Hon. Tara Desautels (ACBA) - Alameda County Superior Court

Louis Goodman / Hon. Tara Desautels – Transcript

Louis Goodman 00:03 

Welcome to the Alameda County Bar Association and the Love Thy Lawyer podcast. Today, we are privileged to host the Honorable Tara M. Desautels. Judge Desautels currently sits on the Alameda County Superior Court bench. She presides over a caseload of more than 1,000 civil matters in all stages of the proceedings.

She sat as the presiding judge, supervising judge in several courthouses, and handled criminal and family matters, as well. She has also served on a temporary assignment as an appellate justice for the California Court of Appeal. Prior to taking the bench, Judge Desautels served as an Alameda County Deputy District Attorney, and as a civil litigator with Pillsbury, Winthrop, Shaw, Pittman, LLP.

She has professional awards too numerous to list. She's been a speaker and instructor at numerous MCLE events and perhaps most impressive to me, she's a snowboarder and a mother of two. Judge Tara Desautels, welcome to the Alameda County Bar Association and the Love Thy Lawyer podcast. 

Hon. Tara Desautels 01:17 

Thank you, Lou. I am happy to be here.

Louis Goodman 01:20 

Where are you speaking to us from right now? 

Hon. Tara Desautels 01:22 

I am speaking to you from the third floor of the lovely county administration building with the Renee C. Davidson courthouse and a smidge of Lake Merritt over my back shoulder. 

Louis Goodman 01:34 

Can you tell us what kind of cases you are handling now as a superior court judge?

Hon. Tara Desautels 01:42 

Currently I am in what we call a civil direct calendar or a CDC assignment, which means I handle all sorts of civil cases, both limited and unlimited, from filing until disposition. So essentially everything that you can think of in the civil arena with the slight caveat that small claims, civil harassment and unlawful detainers go to different departments first, unless those judges can't hear those cases for whatever reasons, and then they potentially come to me or those similarly situated.

Louis Goodman 02:21 

I know you're in trial right now. I'm wondering, can you tell us anything about just sort of the general nature of the trial that you're in right now? 

Hon. Tara Desautels 02:30 

I can tell you what is public information at a very high level. And of course, anybody who wants to listen in is welcome to, through our live audio stream or can come into our courthouses. But it is essentially a construction defect, personal injury case that's being litigated. We're about halfway through and it's fascinating. 

Louis Goodman 02:52 

Roughly how long does it take to try a case like that? 

Hon. Tara Desautels 02:56 

So these cases, the length completely depends on the case itself, the number of parties, the number of witnesses, all of the things that everybody on this call is familiar with.

This one is complicated a little bit because we've got the different holidays in the mix, but for everybody's information, the way we typically run our trial calendars in Alameda County is different from the way we run some of our other calendars in Alameda County. For civil trials, most of us run trials Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. until 1:30 p.m. So we do not take the hour and a half lunch break that is most common in the criminal cases. Instead, we take a 20 minute break in the first part of the day and a 20 minute break in the second part of the day. That way we are able to accommodate more jurors. We avoid some of those late afternoon issues when jurors need to manage dependents.

It gives us a streamlined trial schedule and enables all of us to turn to our afternoon calendars as soon as we finish our trial calendars. So we're all juggling a lot at once. 

Louis Goodman 04:09 

Do you prefer the civil schedule over the criminal schedule? 

Hon. Tara Desautels 04:12 

It's hard to say. They both absolutely have their benefits when you have to maintain another full calendar in addition to hearing trials, I think the hours that we keep for the civil trial schedule is very helpful that way. I also really love how attentive our jurors are. They know they're here for a specific period of time. The attorneys and the parties are very good at lining up their evidence and witnesses knowing we've got a limited period of time.

So we are very rarely in the situation where a juror is just getting lost or bored at the end of the day. People are there to do business and it works out really well. 

Louis Goodman 04:52 

How long have you been on the Alameda County Superior Court bench? 

