Previous Story
Court ramblings
|
Posted on Jun 20 2008
I write to dispute the claim made by E. Barrett Ristroph in your paper. In her letter, Ristroph writes: “Many of us know (former) Judge Lizama for his wit and wisdom, delivered gratis from the bench to those of us who need it.”
Having been in former Judge Lizama’s courtroom for probate on many occasions, let me assure you that Lizama did not often deliver wit and wisdom. Instead, he often delivered irrelevant and self-aggrandizing ramblings ranging from his golf course experience to his fondest childhood memories. I often found his strained attempts at folksy wisdom to be distracting, incoherent, bizarre, and very costly.
I cannot tell you how many times I was subjected to Lizama’s tangents and how frustrated I became, each time thinking, “Good grief. This is a waste of my time and money. This is costing me $200 per hour. Shut up and stop running up my attorney fees. Stick to the relevant case facts and the fine points of law. ”
One hearing with Lizama took up more than 3 hours and cost my father’s estate close to $1,000, thanks, in part, to Lizama dispensing his wit and wisdom from the bench at my family’s expense.
And during those painful, agonizing three hours of acrimonious litigation, former Judge Lizama didn’t even have the decency lighten up the atmosphere by going on a diversionary tangent explaining what happened when a Russian woman disturbed the peace at his home a few years ago. I think I might have gladly paid an extra $200 for such an entertaining explanation of such curious circumstances. How he explained the situation to his wife may have provided many of us with true wit and wisdom.
[B]Charles P. Reyes Jr.[/B] [I]Gualo Rai, Saipan[/I]
