More than 30 years after graduating from Stanford, Ted Zayner \u201878, a Bay Area resident since he arrived on the Farm, has found his calling.<\/p>\n
On Dec. 29, Gov. Schwarzenegger appointed Zayner to a six-year term on the bench of the Santa Clara County Superior Court, whose session begins Jan. 19, sending Zayner\u2019s career in a direction he couldn\u2019t imagine when he first settled at Stern Hall in 1974.<\/p>\n
Zayner was drawn from his home on the south side of Chicago to the Farm in part because of memories of watching Jim Plunkett win the Rose Bowl.<\/p>\n
He spent his childhood hanging out on the sidelines of the field where his father coached high school football in the public leagues \u2014 he was 4 years old when he went to his first game. While football was not the primary reason for attending Stanford, he said it \u201cwas one of the things in the back of my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n
After graduating from St. Ignatius College Prep, a Jesuit school in Chicago that he described as \u201calmost a magnet school,\u201d Zayner helped assemble an independent intramural sports league where he played football, volleyball, water polo and soccer. But academically, Zayner wasn\u2019t sure what direction to take.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike perhaps a lot of 18-year-olds coming out of high school, I sort of had ideas what I wanted to do, but it\u2019s not that I had thought out any kind of career path,\u201d he said. \u201cI kind of defaulted toward science, muddling around in pre-med for a little bit, and decided I wasn\u2019t going to survive in that.\u201d<\/p>\n
In college, and even law school, Zayner never imagined being a judge. It wasn\u2019t until fall quarter his senior year, after he had flirted with degrees in biology, physics, math, economics and engineering, that Zayner start thinking about going to law school.<\/p>\n
\u201c[At the start of my senior year,] I was an econ major with only a few classes left, and then wasn\u2019t really excited about being an econ major,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to go to law school because I was interested in that,\u201d Zayner added. \u201cI wasn\u2019t certain I wanted to be a lawyer, but I thought law school would be an interesting thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zayner began litigating shortly after he graduated from the University of California Hastings College of the Law in 1983.<\/p>\n
\u201cI pretty much got thrown into it and started taking depositions [pretrial interrogation of witnesses] and preparing cases,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, at the outset, it was a little nerve-wracking.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Zayner, the anxiety hasn\u2019t disappeared, but it has changed character over time.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe nervousness now, I liken to competitive nervousness \u2014 it\u2019s not something that prevents you from doing the job and doing an effective job, but it enhances your awareness and your focus,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Zayner recalled a memorable bad-faith insurance case, which involved a yearlong series of trials concerning chemical cleanup liability. His firm was representing an insurance company slapped with a payment to cover cleanup costs for FMC Corporation\u2019s chemical processing sites.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was probably the case that shaped my confidence in my skills as a trial lawyer more than anything else,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In stark contrast to his experience, Zayner believes today\u2019s young lawyers aren\u2019t being \u201cthrown into it\u201d fast enough or getting enough courtroom time. Part of the reason, he said, stems from a criminal case backlog that delays and drives up the cost of bringing civil cases to trial.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe courts in general are fairly overwhelmed,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd they\u2019re overwhelmed with criminal cases, which always have first priority, so it\u2019s harder to get civil cases out to trial.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zayner attributes the rise in court fees, lawyers\u2019 billable hour rates and other litigation expenses in the last three decades to a culture where a lot of clients, especially large companies, won\u2019t pay for relatively inexperienced lawyers to try cases. Instead, young lawyers \u201ctend to get a lot of experience working long hours and doing a lot of the grunt work that has to be done to prep a case.\u201d<\/p>\n
But working behind the scenes, they aren\u2019t learning what it\u2019s like in the courtroom. As Zayner put it, \u201cthey don\u2019t get the reward at the end.\u201d<\/p>\n
When cases go to trial, Zayner believes new lawyers should sit \u201csecond chair\u201d to their more practiced colleagues to gain courtroom experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you go to trial and learn to try a case in front of a jury, it\u2019s a whole new world,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a gradual learning curve like anything else \u2014 you grow more and more comfortable in your own skin.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to changing new lawyers\u2019 roles, Zayner said the high expense of taking civil cases to trial makes it more likely the cases will be settled out of court.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe courts have more strongly encouraged mediation and negotiation alternative disputed resolution (ADR), a more efficient and cost-effective method of trying to get cases resolved early,\u201d Zayner said.<\/p>\n
Since 1991, Zayner has involved himself in ADR both as a judge pro tem \u2014 a \u201ctemporary judge\u201d \u2014 presiding over pretrial settlement conferences that sitting judges don\u2019t have time for, and as private practice judicial arbitrator.<\/p>\n
Zayner started applying for a full-time judgeship three years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a pretty daunting process,\u201d he admitted. The application is four pages, \u201cbut when you answer all the questions and add a detailed resume of your entire legal career, you end up submitting 50 or 60 pages to the governor\u2019s office. And then they do their own investigation and vetting.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the governor\u2019s office considers you a viable candidate, the state bar\u2019s judicial commission interviews and reviews you, and then the governor\u2019s office does its own investigation and brings you up for an interview,\u201d Zayner added. \u201cAnd then you wait and hope you get a phone call. They won\u2019t ever call you again except to give you an appointment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zayner got the call. He starts overseeing misdemeanor criminal cases at Palo Alto Courthouse on Jan 19.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat seems to be a traditional first place for new judges to learn the ropes,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m really looking forward to it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ted Zayner \u201978 appointed to Santa Clara County Superior Court More than 30 years after graduating from Stanford, Ted Zayner \u201878, a Bay Area resident since he arrived on the Farm, has found his calling. On Dec. 29, Gov. Schwarzenegger appointed Zayner to a six-year term on the bench of the Santa Clara County Superior […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-164259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164259\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}