Hon. Tara Desautels 04:56 

I was appointed in April of 2020 and took the oath in May of that year. So it's been about 13 and a half years now.

Louis Goodman 05:07 

I remember being at your swearing in. 

Hon. Tara Desautels 05:09 

Thank you. I remember you being there. 

Louis Goodman 05:12 

Where are you from originally? 

Hon. Tara Desautels 05:13 

I am from the Bay Area. I wasn't born here, but I grew up on the peninsula. 

Louis Goodman 05:18 

Is that where you went to high school? 

Hon. Tara Desautels 05:20 

It is. 

Louis Goodman 05:21 

And after you graduated from high school on the peninsula, where'd you go to college?

Hon. Tara Desautels 05:26 

I went to Georgetown University in Washington DC. 

Louis Goodman 05:30 

What was that like going all the way across the country to a very different sort of environment? 

Hon. Tara Desautels 05:36 

Oh, it was fantastic in so many ways. My mother was from New York. She was born and raised in the Bronx, and so she always told us, number one, you can't make it anywhere if you can't make it in New York. So I knew at some point in my life I was going to have to live in Manhattan or I wouldn't be allowed to continue as a member of my family. 

I definitely knew I wanted to move out of state. I definitely knew I wanted to live somewhere else. And I had the good fortune to be able to attend the School of Foreign Service, which, for those who don't know, is a specialized program that focuses on international relations.

My focus, my concentration, was international relations law and organization. That's where I ended up getting a Bachelor of Science. And D.C. is just the most magnificent place because, and Georgetown within it, because it gives you that perfect combination of a true college atmosphere, but this incredibly international perspective, and of course, you're in the nation's capital.

So whatever happens in the country, you are the first to know, you're the first to hear about it and you're able to participate and be involved in it from the get go. So tremendously eye opening. 

Louis Goodman 06:49 

You ultimately went to law school, where'd you go to law school? 

Hon. Tara Desautels 06:52 

I went to the school formerly known as UC Hastings. So it's now, it's the University of California Law, San Francisco, I believe. 

Louis Goodman 07:02 

That's where I went too. 

Hon. Tara Desautels 07:03 

See, I knew I liked you for a reason. 

Louis Goodman 07:06 

Did you take any time off between college and law school, or did you go straight through? 

Hon. Tara Desautels 07:12 

I took some time off. I moved to New York as I suggested I might. So I moved to New York and I got a job, a job that doesn't exist anymore, certainly in that capacity, I got a job working as a legal assistant, not a paralegal, but a legal assistant in the World Trade Center with a firm that was then known as Brown and Wood. I worked in the public policy department. Public finance department. 

Louis Goodman 07:42 

When was it when you first really knew that you wanted to be a lawyer? What was it that prompted you to become a lawyer? 

Hon. Tara Desautels 07:51 

So that's a little bit of a hard question to ask in that it was definitely not the top of my career goals. I was a tremendously shy person. And so the idea of speaking in public, which is what I understood lawyers were required to do was a horrifying thought for me. However, I was. Well, one of the reasons why I went to Georgetown is because I have this need and love for international relations and international affairs. My great uncle was a Jesuit priest and missionary who was interned in a Chinese war camp in the second world war and ended up living in Asia to work for Radio Free Asia and essentially spread the opportunity for free speech throughout the world.

He would travel to our house at least once, sometimes twice every year, bring with us individuals that he had worked with all over the world along the way. And that gave us a little glimpse of what else was out there. And we would hear stories like you wouldn't believe. And the overarching theme was, how do you turn injustice into justice. How do you get people to treat each other better? How do you get governments to pay attention to each other? And so that very much influenced my decision to go to Georgetown so that I could follow in that international theme. 

So as I started studying all of these different countries and conflicts, which is really the focus of the School of Foreign Service, we also need to keep in mind what time it was when I went, it was immediately after the fall of the wall.

So the Soviet union was dissolving. It was this huge period of discovery and trying to figure out what that new norm was going to be as the power structure changed, as the balkanization of Europe was happening, as all of these things were going on. 

