Hon. Sheri Bluebond sits as chief judge on the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Central District of California. She is a dynamic figure at most bar events and is revered by colleagues, attorneys and trustees. For example, she recently presented an award at the home of James T. King, a beloved leader of the bankruptcy community, who became bedridden while battling cancer.
Judge Bluebond’s chambers are like a cozy studio loft. It is warm and inviting with eclectic décor of abstract art, history, a classic cartoon, children’s paintings and family pictures. As I sat down to start the interview, I immediately felt at ease. The judge was very welcoming, conversational and captured my attention with her candor, animation and humor. As she spoke, the light from the windows accented her pretty hazel eyes and gave me a glimpse into a genuine person who loves being a judge because she can “do the right thing.” I discovered that Judge Bluebond enjoys beading jewelry, singing, cooking and drinking wine (the drinking wine is not a hobby but an occasional indulgence). She is also “seriously addicted to Fairway Solitaire” on her phone. Before I knew it, an hour flew by and the judge reminded me that she had to take the bench. While we could have gone on for hours, it is a good thing we didn’t. The transcript of the interview is well outside the page limits of this article, so I will do my best to take you beyond the judge’s bio and into the person herself.
1. Where did you grow up?
Woodland Hills, [Calif.]. I’m a Valley girl but I’d like to point out that I left the Valley before anyone had ever heard of Moon Unit Zappa.
2. What did your parents do?
My parents had an insurance agency, Bluebond Insurance. They sold both commercial lines and personal lines, everything from auto and health and life to professional liability.
3. What inspired you to become a lawyer?
Well when I was about 4, I thought it would be a good job to be president of the United States. I have long since realized that’s a terrible job. They don’t pay you nearly enough to do for all the stress involved, and they make fun of you every night on the late-night talk shows. So I decided by maybe 8 or 9 that I didn’t want to be president … but I had been told that most presidents started out as lawyers. So when I first started thinking about what I wanted to be when I grew up, the answer was president, and that meant I had to start as a lawyer. That got stored away somewhere. Then, years later when I started again asking the question, “what do I want to be when I grow up,” I went through a phase where I wanted to be a cantor but then I discounted that and reverted to the earlier plan of I guess I’ll be a lawyer.
4. Who were your biggest influences growing up?
Definitely my mother, especially when it comes to “why did you become a lawyer?” My mother was always a straight “A” student and really tried to do the best job she could at whatever she did. When she decided to make a career out of raising her daughters (she had two of them; I had a sister who was killed in a car accident in 1979), she read every book that Dr. Spock had ever written on child raising. As a little kid, you always want to know “Why can’t I do this?” and “Why can’t I do that?” Some parents will say “because I said so.” My mother would have a reasoned discussion with me and, if I could make a good enough argument for why I should be able to do what I wanted to do, I got to do it. It was a great reward system for training little lawyers. I was a good advocate by the time I was 5 or 6.
My father also had a profound influence on me. He has always been a people person — very outgoing [and] able to talk to anyone about any subject. He is very charismatic and has a great sense of humor. His influence … accounts for the extent to which I became involved in [the] performing arts and have never shied away from public speaking or leadership positions. To the extent that I can feign self-confidence in instances in which self-confidence is required, I have my father to thank. He also taught me the importance of taking the time to thank people who help you along the way and making sure that people you appreciate are aware of your appreciation.
5. Prior to becoming a judge you were a partner at Irell & Manella. What was your primary area of practice at that firm?
Oh, bankruptcy, absolutely.
6. Did you mostly represent creditors?
Irell was somewhat unusual among larger firms in that [it] did the borrowers’ side of financial transactions, and they represented startup companies, among other things. So they were very reluctant to see me represent creditors. I brought a case with me where my client was JPMorgan and that was controversial because they didn’t want to be conflicted out of representing a business when they were going out to do a public offering. So no, I didn’t primarily represent creditors. I represented trustees, debtors in possession, a little bit of committee work [and] a little bit of bankruptcy related litigation. I did a fair amount of assisting in bankruptcy planning in connection with large transactions, and I would look at the transaction and identify bankruptcy risks and ways to structure the transaction in light of that. I did more creditor work at Murphy, Weir & Butler, which is where I was before Irell, and at Gendel, Raskoff, Shaprio & Quittner, than I did at Irell.
7. In your private practice, is there any one particular case that gave you greater satisfaction or is more memorable than any others?
Well, probably the last very large chapter 11 case that I handled — I met my husband working on that case — so that’s probably the most important case to me. But it was a very interesting, very challenging case, and a case that produced a good result. It could have been a disaster for the investors. They were 900 retired people who lived in mobile home parks in Hemet, [California] who had invested [most] of their life savings in these ventures, and we managed to deliver a pretty good rate of return for them.
