WELCOME to Divorce Café, the podcast where we demystify, detangle and (hopefully) detox the legal processes that follow a separation, with the EXPERTS in the relationship property world.  

I’m Taina Henderson and this is Shelley Funnell

Today we have a very special guest - so hallowed are the circumstances in which you usually encounter him – a Family Court Judge

When you go to court you are acting on faith, putting your life in the hands of a person that you have never met before.  Judges like Judge de Jong repay that faith in the judiciary.  Judge de Jong epitomises a considered, thorough,  empathetic approach to resolving the sort of complex and highly charged disputes that come before the Family Courts. He has had a career-long interest in improving outcomes for the victims of family violence.  He worked for many years in his community including pro bono work on top of a demanding caseload. 

He has made a very recent move to Tauranga (we will really miss seeing his name on the Court docket here in Auckland) – and joins us via Zoom on his very first day on the job in the District Court at Tauranga Moana.

Judge Lex de Jong, thank you SO much for joining us and welcome to Divorce Cafe!

Kia ora, thank you very much for inviting me.

Ok so we like to start with a bit of an icebreaker – Judge de Jong.  As we are not together in the same place, we’ll pull one out of the bucket for you – would you like to do the honours?

I saw one at the top which is what is the best break up song ever which doesn’t seem quite dignified enough in the current circumstances. 

OK: if there was one thing you could go back and do differently at High School what would it be? 

I would do High School once.

Ah, have you… I’ve done it twice… have you done it twice aswell? 

Yes I have. I went to Morrinsville College at a time where not many kids were interested in school including myself and I ended up getting expelled from Morrinsville College and I was sent to Boarding School. 

Wow – I was not expecting that!

Wow ok, so a few different life choices.

Yes.

That gives a lot of hope for parents with wayward children at college. 

Gives hope to all of us. 

Ok, so the next section that we are covering is called: What we find interesting, so similar but;

What was your pathway to law?  And why do you stay in it?

Well, my pathway was quite different having regard to the fact that I was expelled from school, I had no interest in school, it was my mother who made me go to Boarding School and so I repeated the 5th Form and I nearly got expelled from my first week of Boarding School as well because I really didn’t want to learn and being a typical boy I struggled with school work and it really wasn’t until after University and I was practicing law that I started to have an interest in academic study so I was a very average student at University also at school, but the beauty of Boarding School was that I attended every class instead of wagging all the time and I developed an interest in doing something to make a better life for myself and when I was in the 6th Form one of my friends I talked to about what we were going to do for the future and I thought about law, his father was a Judge and a High Court Judge and I had a chat with him and I was determined then to become a lawyer and that’s how it started. 

So you just didn’t find anything at High School that spoke to you that was interesting? 

Well, certainly at Morrinsville College I didn’t but once I got to Boarding School I started to learn Study habits, the first of which was going to class and the second was taking in what they were saying so that’s how it happened and I think that route has been helpful for what I do particularly in dealing with boys, we tend to be slower on the uptake anyway we tend to develop later in life and certainly when I was doing criminal work it resonated for me  a lot with youth and what happens for them and how you can get into the wrong groups very easily. 

I was recently told and I didn’t realise this overseas in some jurisdictions when you come out of law School you either decide to be a lawyer advocate or to be a Judge, so  you don’t have lawyers who then lobby to become Judges and who change that kind of focus. Do you think that idea has some merit? 

Well it might do, I don’t know how affective that is, it sounds strange to us because you have to be a lawyer first but um there may well be some Merit in it, I don’t know if any research has been done into whether when you follow that course whether you become a better Judge or not, it would be interesting to know really and I think the experience is different for everyone just as my experience of doing law is different from others. In fact when I was in University I did a Mooting competition because it was compulsory and I decided that I was never going to do Court work because I was so terrified of the experience. 

So did you, have you since learnt that wasn’t representive of what it’s like? 

Yes, but what happened was I went overseas for a year after university and came back worried that I wasn’t going to get a job so I started door knocking in Hamilton and I got to the firm that was going to employ me and they said to me we’ve got a litigation job going doing Court Work and I was so desperate for a job that I said that’s just what I am looking for. 

Fake it till you make it – worked quite well. 