So I was trying to figure out, how can I get involved in this? What can I do to achieve my ultimate goal, which, and don't laugh, is to achieve world peace. How can I help other people? And when you start talking to people, they say, well, in order to do that, you have to get a good education. All right. I was working on that. And the best career to line you up is the law. And so that's what started me on my road to pursue the law. 

Louis Goodman 10:24 

Do you think having taken some time off between college and law school and working in a law firm helped you focus once you got to law school? 

Hon. Tara Desautels 10:35 

Very much so. Very much so. It gave me my first sense of real life legal experience and my first understanding that the law isn't just one person standing up in front of a jury talking, which is ironic in view of where my career went from there, but it gave me my first sense of all of the different things that the law can be. 

Louis Goodman 10:59 

Well, I've said this before on this podcast, but I'll say it again. It always struck me when I was in law school that the best law students were women in their mid to late twenties who had had some experience in a legal or legally adjacent field between college and law school. So I suspect you were very close to the top of your class. 

Hon. Tara Desautels 11:27 

I don't know about that. Law school was its own separate experience, but it was a good one at the end of the day. 

Louis Goodman 11:34 

When you graduated from law school, what was your legal job out of law school? Was it into the Alameda County District Attorney's Office? 

Hon. Tara Desautels 11:42 

Well, so I had a little bit of a unique experience in that I originally thought that I was going to be working as a civil attorney coming out of law school. I had worked as a summer associate at a civil law firm and thought that I would continue on there.

But in the meantime, I had taken the criminal trial practice clinic, which had been taught by an Alameda County, then District Attorney, as well as an attorney for the federal government. That's where I first started sampling trial work and getting a real understanding of trial work. And when I compared that to my experiences as a summer associate, I found I was more interested in doing the trial work.

The problem was, I'd already had my second-year summer job. So suddenly I was a third-year student trying to figure out what I was going to do with a civil background, realizing that criminal is where most people certainly at the time had the opportunity to get trial experiences. 

So I had the good fortune to be able to get a volunteer position in Alameda County. I had applied to all of the Bay Area counties, but I got a volunteer position in Alameda County. I was promptly told on day one that thank you for coming to volunteer with us. We will not be giving you a job. You were not a part of the summer class, we will not be giving you a job, but we appreciate all the assistance you're otherwise giving us.

So, I said that was great, I continued volunteering there my first semester, third year. My second semester of third year, I was lucky enough to get into the criminal practice clinic. So I could keep volunteering and actually get school credits for that. And in the meantime, I applied to different jobs throughout the Bay area in the criminal sector.

I was hired by the Contra Costa District Attorney's Office, and I actually started working there immediately after taking the bar as a certified law clerk in their law and motion department. It was when I was doing that that contrary to what they told me ahead of time, when bar results came out, I got a call from Alameda saying, surprise, we've decided to give you a job offer anyway. Would you like to come over here? And that's when I made the switch. 

Louis Goodman 14:11 

Can you take us kind of through your career briefly as a Deputy District Attorney, the kind of things that you did there as a, as a criminal prosecutor? 

Hon. Tara Desautels 14:21 

So I think some people on this call are listening and will be familiar with the way DAs rotate through the Alameda County District Attorney's Office.

I don't know how it operates right now because think back, I'm talking about in the late 90s. And so the way it ran in the late 90s is that when you started out, the supervisors wanted you to work in as many different court locations as you could so that you could experience the differences in the different parts of the county.

Recall at that time, that's when we still had a divided municipal court and Superior court system. So court consolidation happened during my first year working as a Deputy DA in Alameda, and as we all know, the courts sometimes are not the fastest to move. So that municipal superior court split continued on for quite a few years thereafter until we made it to the more consolidated environment that we work in right now.

So that said, I started working as a DA handling misdemeanors down in Hayward. I moved to our Juvenile Justice Center, the old building that was demolished near where Camp Sweeney is in San Leandro. It used to be called Juvie East, which is where I worked there for a number of years. Then I went back to Hayward to do felony preliminary hearings.

