Cela Burge will have to resign her seat on the Cape Charles Town Council. Burge will become the first woman to be appointed a presiding judge on the Eastern Shore of Virginia.
She will take the oath of office in April.
The General Assembly elected Burge to a six-year term as Juvenile and Domestic Relations judge for Judicial District 2-A, beginning April 16. She will be replacing Croxton Gordon, who is retiring.
J.&D is hard work. Thank you for your willingness to be a judge.
Just how does one go from being on a small town council to being Judge? I must have missed something here.
You did. Cela Burge has been a practicing attorney for several years. She has been attorney for Accomack County and other locales. She is more than qualified for this position.
Well, bless her heart!
Please explain. Being an attorney does not qualify one to be a Judge, so explain why she is ‘more than qualified’.
She is and has been a practicing attorney for many years in Accomack County and also Chincoteague. She is open minded and fair. She knows the law inside and out. Who would you like to see become a judge? Also, she is ethical and holds herself to a high standard morally.
Actually, it does, since one has to be a member of the bar in order to become a judge in Va
And pray tell, tokenny, exactly how does being a “member of the bar” make one qualified to be a judge?
By way of example, consider this March 2003 address to the Albany, New York Bar Association, known in the corrupt ****-hole of New York as the “Bar Association of the stars,” given that the state’s top judges are members of that bar association, given by then-bar association president Michael P. Friedman, as follows:
Does anyone really think lawyering involves ethical behavior?
Some people do.
There are courses in legal ethics required for admission to the bar.
A separate test in legal ethics is supposed to measure one’s moral fitness for the practice of law.
We are required to have a few hours of ethical training as part of mandatory Continuing Legal Education.
Whoop Dee Doo.
Did you ever sit through one of these lectures?
For the most part they are lessons in how not to get sued, i.e. “Don’t steal your client’s money”; “Don’t take a case if you mdon’t know what you are doing”; and my personal favorite, “Don’t have sex with your client.”
Does any of this have to do with ethics, i.e. the betterment of society, moral duty or the distinction between good and bad?
I don’t think so.
I recently spoke to a class at Hartwick College on legal ethics.
They were struggling with a truly moral issue, i.e. the termination of life and the role of the health care professional.
As I spoke I realized that the practice of law is essentially amoral.
Our advice to clients is not designed to guide anyone in ethical behavior.
We do not exist to tell anyone what is right and wrong.
We are all but prohibited from doing so.
Our duty is to advise of the legal consequences of actions, and to promote the interests of our client within the boundaries of the legal system.
For this reason, we do not necessarily advise the guilty to accept their punishment, nor do we chastise the adulterer, the negligent driver and the trespasser.
We advise.
****
So, we don’t deal in fairness, we deal in legal results, without regard to ethics.
You think clients come to us for our opinions on good and evil?
Think again, Jack.
We are not the clergy.
After all, it is just “Ethical Considerations” in the Code of Professional Responsibility, as in “OK, I’ve considered it, now here’s what we do. . .”
end quotes
Any thoughts come to mind, tokenny?
Reminds me of a quote I saw in the Albany, New York Times Union one time about the law being far too precious a thing to be left in the hands of lawyers.
By way of background, since we are all locked in now like prisoners in a concentration camp or gulag or work camp, which means we are not going anywhere and need things to amuse us, like Cape Charles Mirror re-runs, for a good candid look at lawyers as judges, see the Cape Charles Mirror thread “On The Obstruction Of Justice As A Federally-Approved Practice In The United States Of America Today” on June 18, 2017 http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/on-the-obstruction-of-justice-as-a-federally-approved-practice-in-the-united-states-of-america-today/