Yes and the advantage I had was in the first year of being a lawyer they introduced District Court Jury trials so I was doing Jury trials in my first year going to Court of Appeal, in my first week I was handed a trial for a dangerous speed charge and just given the file and told to go to Court, in those days you didn’t have any supervision as such you were expected just to do the work. So that first year was very scary learning everything new and being scared of Judges and being scared of everyone basically.  

People’s lives in your hands – it must be a Hamilton thing because I actually went back to school so I could be a lawyer as well and then decided it was something I never wanted to do be a lawyer but then you kind of come round once your frontal lobe develops I think. 

Yes and sometimes when you are pushed into a situation that you don’t want to be in you actually work a way of doing it and for me it’s been really good, being a lawyer has been the best part of my legal career. 

When I look at your CV I wonder why lawyers have such a bad reputation!  But law does attract very driven people, it is a demanding job and can leave little time for pursuits outside the office.  How do you think law can continue to attract people with a broader experience, and different skills?    

Well one of the ways that I think would be good to enhance is in schools and I am talking about lawyers going into schools, Judges going into schools to give students the option. I know Waikato University does school competitions for mooting and that has been very successful in getting people to consider law as an option, not always ending up going to Waikato Law School but they offer a prize I think is a year free of tuition fee so it’s very attractive but it encourages competition and also weeds out those who have got A type personalities as they tend to be better situated to be lawyers especially in litigation work. I think that’s probably the best place for developing an interest though, but also going to University because these days I notice that a lot of students change subject or courses or degrees so that may be an area where we should be targeting as well, lawyers and Judges. 

Hummm, because being a lawyer I found when I came out of law school there was no way I was going to be a lawyer I was going to be a diplomat and then I worked for a year in a law firm and I loved it so you’ve got to hear about it from someone who is doing it really don’t you to know what it’s actually like? 

Yeah you do and I think it’s good to have Community Days in Court so that students can come along, there’s been instances where I have had students come behind the scenes to have a look at what we do and be able to be in the Court room to have an idea of what’s happening and discuss the cases with them so they have got a picture of what happens rather than what happens on TV.

Yeah, although I think Legally Blonde is  a brilliant training course for lawyers, I know I watched a lot of the Good Wife when I when we first came back to work after having kids, Shelley and I both had kids, anyway…

Every time my daughters argue with me which is very often I always suggest to them they may want to think about being a lawyer but they always say “ah it looks so boring your job is so boring mum and I would never want to be that”.  I’m like its more interesting than it appears but I think a Court day - a day like that - as a community day where they can actually come in is really exciting and interesting for them. 

Yes, it’s good for us too as Court staff and lawyers as it’s always nice sharing your experience and expertise with other people and some of the questions they ask are really good, sometimes confronting but…

Yeah and I think that for kids knowing that being a Judge is a possibility, I would of thought you would have to be A++ top of the class kind of academic career but it’s actually achievable for people, OK let’s go back to the questions; 

You made time in your career to further other projects that you think important.  Can you please tell us about the Auckland Family Violence Criminal Court?

Yeah, so in my first year as a Judge because of my experience and back ground in dealing with Family Violence I was asked to set up and run the Auckland Family Violence Court and at the time I was very excited and very proud that happened, it made me puff up my chest but then I found out later that no one else wanted to do so that made me even more determined, there was quite a bit of resistance from the Legal Community particularly from Criminal Barristers because their focus is acting for Defendants those that are alleged to have committed violence and they are always complaining that victims make up these allegations.  And there was also a bit if resistance from other Judges because they were saying there isn’t enough work for us to run a Family Violence Court but very quickly we were running 3 days of nothing but Family Violence cases in the Criminal Court.  You could see there was a real demand for that, when you look at the statistics it makes sense particularly when they are so bad in New Zealand.  Someone dies every 10 days from Family Violence, a call is made to the police about Family Violence every 5 minutes.  So there is a lot of that work and I spent 5 years developing that, then I focused and specialised on the Family Court after that. 

And does it continue to run? 