Then I went up to Wiley Manual right when they were changing it from the Oakland Municipal Courthouse to the Wiley Manuel Courthouse. I had since there on what we called the bridge doing felony preliminary hearings, as well as the misdemeanor calendar and trial department. 

From there, I moved to the Renee C. Davidson courthouse for a felony trial rotation. And from there, I was asked to join the child sexual assault trial team and so focused on sexual assault cases that either dealt with children or particularly vulnerable individuals. 

Louis Goodman 16:24 

Now, at some point you left the DA's Office and you did end up going into a civil practice.  Tell us about that and how that contrasted with being a criminal prosecutor. 

Hon. Tara Desautels 16:38 

I did make that switch, so it was about seven and a half, almost eight years that I'd worked in the DA's Office when I switched to Pillsbury, Winthrop, Shaw, Pittman. I had the good fortune to have some friends who were working there at the time, friends from law school, and they were expanding their white collar division.

So they were looking for people who had trial experience, who specifically had criminal trial experience. And so this was looking like an intriguing and interesting option for me, because it would give me a taste of the civil that I had started on, but hadn't professionally worked in for some time since my summer associate opportunity, but I could also capitalize on the trial work I'd already done, the criminal work that I'd already done. 

So I was able to join Pillsbury and there I had a varied practice that included state court trial work generally, federal work, nationally and internationally, specifically focusing on class actions, antitrust and unfair competition, as well as white collar defense work, as well as local criminal defense work, in particular, working on pro bono matters, both in Alameda County.

And I also represented a Habeas client who is still incarcerated on death row in San Quentin. 

Louis Goodman 18:06 

You're currently sitting as a judge. When did you start thinking about that as a career move? 

Hon. Tara Desautels 18:12 

That was something that was put in my mind by others. So I'd worked in the DA's Office, I'd loved that job. I was working at Pillsbury, I was loving that job. And in a strange twist of timing, within a two-day period I had two conversations with two individuals that I respected, encouraging me to consider putting in my application for judge and the timing of those conversations with those individuals, one was an appellate justice who had been an Alameda County Superior Court judge. The other was a sitting Alameda County Superior Court judge who is actually calling me out of the blue to make a donation to Calico. I was on the board and in fact, the president of the board of Calico at the time, and they were trying to donate an old TV to the organization. So it was the combination of having two conversations in such a tight timeframe that made me start thinking, is this something that I could do?

So after those conversations, I started talking to other people on the bench in Alameda and other areas about what the job was like. Is it something that I would be interested in doing? And is it something that I would be able to, did I actually have the right skillset that would line me up to be a good jurist.

Louis Goodman 19:36 

So, how's that been going for you and how does it compare with being a practicing advocate? 

Hon. Tara Desautels 19:42 

I love it. I am so glad I had the conversation with those people and all the people afterwards that led me down this path. For me, it is absolutely the right path. As my career suggests bouncing between criminal and civil, private and public, prosecution, defense, plaintiff, defendant. I seem to have a split personality, career wise, in what I've done over time. And being a judge suits that on a number of different levels. 

One of the great things about Alameda County is that we're such a big county. A populist county and a county with a very known and respected legal community. That means we get lots of filings across all case types. That also means that we have the ability when we're sitting in as judges to sit in different assignments. So over the course of my 13 and a half years here, I have sat in almost every assignment, every judicial assignment that Alameda County has to offer, which certainly works with my short attention span.

But I think the more important thing is that being a judge, the biggest difference, of course, between being a judge and being a litigator or an attorney is you don't have clients. Being a judge, your ultimate job is to do the right thing, to listen to the evidence presented before you to listen to the arguments of the parties and counsel. To research the cases as you need to, to follow the law and to apply the law to the matter at hand before you with the ultimate goal of, as I said, doing the right thing, which is tremendously fulfilling. 

Louis Goodman 21:33 

What can lawyers do to be better prepared in general to appear in court? And what kind of things do you really look for in attorneys that come in front of you? 

