There is only one tradition associated with becoming chief judge of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals: the transfer of the ceremonial red robe. Carl Stewart became the 5th Circuit’s chief on Oct. 1 — the first African-American to hold that position — after Judge Edith Jones stepped down from the job three months before her term was scheduled to end. Seniority determines who assumes the chief judge’s role. Stewart did not return a call for comment. Jones sent Stewart the bright scarlet robe that has been handed down from chief judge to chief judge, beginning with the late Henry Politz, who served as the 5th Circuit’s chief judge from 1992 until 1999. Politz used to wear the red robe when swearing in new citizens, which was one of his favorite tasks, says David Schenck, a partner in the Dallas office of Dykema who clerked for Politz in the early 1990s. “You will never see a man happier than Judge Politz swearing in new citizens,” Schenck says. “It was a happy-mood robe; it was intended in that spirit.” Jane Politz Brandt, a partner in Dallas’ Thompson & Knight, explains that her father also wore the red robe when swearing in new judges, including during his swearing in of Stewart, whom then-President Bill Clinton nominated to the 5th Circuit in 1994. Brandt says her father and Stewart were Louisiana natives who had chambers in the U.S. district courthouse in Shreveport. “They were good friends and colleagues. I’m delighted that Judge Stewart is going to have my father’s robe. It couldn’t go to a better person,” Brandt says. “And what you don’t understand is how much my family loves Judge Stewart. We are so happy for him, and we’re so proud that he’s reached this. My dad would be so proud.”
Disaster Help
The Legal Services Corp. (LSC) of Washington, D.C., has selected Lone Star Legal Aid (LSLA) to take the lead in updating a national disaster-response website, says Lewis Kinard, a directing attorney of Houston-based LSLA. The LSLA has experience dealing with various types of disasters including hurricanes, tornadoes, wild fires and oil spills, Kinard notes. “We’ll take what we’ve learned and help revamp this resource and then build a sort of site-management consortium to make sure that it stays fresh,” he says. LSLA will head the project, funded by a $130,000 LSC technology grant, to revamp the National Disaster Legal Aid website, which was created after Hurricane Katrina, he says. “There was a rush to find some way to use technology to coordinate volunteers in a wide range of legal service organizations to service Katrina victims,” he says. The goal of the LSC-funded project is to have a one-stop resource with legal information to help victims in any type of disaster anywhere in the country, he explains. “We’re talking about, once you’re stable, how do you get back on your feet?” Kinard says. “Some of it’s going to be federal and apply to everybody, such as replacing Social Security cards or passports, and some will be state-specific, such as replacing birth certificates or property deeds,” he says. When a new disaster occurs, the goal is to update the website content to address the specific legal needs of the victims, he says. Organizations that will work with the LSLA on the project include the American Bar Association’s Center for Pro Bono in Chicago, the Texas Legal Services Center in Austin, the National Legal Aid and Defender Association in D.C., and Pro Bono Net in New York, according to an LSC announcement. The $130,000 grant is one of 43 grants, totaling more than $3.4 million, that are part of the LSC’s Technology Initiative Grants Program, the announcement says. Legal matters arise in the wake of a disaster that can be new to a lawyer, such as who pays to remove a fence or a house that has been moved by a storm to another person’s property, Kinard says. “There are so many things not in the typical repertoire of the average practitioner or specialist,” Kinard says. “We want to have the information there, to help them quickly get up to speed, so they can go out to a disaster relief center and steer people in the right direction.”
