In a prior interview with the U.S. Courts, Judge Robinson has described the overwhelming feeling she had while walking up the circle drive of the White House to meet with the White House Counsel during her judicial appointment process.  At that time, she recalled a story her late grandmother used to tell about civil rights pioneer Mary McLeod Bethune being invited to the White House to meet Eleanor Roosevelt. “At least in my grandmother’s thinking, an African-American woman had never been invited to the White House as a guest, and she was invited there to have tea with Eleanor Roosevelt, and [my grandmother described] how special that was, and how great that was, and how proud the African American community was that Mary McLeod Bethune got invited to the White House,” Robinson told the U.S. Courts.  “As I was walking up that circle drive, all I could think of was my grandmother, and I how I wish my grandmother could be with me and holding my hand and walking up to the White House with me.”

We caught up with Judge Robinson, who took senior status earlier this year after more than 20 years on the bench, to talk about her experiences on the bench, the state of the courts today, and the importance of Black History Month.

Q: What do you consider the signature Judge Julie Robinson approach to a problem or issue?

A: Be very well prepared. That’s what my signature approach was as a lawyer, really, this idea that I needed to be as prepared or hopefully better prepared than the next person. It’s that way now, too. No matter the kind of case or issues there’s always more than what’s going on on the paper.

Q: You have described wanting to be an attorney from the age of 5. What made you think that? 

A: Growing up I didn’t know lawyers, my family didn’t know lawyers… It’s interesting because we were overseas [with her father stationed in the military]. I’d watch all this old stuff. I came upon Perry Mason at a pretty young age and was just fascinated with it. It was the mystery part of it. I don’t know why, it just got in my head… It was just sort of that ‘I can do that.’

Q: How has the federal judiciary evolved since you first took the bench?

A: It some ways it hasn’t changed at all but in other ways I think we do see some trends. For example, when I became a judge, our discretion in criminal cases was cabined by the sentencing guidelines. I know I feel a whole lot better about that aspect of the work which is very difficult work. Because I can use discretion, I think I’m far more comfortable now than I was 20 years ago… Things have been consistent in terms of discrimination cases, although I don’t’ see as many. In the Kansas City division we see a lot of commercial cases. Over time I think I’ve seen more intellectual property cases in my caseload than I did at the outset. In general, things are so much faster because we’re in a digital world, with filings coming in 24/7.

Q: What about changes you have seen happening in our society and our system of government during that time?

A: Just for example the appointment process, I think we viewed it as contentious back in 2001, but it was far more functional and far less contentious than it is now. Twenty years ago lawyers and judges alike were grieving that civics education was being under-taught. That’s only gotten worse; it’s not gotten better… Now we’ve got a greater task because we have to get past the misinformation. Before maybe it was a lack of information; now it’s misinformation. People think they know but they really don’t, and that’s troubling.

Q: Judge John Lungstrum said at time of your appointment to the bench said he regarded you as one of the finest attorneys who had practiced in front of him.  For attorneys practicing in federal court, what would increase their chances of a judge thinking the same thing about them?

A: Here’s an advantage I had: I appeared regularly in court. We were trying a lot of cases… One of the things I grieve is that we don’t’ get to see lawyers in court that much anymore… People don’t tend to ask for [oral argument] because they just think they’re going to be turned down because it’s kind of a long-standing culture. But I think one of the ways we move out of that is to have lawyers ask for it more. Frankly as the decision maker, if you don’t think it’s going to advance the cause or help you, there’s some reluctance, particularly when you’re really busy… but on the other hand I think we’re all aware that particularly younger lawyers need more opportunity to come into court and to make oral arguments. I think if we start getting more motions, and particularly if it looks like it’s an effort that the younger lawyers get a chance, we may be more inclined to do it.

Q: What’s the best thing and the most challenging thing about being a federal District Court judge?

A: The best thing is the variety of cases. Although we are courts of limited jurisdiction, we see such a wide variety of types of cases, and I’m always having to learn new things, always having to learn new law. It’s what makes the job so interesting… The most difficult aspect of the job is sentencing people in criminal cases… That’s the most difficult and stressful.

Q: What advice would you give to law students and attorneys starting out in the practice?

A: The things I was told that still resonate with me are, first of all, don’t let anyone make you feel insecure, make you feel like you don’t belong where you are. Second of all, your relationships in the legal community begin the day you walk into law school. The people you’re in class with, they’re going to be your colleagues, perhaps your Governor, Senator, Justice on the Supreme Court. You want to engage with people. You want to leave law school with a good reputation and with friends and no enemies. You want to carry that into practice… When you encounter difficult people, you still don’t want them to be your enemies. Which sometimes means you have to bite your tongue and take it– but without being walked on –but don’t engage in a tit for tat with somebody who’s misbehaving.

Q: You’ve been involved in a lot of judicial leadership roles in your time on the bench. What do you see as the most pressing issues facing the federal judiciary today? 

A: Well, money. That’s always been an ongoing thing. Just having the budget to administer services. We’ve got, for example, a legacy electronic filing system. It’s not going to be around forever if we don’t get a new system in place…. And I think we have an ongoing issue in terms of not just the public but our elected officials not truly understanding what we do, how we work, that we don’t get to control our caseloads. We don’t get to control the volume of our work. Sometimes that’s a function of things that they do in fact, but we are often squeezed in terms of something major happening and workload going up, and we have to make do with the same resources.