Hon. Tara Desautels 21:45 

So this may sound basic, but the best preparation a lawyer can make is know your case, and more specifically know the issue that you're bringing before the court. When parties appear before me, I assume that they know their case far better than I do. 

I recognize that all the nuances and details are not included in the pleadings that are provided to me. And I trust that those attorneys and litigants are going to share with me the relevant aspects of their case, the information that I need to know to make whatever decision is before me at that time. So the most helpful thing is having attorneys prepared, ready to present that. 

Louis Goodman 22:30 

I'm going to shift gears here a little bit. I'm wondering what your family life has been like and how practicing law and being a judge has fit into your family life and your family life fit into the practice?

Hon. Tara Desautels 22:43 

So my family life is like, I would say the family life of others who have middle schoolers. It's wild and crazy and unexpected and unpredictable all the time. My husband is an attorney. We met at Pillsbury. And that's worked out well on a couple of different levels. Number one, we know each other's worlds, so we know the work it takes. We know each other's work habits. We know when to support each other, and we know when to stay far, far away from each other. But the other thing that's nice about it is that We all know that when you're sitting on the bench, when you're working as a judge, your hours are very regulated. 

I'm not going to take a break in the middle of a jury trial to run and address a school emergency. My husband, who works as a civil practitioner, generally, if he's not in trial, has more flexibility in his schedule. So that's how we're able to manage. If there's an emergency call in the day, he handles it. And then I'm handling the before and after work as we try to wrangle everything you need to do as a parent.

Louis Goodman 23:48 

Have you always been a snowboarder or did you start off as a skier and then go to the dark side? 

Hon. Tara Desautels 23:54 

I started off as a skier and I tore my ACL on New Year's Eve, skiing that day. I waited to get it repaired until after I could take the bar exam because I did it after I finished my summer associate position.

And at the time, snowboarding was getting very, very popular. And I was talking to the doctor about what do I do now? What can I do now? And he said, if you want to keep going with snow sports, snowboarding is better for your knees than skiing, because if you're going to fall, your knees will fall in the same direction.

So that's when I started snowboarding. And then my husband, it turns out, was an alpine race boarder in college. So he got into alpine race boarding. But now I'm back on a regular soft boot snowboard. 

Louis Goodman 24:42 

We'll see on the slope. Besides snowboarding, any other recreational pursuits that you and your family like to do?

Hon. Tara Desautels 24:48 

Anything outside. Absolutely anything outside. Especially with our dog, we have a three year old wire-haired pointing griffon, who is the goofiest, friendliest dog you've ever met. We regularly go outside, anywhere, all the time. Oakland Hills, running around, Tahoe, Truckee, wherever we can. We need the air.

Louis Goodman 25:13 

What if you and your husband came into some real money, let's say three or four billion dollars? What, if anything, would you do differently in your life? 

Hon. Tara Desautels 25:23 

I have no idea because that is such a crazy concept for us. I'll tell you one thing that I had thought of in years gone by. So I already mentioned that I spent some time working in the juvenile division when I was a District Attorney. My first real job on the bench was in the juvenile division here at the Juvenile Justice Center. And that's where I was able with the guidance and leadership of Judge Trina Thompson, we were able to create our first girls court, offering gender-specific services to commercially sexually exploited children. So our CSEC minors. And juvenile, everybody on the line knows here the ultimate purpose of juvenile is to help the kids, whether you're on the 300 side or the 600 side, you're trying to help the kids in whatever situation they're in. And it is a constant struggle for resources. How can you put things together to help them?

So in one of those alternate careers that I've always thought about, I love food and I love eating and I like small groups. So if I had my billions of dollars to self fund this. I would combine my food interest and my outdoors interest with the kids. And so the thought was to buy a piece of land far enough out that it was a remote and safe location. Turn it into some kind of farming restaurant opportunity where we could bring, and I don't want to classify it as a group home, but bring kids who needed assistance to this location where they could live, where they could learn skills, where they could get additional educational opportunities, they could work in that environment and then when the time was right, they could go back to wherever they wanted to go and have a potential career or job opportunities lined up.

