Alison Tucher, a former Morrison & Foerster partner, was appointed in late 2013 to the Alameda County Superior Court bench where she serves in the family law division. Tucher, whose career highlights include springing the wrongfully convicted and a role in the Apple-Samsung showdown, spoke about the transition to the bench and a family law assignment.
What has been the biggest challenge of making the transition from litigator to judge? Working with unrepresented litigants. More than half of the parties with cases before me do not have a lawyer, and many have little familiarity with our legal system. For example, in my first family law trial neither party had a lawyer. Both were immigrants, and they showed up expecting me to elicit the testimony I needed to decide their divorce case. As a brand-new judge I found myself playing a role that, in my practice as a litigator, had been divided amongst the lawyers for opposing parties, the judge, and the jury.