Q: I love the image of you walking up the White House circle drive and thinking about your grandmother, and her stories about Mary McLeod Bethune’s historic visit to the White House.  What does Black History Month mean to you?

A: We think of history sometimes as being in the distant past, but I’m 65 years old. I’ve seen a lot of Black history unfold in my lifetime, significant history. There’s a lot of important things that happened long before my lifetime, but when you think of all the things that have happened since say 1957, it’s been an amazing period to be an African American in this country, and I say that in a positive way. History has always been important to me. Family history has always been important to me. I feel like it strengthens me, it gives me confidence to be able to know that I’ve  been able to do what I’ve done because of all of the people before me who really had it tough and worked hard, but still had a dream that the next generation would be better. And that’s what happened… I think it’s encouraging and inspiring.

Q: What are your favorite ways to unwind and relax?

A: I read. I play with my dog. [miniature Schnauzer mix]. My husband and I watch a lot of series [e.g.,. Better Call Saul, Breaking Bad, the Wire]. We’re big KU basketball fans, but mostly watching on TV and not attending in person, and big Chiefs fans. I also like to travel. My bucket list is to go to all seven continents. I still have Australia and Antarctica to go.

Q: What does the transition to senior status involve?

It doesn’t feel like a reduced caseload for quite a while. I don’t’ have a replacement so I’m not able to give away cases without causing strife to my colleagues. I still have a full criminal caseload. It’ll take a couple years before it feels like it is being reduced …I want to ultimately end up at about a 50 percent caseload. That doesn’t mean you show up for work only 2-1/2 days a week.

Q: What are some of your favorite memories from your time on the bench? 

A: Most of them are trials. I came to the bench because I wanted to preside over trials. I was a trial lawyer. After doing this 20 years, with thousands of cases, most of that’s not going to stick … The ones I remember best are the ones were I can put names with faces, not only for lawyers but for parties and witnesses.  Those are my fondest memories.

Q: What are some of the most common mistakes you see experienced attorneys make?

A: I think some people aren’t as well versed in the rules as they need to be. … Know the local rules because it’s interesting how many times something will come up and there’s a local rule that really addresses it, and lawyers may not be aware of that. It’s hard to stay on top of the Rules of Evidence and all of that, but if you’re going to have an evidentiary hearing, you need to be prepared and need to bone up on the Rules of Evidence. That can really derail you if you don’t know how to get something admitted or whatever.  The other thing is to just know your case inside and out.  If you are going to trial and you know that an associate, or someone whose name is not at the top of the signature block, knows that case, but they’re not the ones that get to examine the witnesses… It’s obvious a lot of times that the person doing that work doesn’t know the case the way they should. If they’re going to come in at the ninth hour, they better know the case. Better yet, the person working on it from day one should have a significant role in the trial.

Q: Are there any other thoughts you’d like to leave readers with? 

A: We live in such contentious and polarized times. I think it’s becoming more and more important that we engage with people that are unlike us– across all spheres, socioeconomic groups, race, age, geographic origin, religion, whatever. We’ve got to do that. We’ve got to hear other people’s stories. We’ve got to all fight the implicit bias that dwells within us. We all have that… [At the time of her appointment] people were much more willing to embrace one another and care about one another. Lawyers and judges, we’re all leaders in our communities. So we’re just going to need to model that for others.

Chester I. Lewis, Jr. was a Kansas civil rights activist. Born in Hutchinson in 1928, Chester Lewis Sr. was the head of a Black newspaper, The Hutchinson Blade. His father encouraged him to become a lawyer so that Lewis Jr. could fight in the courts what Lewis Sr. had fought in the press. And so, Lewis attended the University of Kansas, where he would graduate with a law degree in 1953 near the top of his class.

Lewis then moved south to Wichita and immediately began to shake up the local establishment. His first piece of litigation began with the birth of his first child in July 1953. Lewis’s wife, Jacqueline, had lighter skin. After the birth, a nurse asked Jacqueline her race. Upon learning that she was Black, the nurse required Jacqueline to move to another room because Wesley Hospital only gave private rooms to white women. The nurses then moved Lewis’s newborn son to a segregated area of the nursery ward.

Lewis confronted the hospital staff and threatened to sue them under an obscure 1874 Kansas statute prohibiting discrimination in public accommodations. The hospital quickly changed its policy. Two months later, Lewis initiated his next civil rights lawsuit using the same 1874 law—this time successfully desegregating the city’s public swimming pool.  Lewis was only 25.

What I found interesting about the various accounts of Lewis’s life is that historians seem to disagree on what exactly his greatest accomplishment was. For some, it was his large class action on behalf of Black train porters. For others, it was his successful defense of 110 civil rights protestors at the University of Kansas in 1965. For still other historians, it was his role as a national leader in the Young Turks movement within the NAACP.

In recent years, historians have focused on Lewis’s actions during the Wichita Dockum sit-in. In 1958, a group of Wichita youth approached Lewis with the idea of staging a protest at a local segregated lunch spot. At the time, Lewis was the President of the local NAACP chapter and had previously mentored the students on nonviolent protest tactics. When the students approached Lewis, the idea of a lunch counter sit-in was unheard of. Lewis and his officers called the national NAACP office to ask what to do. The national office told them to dissuade the teenagers—or at least not support them openly—as the organization was focused on litigation efforts rather than direct protests.

We are going to be presenting in Kansas and Western Missouri classrooms on the Law Day theme “Toward a More Perfect Union” this year during the week of May 2, 2022.

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