So that's one thing that I would do if I had the billions of dollars to support it. 

Louis Goodman 27:35 

Let's say you had a magic wand. There was one thing you could change in the legal world or just the world in general. What would that be? 

Hon. Tara Desautels 27:41 

So I go back to the world peace, especially right now with everything that's going on is conflict, conflict, conflict, conflict, conflict. We see it on the international level. It destroys families, communities, cities, states, countries, anything to minimize the conflict, whether it's improving civility on our local level, even within our legal community here, or expanding it to that broader international scale, that would be my magic wand.

Louis Goodman 28:21 

Judge, as you can see, we have quite a few people on the call who would like to ask you a question or give a comment to you. So, I'm going to call on a few people to do that. I'd like to start with one of your colleagues, Judge Robert Friedman. Judge Friedman, can you unmute and join us, please? 

Judge Friedman 28:42 

I've just done that. Thank you, Louis. So, I thought I knew something about today's interviewee. And I do know a few things. We know each other, I think, reasonably well. But I've learned a lot more. I think our greatest, not a joint venture exactly, but combined activity was when the judge was a member of the DA's Office and prosecuted, you know what I'm going to be talking about, I won't name it.

Hon. Tara Desautels 29:09 

I do.

Judge Friedman 29:10 

A very, very difficult defendant who represented himself in a very serious case. And he had the history of having represented himself on appeal in another jurisdiction who had been successful, I think, getting a sentence modification, something of that kind, it was very, very difficult in many ways. And then Deputy D.A. Desautels was magnificent as a practitioner and in their civility under stress circumstances. 

I think we, I think I've said this to you before that, of course, the guilty verdict in judgment was appealed by the defendant. And I was never happier to see an affirmance in any case, more than that. No doubt to the DA or professional conduct. Good to see you. 

Louis Goodman 30:06 

Thank you. Thomas Butzbach, can you unmute and have a, if you have a question or a comment for Judge Desautels? 

Thomas Butzbach 30:14 

Well, I have a question for you, Judge. As a civil judge, what types of cases are the most difficult for the judge and the jury to understand, for example, to comprehend? Are they medical malpractice cases, fraud cases, about science? What would be your opinion about the most difficult type of civil case that you would be in charge of? 

Hon. Tara Desautels 30:38 

So, I don't know if I can answer that question because I am perpetually impressed with our Alameda County juries. And the attention that they give to detail. So one of the things that I do for those of you who haven't tried cases before me, and I did this on the criminal side and I continue to do it on the civil side, is I give jurors the opportunity to ask questions.

So I do it after the individual witnesses have been examined by both sides, direct and cross. And before that witness is going to be excused, I ask the jurors if they have any questions. They write down the question, or if we're doing the trial remotely, they email the question in, I go over it with the attorneys, we make the appropriate modifications, and if relevant, I go forward and ask the question and allow the attorneys to engage in whatever follow up that they think is appropriate.

What that process does is gives everybody a great deal of insight into how the jurors are hearing the evidence as it comes in, how they're taking in this information. And I am perpetually astounded and impressed by detailed questions that our jurors ask. 

So to your point, I've had situations where economists are testifying and a juror says, did you calculate this right? And sure enough, there's a mathematical error. You know, I have had construction defect situations where the jurors are tracking and they're asking specifically about parts that have been testified to. 

I continually, every time we call a jury and it's a complicated case, you're always waiting to see what happens and the jurors are in it. I very much commend our Alameda County jurors. 

Thomas Butzbach 32:39 

Isn't that interesting? It gives us faith in the system, doesn't it? 

Hon. Tara Desautels 32:42 

Absolutely. 

Thomas Butzbach 32:43 

And I love your method of asking the jurors to ask questions for you to relay to the witnesses. That's wonderful. Thank you. You're an amazing person. I just enjoyed every bit of it. 

