Friday, December 15, 2006
Debbie does jury duty
Former New Jersey Supreme Court Chief Justice Deborah T. Poritz has had a busy six weeks since leaving the court. She has interviewed, and taken a position, with the Princeton office of Drinker Biddle, been called for jury duty (although was dismissed without being put on a jury) and answered some questions for the Wall Street Journal's Law Blog. A few interesting tid-bits from the Q&A:
- She isn't used to using computers. She uses the Internet and knows how to read e-mail. She's just learning to send e-mail.
- She's never met Bruce Springstein or anyone from the cast of the Sopranos (easy on the Jersey stereotype questions, Law Blog -- we were afraid you were going to ask her if she ever had "big hair").
- She has been to the Pine Barrens. (You should have asked if she believed in the Jersey Devil.)
- Although she does think there should be a mandatory retirement age for judges, she thinks 75 is more appropriate than 70: "I stepped off the bench feeling that I had more to contribute and I think it would be a good thing to raise the age to 75, but I think it is good to have an age limit. I think any system is healthier when there’s an opportunity for young people to come in and if there’s a mandatory retirement age you’re going to have young people cycling in and bringing fresh ideas."
We must admit that the Law Blog's last question -- "Did you catch Scarlet Fever? We mean, have you hopped on the Rutgers University football bandwagon?" -- annoyed us slightly, partly because we've been asked the same question by several people. For your information, just because someone lives in New Jersey doesn't mean they follow (or even care about) Rutgers football. We're not that small town.
(But we were excited to see Rutgers do well)
