You never lose control of your emotions—ever.

Judges have the power of life and death (at least in the United States). They are very conscious of the fact that their decisions change lives.

Good judges strive to make wise and reasoned choices. Bad judges simply want to get out of awkward situations and back to everyone praising them and stroking their egos. You don’t get to choose whether you have a good judge or a bad judge.

Judges, being human, react very poorly to being challenged. They do have the power and it is far more power than most litigants realize—most of my successful business clients were awful at respecting the Court. They wanted to reschedule the Court’s hearings to fit their calendars rather than to respect the Judge’s desire to control his or her own calendar.

Do not challenge, insult, ignore or disrespect the judge.

I sat as a temporary judge. I heard traffic calendars once or twice a month to help out the Los Angeles County Superior Court. Nobody wants to be in a traffic case; neither the court staff, the police nor the defendants.

One morning, I had 40 to 50 people seated in the courtroom awaiting their hearings. One gentleman stood up and demanded to be heard first because he had to get to work. I was on the Bench—robed up—doing my duty, which is primarily to preserve public respect for and confidence in the Judiciary.

I told him to sit down, explained that he was speaking out of turn, that it was inappropriate, that everyone here was being inconvenienced this morning and he would have his turn in due course.

He sat down, but a few minutes later his frustration got the better of him and he felt that proceedings were not moving quickly enough. He stood up and started to speak.

I looked at my bailiff, made eye contact with the bailiff, looked at the door and then excused the gentleman to wait in the hallway. He began to argue, didn’t notice that the bailiff and another helper (another bailiff from an adjoining courtroom) were approaching him. He was ejected from the room and everyone got real quiet and especially respectful. At about 11:30, just before lunch, I had finished with everyone else and had the bailiff collect the man from the hallway whereupon we handled his matter—I think I even allowed him some extra time to pay his fines. He was disgruntled, but accepted and I hope he appreciated that he was allowed to wait in the hallway instead of the holding cell, which my bailiff would have told him was the next step if he didn’t behave.

People need to realize that behind the walls of every courtroom there are jail cells and secure corridors. It is quite easy for a judge to put someone in one of those cells.

Judges hate to exercise their contempt powers. Judges know that everything they do could become part of the news cycle and that they will be subject to the court of public opinion. The internal review process for judicial actions is also fast becoming ridiculously cumbersome—judges just don’t want the extra work involved in dealing with a complaint that they were rude to the public.

Nevertheless, judges do have a duty to maintain respect for the law and for the courtroom and they will have their respect.

Don’t push a judge.

Always exhibit your absolute best behavior in a courtroom.

In fact, good behavior can be persuasive. Do you want to do things for people who are nice? or do you go out of your way to help people who are heaping abuse on you?

People who were nice and courteous to me in the traffic setting were uniformly given whatever possible leeway the court could provide—I always appropriately imposed upon the police the criminal burden of proof, which means that I had to be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused had committed the traffic offense in question and I could be tough to convince…