Hon. Tara Desautels 32:55 

Thank you very much. 

Louis Goodman 32:57 

Steven Richardson. 

Steven Richardson 32:59 

Yes. Hello, Judge. 

Hon. Tara Desautels 33:01 

Hello. 

Steven Richardson 33:02 

It's been really nice to hear your story and I really love kind of all your experiences and what you've had to communicate. So, and I know my sister would especially appreciate your undergrad school choice. She got her PhD at Georgetown. 

Hon. Tara Desautels 33:19 

Salute. 

Steven Richardson 33:22 

I'm a Santa Clara person myself, but so I understood the Jesuit reference. 

Hon. Tara Desautels 33:27 

Did you say Santa Clara? 

Steven Richardson 33:28 

Yes. 

Hon. Tara Desautels 33:29 

That's where my husband went to law school. So we've got your family covered. 

Steven Richardson 33:33 

Thank you. 

Hon. Tara Desautels 33:34 

Thank you. 

Louis Goodman 33:35 

Thanks, Steven. Tracy Lemon. 

Tracy Lemon 33:37 

Good afternoon, Your Honor. Nice to see you again. I guess I just had a question for you about, you know, what is the best way for a solo attorney who is up against a big corporation who is refusing to enforce your orders to get your attention in a proper and respectful, meaningful way, if you could answer even such a question.

Hon. Tara Desautels 34:05 

And so with context, I know Tracy, who had a case before me that was hard fought, hard litigated and recently resolved. So, my answer is not related to that case, but I'm speaking on the broader level. But what I would say is be very targeted and intentional, because one of the challenges that all of us have, we all know as lawyers, litigation's hard fought, regardless of the case type.

Even attorneys who are the best of friends on either sides of the table, fight hard and appropriately so for their clients. The difficulties that we have as bench officers is getting the wheat through the chaff kind of thing, going beyond the dispute. And we always know there's a hard fought dispute there and getting to the core of the issue.

So really focusing, if there is one thing that is being an obstacle, moving through that one thing, it's not giving up your rights as to other things, but just take them step by step by step by step. And that helps the judge prioritize what to focus on. It preserves your rights on everything else, but it also lays the framework for you to show us the bigger picture as well, as compared to the portrayal of people just fighting, which it's just hard to discern what should we be focusing on. So we really need attorneys’ help in that process. 

Tracy Lemon 35:42 

Thank you very much. 

Hon. Tara Desautels 35:43 

You're welcome. 

Louis Goodman 35:45 

Erica Dennings. 

Erica Dennings 35:46 

I just want to say I really enjoyed this and I guess I do have a question. Judge, what has been for you, I guess, the most surprising aspect of being a judge, like something that you didn't anticipate?

Hon. Tara Desautels 36:00 

I think two things. One is certainly when I was an attorney, I assumed that judges knew everything. So the longer I practiced, it was a bit of a shocking revelation to discover that judges didn't know everything. When I became a judge, even though I'd had those experiences, I assumed that the second I put on that back black robe, I was either going to miraculously know everything or be expected to know everything or both.

And the reality is we can't, there's too much, there's too much out there. Most attorneys are very specialized practitioners these days. Most attorneys know more about their field than the judge, depending on time, circumstances, case type, etc. And I think the biggest revelation for all bench officers is you need to acknowledge we don't know everything all the time. We need the guidance of counsel. And we look to you for that guidance. 

So that's where giving us the targeted area. If there's a new case that's up that you think we may not have caught, or if there's a twist on the issue that you're presenting to us that makes it different from the norm that we're used to dealing with, bring it up by all means, bring it up to us so that we've got that framework and we know where to go.

The other big change is what a great collegial bench that we have. Alameda County, as you all know, is just a fantastic, fantastic community. And the bench behind our chamber stores, it's no different. Everybody has a unique set of personal experiences and everybody is generous and collaborative and communicative and willing to share. It's really a great place to work. 

Louis Goodman 37:57 

Cynthia.