8. What was the most significant factor that led you to the bench?
[The] number of hours in the day. A variety of factors led to my decision to leave private practice. One was that the firm kept upping my hourly rate, which kept making it harder and harder to bring in business, because cases had to be bigger and bigger in order to justify my hourly rate. It was increasingly stressful for me to feel as though I would be able to generate enough business to … justify my salary. I was already trying to bill as many billable hours as I was supposed to bill, was already speaking at as many different places as I could speak and attending as many bankruptcy-related events as I should attend, and it occurred to me that, if all I am doing is getting up going to work, coming home, going to sleep and getting up to do it all over again, what’s the point? Why am I doing this? Not that I didn’t enjoy my work. I did, but I am not living for the sole purpose of being able to work. I did want to get married and have a family, and I didn’t see that happening unless I made a change. If you want something in your life you have to make room for it to come in. I had thought at some point down the road that I would either want to go in-house or take the bench, but I really hadn’t put a whole lot of flesh on those bones. Then, in 2000, Lisa Fenning announced that she was going to retire. Suddenly there was a vacancy that had not been anticipated, so I thought for the first time, “Well, maybe I should do that.” It wasn’t very long before the deadline that I had made the decision to do it. I didn’t talk to anybody about whether I should do it. I didn’t solicit any letters of recommendation. I just filled out the application and sent it in. In a sense, it was just something that fell into my lap. I eventually would have gotten around to try and plan my life in such a way to make that happen, but it was convenient timing for me that there was suddenly an opening when I needed it.
9. Do you find that your experiences in private practice impact how you decide cases on the bench?
I don’t know that it directly affects how I decide a case, but what it does is gives me a better understanding of what is really going on behind the scenes, or what people aren’t telling me, or when something seems strange, or when a lawyer is reluctant to come out and say what he or she is obviously dancing around. I understand better. It takes fewer words to communicate the problem. I like to think that I catch on more quickly than I otherwise would as to what’s really going on.
10. What was your first hearing as a judge and what was it like?
I don’t remember the first hearing but I do remember heading out the door for my first hearing. I had the robe on and they say “clothes don’t make the man,” but, boy, the right costume really does help you play the part. I remember thinking about putting on the mantle of solemnity and getting into character and walking into the courtroom, but from that point on, I never looked back. I have no recollection of any of my first cases. [Laughing the judge further stated,] of course, I have no recollection of any of the cases I handled this morning either. [Interviewer’s Note: I think we can all relate to that.]
11. A hot topic right now in the Central District California is the unbundling of services for consumer cases, particularly in chapter 7s. Do you think attorneys should be able to unbundle their services to accommodate those who can’t afford full-service representation?
Our goal in studying this issue is to divine the essential minimum core of duties that a lawyer must perform if he undertakes to represent a client. If you prepare the schedules, must you at least go to the 341(a) meeting? If the client is sued under § 727 for failure to disclose something on the schedules that you prepared, must you defend the action? If a main purpose of the filing was to avoid a debt that may well be nondischargeable, must you defend the 523 action? Or if you are not going to defend the 523 action, should we come up with a standard disclosure form that could be used to explain to the debtor what they are getting themselves into if they file [for] bankruptcy? It’s a thorny issue, and the answer is probably neither that it is OK to ghostwrite schedules, or that an attorney has to handle every aspect of a case, but a line needs to be drawn somewhere. At present, I have no idea where that line ought to be.
12. As a judge, what was the most decisive or path-breaking case that you have been involved in?
Well, it wasn’t my case — it was Judge [Thomas B.] Donovan’s case — but I did sign onto the Ballas and Morales decision. Ballas and Morales was a legally married gay couple. Normally, we try to avoid constitutional issues, but this one was … right there. According to DOMA, they couldn’t be considered “spouses” within the meaning of the Bankruptcy Code, but they were legally married.[1] I didn’t have much involvement in crafting the decision, but I guess you could say that I was involved, in that I was one of the judges who signed the decision.
13. What would you say is the toughest part about being a judge?
It can be isolating because there are many rules that govern your behavior. So having to think about things that seem innocuous on their face, but might give rise to an appearance of impropriety, is one of the challenges of this position.
14. What can you advise lawyers appearing in your courtroom for the first time?
Please comply with my deadlines. Or if I set a deadline and you can’t comply with my deadline, consider filing a stipulation to ask me to extend my deadline. And if I ask you to lodge a scheduling order, please lodge the scheduling order. And make it a point, if it is an adversary proceeding, to exchange documents. I rarely sanction attorneys for failing to comply strictly with the early disclosure requirements of FRCP 26, but I do expect the lawyers to talk to one another to figure out what they are arguing about before they sit down to draft a pretrial order.
