Judge Harpo Myers

I thought about running for judge today. I would have to run - the governor wouldn't likely appoint me (although we share a lot of similar thinking). So in my fantasy world of "Judge Myers," I came up with these ideas:
1. We only use court call. It is a complete waste of time for attorneys and litigants to be present in court. It costs money for litigants and lawyers to get to court, to park, and to sit around. It costs the government money to staff security, Marshalls, have all these places for people to sit and pretend to be comfortable. There is nothing comfortable about sitting in court. Commissioner Kaplan reminded me of this when she admonished me not to (silently) view my email while sitting in the back row of the gallery, behind the water cooler (my favorite spot). Huh? Not efficient. Especially when you cut my fees for not being efficient. Its efficient to multi-task. You can do that on court call.
So I would require court call for everybody unless some statute required physical presence. Court call also has the benefit of paying for itself - it charges the lawyers a fee which it shares with the court. The lawyers are happy because they save valuable time in not having to commute, park, and pretend to be comfortable while they are decidedly polite in NOT viewing their EASILY and QUIETLY accessible email on their cellphones.
2. Every courtroom should have a clown-type horn. One of those old Harpo Marx horns, where you squeeze a red rubber ball and it makes a goofball sound. Instead of interrupting the lawyers or clients, the judge could just squeeze the red rubber ball, and this big HONK would tell everyone to knock it off - they are irritating the judge. It would not show up on the transcript, so there would be no "record" that the judge cut someone off. It would be the judges' version of "nightstick justice." "Appeal this, counsel . . . HONK!"
3. Court personnel, including judges, would be subject to the same sanctions, or reductions in pay, as the litigants and their counsel for screwing up. This is the pet peeve of all probate lawyers. There is no mutuality of remedy when the examiners or the court messes up. If a case got reversed on appeal, the Superior Court would forfeit its filing fee back to the party who incurred the fee. This might encourage more careful thinking in jurisprudence, and would definitely help with ridiculous points (and unnecessary continuances) occasionally made by examiners.
4. Hearings would be set every 15 minutes, or at least every 30 minutes. You would not have to sit through much of a calendar to be heard. It wastes a lot of time and money to have 40 lawyers sitting around listening to a couple siblings squabble over who got the better pacifier. After the 20th time, its not funny any more.
5. My judge cellphone would be available to all parties at all times, with the caveat that it would be a 900 number. If you want to get a ruling on an objection in the middle of a deposition, go ahead and give me a call. But it will cost $10 per minute (cheap relative to the cost of litigating the objection otherwise), and the revenue would go to the court's general fund. The fee would go up to $100 per minute for any calls made after 8 p.m. and before 9 a.m. Thus, you could depose someone in the middle of the night - that's your decision, counsel - but if you want to wake me up to fight about the objection, that will be $6,000 per hour. And there is no guarantee I will be as sharp as I would be, say, at 9 a.m. I would probably insist on a small cut of the action for the inconvenience to me and the interruption to my beauty sleep.
6. Every law firm with at least 3 lawyers that regularly appeared in my department would have to send a paralegal into court once a month to assist with my department's research. They would need to work on other cases, not their firm's. They would get a sense of the importance of fair and balanced research. They would see what other firms are doing, and it would be a forced CLE. It would likely improve the quality of their own firm's filings with the court.
In honor of the tea party, I would create a new political party, the Coffee Party, and run on a platform of fast and efficient justice. We can do more with less. We have no choice. Peet's would be my official sponsor.