Cynthia 37:59 

Hello. Judge, I had a question about the new chair courts that are coming out. Is that, is that a judgeship where you could actually make a difference? 

Hon. Tara Desautels 38:08 

Oh, that's certainly the hope. Now, I'm no longer presiding judge, so I'm not doing that organization right now, but that's going to go. My understanding is it's going to fall within our collaborative division, and we always have a line of judges who are trying to work in our collaborative units. So it is absolutely going to be a priority for our courts to get things running in a functional way that serves the needs of our community.

Louis Goodman 38:35 

Judge, I have a couple of other questions for you. One is, I know, as I mentioned in the introduction, that you have served as an associate appellate justice on a temporary basis, and I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about that experience and how that compares with being on the trial bench. 

Hon. Tara Desautels 38:56 

That was a wonderful experience. I had the good fortune to be invited to do that right at the end of my term as presiding judge. So I hadn't yet been slotted into another assignment. So I didn't have to have cases reassigned or inappropriately or unfairly burdened to anybody else. And so I was asked to go over and help out in the first district, specifically Division 4. It's something most of these practitioners are familiar with. Us getting visiting judges, either attorneys sitting as judges pro tem, or judges through the assigned judges program, appointed and assigned through the Judicial Council. We do that at the superior court level. 

For the appellate divisions, whenever they have a vacancy, They ask superior court judges to step in, it's usually two month terms that can be renewed, to step in at the appellate level. And it's a fantastic opportunity because it goes both ways. It gives the superior court judge the opportunity to sit at the court of appeal, to see what's going on, to see what's important for the appellate justices, to get a better understanding of the process. And it also enables the appellate justices to get insight with their new temporary colleague as to what's going on at the trial court level, how are the trial courts working to implement new laws, legislation, et cetera, et cetera. 

So it's really a great opportunity for sharing and exchange of knowledge overall. And I just thought it was fantastic. 

Louis Goodman 40:28 

Judge, is there anything that you would like to discuss that we have not gotten to? Anything at all that you'd like to say to the Alameda County Bar Association or just general listeners to this podcast? 

Hon. Tara Desautels 40:46 

So I wanna thank all of you for being active members of the Alameda County Bar Association and in doing so, being so committed. Alameda County has had one of the strongest bar associations in the state consistently. It is a tight knit community. It is a cooperative community, even though people work in different divisions and have different perspectives. And it's the good work that the Alameda County Bar Association does that supports the work of the court that enables the justice system to function overall. 

So I very much appreciate everybody's participation, not just on this call, but with the Bar Association overall.

Louis Goodman 41:30 

Thank you very much for joining us today. I want to thank everybody who is on the call and who asked questions and who joined us today and really appreciate your being here. And thank you very much for your participation, and thank you very much for being here, Judge Desautels. 

Hon. Tara Desautels 41:50 

And thank you for asking me to come join you, and thank you to all of your attendees, and if you want to be a Judge Pro Tem, please, we want you. We need more of them, and it is a fantastic opportunity to get a taste of the bench. 

Louis Goodman 42:04 

Judge Tara Desautels, thank you so much for joining us today on the Alameda County Bar Association and the Love Thy Lawyer podcast. 

That's it for today's edition of Love Thy Lawyer in collaboration with the Alameda County Bar Association. Please visit the lovethylawyer.com website where you can find links to all of our episodes. Also, please visit the Alameda County Bar Association Website at ACBAnet.org, where you can find more information about our support of the legal profession, promoting excellence in the legal profession and facilitating equal access to justice.

Special thanks to ACBA president Pamela Ross and Criminal Justice Chair Annie Beles, staff members Cailin Dahlin, Sayeed Randall, Valerie Brown Lescroart and Hadassah Hayashi.

Thanks to Joel Katz for music, Bryan Matheson for technical support, Paul Robert for social media and Tracy Harvey. I'm Louis Goodman.

Hon. Tara Desautels 43:06 

My third year, it's my third year? It was right before, no, actually I'm misremembering. It was after second year, second year of law school.