Reflections: Conversations, Essays, and Other Writings

Thomas F. Croake: A Law Clerk’s Remembrance

The year after I graduated from law school, I clerked for a United States district judge namedThomas Croake.After Judge Croake’s death, I paid homage to him and his sense of humor in the following article for The National Law Journal. Thomas F. Croake: A Law Clerk’s Remembrance Law schools don’t prepare their students to practice law. Rather, in three years of Socratic dialogue, impressionable minds are taught to “think like a lawyer.”Words like “remittitur” and “interpleader” are added to the vocabulary. Nuts and bolts matters such as how to draft legal documents are largely ignored.Thus, the first job a lawyer has in “the real world” is enormously important. My own first experience was ideal.After graduating from law school, it was my good fortune to clerk for Thomas F. Croake, a United States district judge who served as my mentor for the most enjoyable year of my legal career. Judge Croake was not a scholar. Like most judicial appointments, his nomination to the federal bench was political in nature.Yet for over a decade, he dispensed justice fairly and impartially, consistent with deeply held personal beliefs.And perhaps more important from my own selfish point of view, he was a marvelous teacher. Each day was enriched by his explanation of why a certain brief should have been drafted in a given way, or how a lawyer could have improved his courtroom presentation to better serve a client. Judge Croake died recently at age seventy-six. Since then, I’ve found myself reminiscing about some of the warmer, more humorous moments we spent together. Judge Croake was Irish and fiercely proud of it. St. Patrick’s Day was a holiday in chambers. Still, he was always respectful of divergent faiths. Once, I watched as he patiently engaged in a thirty-minute discussion with counsel for the Jewish Defense League on the issue of whether federal statutes or Orthodox Jewish law were the governing standard in a REFLECTIONS 253 particular lawsuit. On another occasion, despite personal distaste for their political and religious beliefs, he ordered two Black Muslim prisoners released from solitary confinement at Green Haven State Prison. His opinion was a forerunner of later decisions by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in the field of prisoners’ rights. Of all the anecdotes I heard in chambers, the one Judge Croake told with the greatest relish concernedThomas Murphy—a fellow jurist who presided over the arraignment of a Black Muslim prisoner.When asked if he was represented by an attorney, the defendant answered,“Allah is my counsel.”To which Judge Murphy responded,“That’s very nice, but do you have local counsel?” Like most lawyers, judges tend to establish rivalries with one another —some friendly, some not so cordial. Overall, Judge Croake was on friendly terms with his brethren. But one contemporary (I’ll call him “Judge Jones”) constantly rubbed him the wrong way.And the conflict was heightened when Judge Jones, who was sitting on his last case before retirement, bragged in the judges’ lunchroom that every law clerk in the building had journeyed to his courtroom to look in on the trial as a respectful way of saying goodbye. “You didn’t go, did you?” Judge Croake demanded as we sat together that afternoon in Chambers. “Judge,” I admitted,“I’ll be honest. I did go to Judge Jones’s courtroom , but it had nothing at all to do with his retirement.The truth is, word has filtered through the courthouse that Juror Number 3 is an absolutely stunning blonde, and everyone is going down to take a look.” That made Judge Croake very happy.And I should add that he himself enjoyed a pretty face. Once, when a particularly attractive woman was selected by lot from the jury pool and tentatively seated, he whispered to me,“Any lawyer who strikes that juror is in big trouble.” Judge Croake was concerned with appearances—a fact that was made very clear to his law clerks. Once, he returned from vacation and found that he was the only judge in the Southern District of NewYork with a law clerk who was growing a sweet potato in chambers. He actually consulted with a fellow jurist on the issue of whether a rooting sweet potato (as opposed to a philodendron or some other plant) was proper. 254 THOMAS HAUSER Of greater concern was his reaction after...