Oh and please don’t ever say “with all due respect.” That’s really starting to grate on me. I don’t think that it is just me. I don’t think there is judge out there who doesn’t hate that phrase. Find a new phrase: “I’m sorry your honor, but,” “I don’t mean to upset you, your honor, but” or “with apologies” — but scrap “with all due respect.”
15. What do you think are the most important attributes of a successful bankruptcy practitioner?
Creativity, flexibility [and] good people skills. The more senior you get in practice, the less what you do has to do with what the law is because you either know that or you have an associate to research it for you. And the facts are what they are and you can’t change that. So your job as a bankruptcy practitioner is to take whatever the law is and whatever the facts are and to manipulate the humans through it in a rational, and hopefully cost-effective way. So I think listening to your client and … the other side is critical. I think your reputation is important — a reputation for saying what you mean and meaning what you say. People should be able to rely on the fact that, when you promise something, you are going to do it, and ideally, that you have a good read on where your client is coming from so … you can accurately predict what he or she will or won’t … do. And good writing skills are always important.
16. What common mistakes do you see practitioners make and what remedies would you suggest?
Well, you’ve got to have good calendaring system, some good way of managing what’s going on with your cases, and adequate staffing. I understand [that] there is a reason you want to practice on your own, and that it is very hard to afford someone to work for you, but cases require attention and … time. There are some lawyers [who] do a great job of bringing in the work but do a terrible job staffing and actually working their cases. So if you happen to be one of those fortunate people who can bring the work in, don’t bring in more than you can actually do because the cases are going to tank and you are not going to do anyone any favors. They should call someone like you. That’s what you’re there for, right? [Thanks for the plug, your honor.]
This is a total pet peeve and this only comes up in trial, but I tell everybody this at every pre-trial conference. I do most of my evidentiary hearings with direct testimony by declaration and then have attorneys bring [in] their witnesses for live cross-examination. The direct-testimony declarations come in with the exhibits attached … because you need to lay a foundation for the exhibits to come in. What I don’t want to have happen is for people to come in with their exhibits books and tab their exhibits as one thing, and when they filed their declarations, they tabbed their exhibits as something entirely different. So we spend two hours at a trial going through what exhibit is what. Pick a letter or number — and I have instructions in my trial procedures as to who uses letters and who uses numbers — but assign one letter or number to the exhibit and whenever you use it, call it that. I don’t care if you give me a declaration that has exhibits A, F, B, Q in that order. I don’t care as long as every time I look at exhibit Q, it is always exhibit Q, and not a different document. This seems really basic but it is a constant problem.
17. What are your goals for the Central District of California?
To find out what our goals are.... I want us to keep functioning effectively and serving the public well in a diminishing resource environment, and so that’s kind of the overarching goal — to do a good job no matter what obstacles [might] be thrown in our path. But, other than that, in terms of what needs to be done or what isn’t working, I don’t know what the problems are that need to be fixed yet. I’m out there trying to find out. I encourage people to tell me if there is a problem that they think we need to address. If I’m not the right person to address it, I’ll funnel it to the right person.
18. What do you find most rewarding about being a judge?
Well, I know it sounds trite, but having my own bathroom is really nice. That’s one of the best things about this job, and it just makes you feel like an important person when you can say, “I have my own bathroom.” [We laugh.] But what is really rewarding about this job is the ability to do what you think the right thing is even if there aren’t significant dollars involved, and even if it isn’t cost-effective for me to do it. I can do the right thing within the constraints of the Bankruptcy Code. Subject to those instances in which there is a clear rule of law for me to follow, I get to do what makes sense to me, and hopefully be the one to bring order to the chaos and help move the case forward. I have received thank you notes from debtors or other parties saying, “My life was a disaster when I came and things are so much better now.” So, one of the most rewarding things about this job is our ability, on occasion, to make things less bad.
Many thanks to Judge Bluebond for her time in giving this interview.
[1] In In re Balas and Morales, 449 B.R. 567 (Bankr. C.D. Cal. 2011), the debtors were a legally married gay couple under California Senate Bill 54. The U.S. Trustee moved to dismiss the jointly filed chapter 13 because the debtors did not meet the definition of spouse as defined in the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which stated that marriage had to be between a man and a woman. The bankruptcy judges for the Central District of California ultimately held that DOMA was unconstitutional and violated the due-process clause of the Fifth Amendment.