim that he’d fallen in a toilet at some restaurant. In two of these cases, he even alleged that it hap- pened on the same day in two different res- taurants — on opposite ends of the state. His lawyer in every case? You can take a wild guess. The two had quite a racket going. They would file a lawsuit based on their boilerplate claims; bring in a consultant to identify every technical violation of disabled-access laws, few of which had anything to do with the plain- tiff’s personal claim; settle the case for next to nothing but the defendant’s promise to bring itself into compliance; declare victory; and move for attorneys’ fees, which I suspect the two probably shared to some extent. But this wasn’t the Judge’s first rodeo, and needless to say, they didn’t get what they asked for. There are a lot of things that you learn in a (Continued from page 11) Celebrating 50Years on the Federal Bench FBA/OC textbook, but when you learn by doing, and you peel back an onion that way, it tends to stay with you. In that case, rather than acceding to the par- ties’ settlement, the Judge pursued a more just result, and he got it. But that’s how he approaches work every day in my estimation. He’s a prototypical trial judge. During my clerkship, he would often remind us that, as a matter of fact, “we decide these cases.” He knows that it’s his job to de- cide them, and he understands that, while the court of appeals is there to review them, ap- pellate review isn’t always an adequate reme- dy for injustice. He knows that, in nearly eve- ry case, the most important contest in the lives of those involved is the one decided in his court. And he knows that not everything that happens in a case or courtroom transfers to an appellate record, anyway. He wants to do justice. Even generations of defendants whom he’s supervised on probation write to him, still — decades after he’s sentenced them or termi- nated their probation — to thank him for tak- ing the time to judge them in a way that im- proved the balance of their lives. That kind of stuff makes an impression on you, too. In the end, everyone will have his or her crit- ics — we all do — and fifty years of judging will earn you a few. But I’ve learned that Judge Real cares only to do the best he can every day in law and in life. May we all do it so well. His style may hark back to the brand of judge he used to appear before in his day, but his instincts are sound, his philosophy just, and his heart tucked securely in the right place. He is a good man in a preternatural sense, (Continued on page 19)