I am not sure how
many siblings sit or have sat as judges in the same county, at the same time, as
I discovered no records of that type are officially kept. But nonetheless, I am proud to count myself
and my brother as “sibling-judges.”
My brother, Ed, and
I come from a tight sibling group, so it was with great pleasure that I
welcomed him to the bench this past December.
I was appointed by Governor Snyder to the 84th District Court, serving
Wexford and Missaukee Counties, in 2013 and elected in 2014. Ed was appointed by Governor Snyder to the
Wexford County Probate bench in December 2017 and will run for election this
year.
Both Ed and I were
non-traditional law school students. I
enrolled in Thomas M. Cooley Law School (now Western Michigan University Cooley
Law School) when I was 30 years old, and he followed me at the same school when
he was 38 years old. He is 11 months and
51 weeks older than me and he left a successful career at a local manufacturing
concern to go to law school. I, on the
other hand, left a series of low-paying, dead-end jobs to go to law
school. Neither of us ever regretted our
decisions.
After operating a
solo family law practice for 15 years, I was the Wexford County Friend of the
Court for two years and was then appointed to the bench. After operating a solo elder law/estate planning
practice for 16 years, Ed was appointed to the bench. Ed and I shared office space before I left
for the friend of the court position. We
found sharing space and costs worked very well and we were able to discuss
matters to help each other sift through the issues of different cases. We both missed the benefit of having adjacent
offices with an ability to connect frequently.
Our courtrooms are
located in the new addition to the stately old courthouse in Cadillac located
in Wexford County, which has a population of about 33,000 people. The courtrooms mirror each other and are
divided by the “tombs”, a hallway where prisoners are held for their court
appearances. There is a private hallway
lined with windows that leads from one courtroom to the other. This once again gives us the opportunity to
be close and able to connect frequently.
Before Ed joined the
crew at the courthouse, our sister, Ann, a recent widow, moved from Mt.
Pleasant back to our hometown of Cadillac.
She now works at the Wexford County Register of Deeds office, and we
have great fun going to the original side of the building to say hello from
time to time. It is nice to have her near
us again.
We don’t want to
leave our brother, Andy, out of this story.
He does not work at the courthouse because he is an Oil and Gas Landman. However, he does live in Cadillac and can
often be seen in the courthouse or driving around the building waiting for one or
all of us to get done working so we can go to lunch or spend some time with
him.
Ed and I count
ourselves lucky to have ascended to our current positions and credit timing,
hard work, and sibling support for our good fortune. We are even luckier, perhaps, to be able to be
bench mates and to work with at least one sibling and frequently have lunch
with another.