Yes it has and a lot of it depends really on the Judge that is leading the Court too because they need to pull together everyone and the resources and they also need to be rostered in that Court regularly to make sure that they can run it.  All the evidence from overseas suggests that its very really important to have one with possibly a backup Judge running that Court and to have various agencies involved in it, Community Agencies and now a days you have lawyers who specialise in Family Violence work as well so the approach is quite different, it’s very satisfying seeing people’s lives change in that way because very often victims are saying: all I want is the violence to stop I don’t necessarily  want the relationship to stop but I do if the violence doesn’t. 

So that’s like a wrap around, it provides wrap around support as well as a Judge who knows about these sort of issues, is that what the model is? 

Yes, and I think being a Family Violence Court Judge as well because you know every day the work that we do and what the dynamics are and what excuses people come up to say that they weren’t violent or they don’t need to do a programme.  Those sorts of things - but we are giving them  opportunities to change their lives and it does happen and it’s very satisfying seeing that. 

I bet.

We notice also that we very often see the same people in the two courts in the criminal Court as well as the Family Court because of what is going on. 

So in that sort of vein - you work on cases that can stretch for years, and which deal with really  heart-breaking situations in your work.  Do you take some of that home with you?  How do you carry that load outside of work?

I have the sort of personality that can leave things behind and I being male I have little boxes where I put things and I put my work in my work box and that stays at work  so if I want to work I return to work to do it, I don’t bring it home I find that’s too difficult otherwise and you tend to muck up the environments and it can mess with your head so I’ve just developed over the years particularly doing family work which can be very challenging emotionally for everyone actually participants as well as Judges and lawyers so that’s how I deal with it but I know some people really struggle with that. I personally think that it helped that I started doing criminal work before I did family so that I had a bit of life experience and it’s how I deal with it anyway 

Thicken your skin a bit.

Yes, yes it does and in fact I stopped doing criminal work when I had children because some of the violence was so distressing with the though that my own children might be affected by that I gravitated towards family work and I love doing family work.

Do you sometimes feel frustrated by the confines of the usual family court process, and wish you had licence to do something a bit different to resolve a dispute or knock over a few tables?  And if you do, what would you like to try? And if you do, what scope do Judges already have to do that?

Well, I think within the framework that we have got there are things that we can do, most of my frustrations are with process … its quite a big transition when you go from private practice for 25 years and you’re working for a Government agency - you can’t just pop off for coffee with your friend, you can’t decide that you are going to take tomorrow off.  You work in within the bounds of what you are given and so one of the things I like to do is to take a file and manage that out of usual Court time, so I have a lot of conferencing at 9 o’clock in the morning or during the breaks to manage files so that we keep on top of that and I find that lawyers tend to work better with the Judge doing that for the benefit of the parties so that’s one way that I deal with things that are a bit differently.

That sounds like a full day so you are hearing cases and in the breaks you are doing conferencing and eating lunch. 

Yes it is, but I kind of think you’re at work let’s just get on with it, I tend to start  at 8 o’clock and I usually  leave about 6 so it is a long day but its exhilarating - there aren’t many dull moments I tell you that.

No, you would have to keep your mind pretty sharp because you are going from one case to another to another within a few hours 

Yes, the key to that though is preparation, so I read every file thoroughly before I deal with it and I will have notes on the file to remind myself about key aspects of it. 

You’re a pretty tech savvy Judge though aren’t you? More than some might be?

Yes.

Do you see any areas where automation could help the Family Court generally make things a bit… 

Yeah I think we can do a bit more remotely myself, I think we can do a lot more electronically, simple example is Dissolutions of Marriage, it’s very paper based but we could easily do that electronically as all those files are actually handled in Wellington and then they are sent back and forth to the home Court but the team that looks after those dissolutions applications are based in Wellington, so files are being transported all the time and I think that’s just so inefficient?

So there is work being done at the moment to improve IT and one of the areas that they are concentrating on is in the Family Court area so that’s very exciting. 

I bet you will be making your submissions 

Yes well they are working on that at the moment and interviewing providers so I don’t think it will be too far along that we will start seeing that happening. 

So next question; 

The Government has recently announced that it will be working on new measures to give judges greater powers to identify and stop litigation abuse – which is where people try to use the Court process to abuse or control or harass an ex-partner. Is this something that you see happening in the Courts? Is this a live issue in the Courts?

Very much a live issue, the difficulty is that you need to have balance you need a balance between people having the right to be heard and decisions made and that weighed against the fact that you also need to stop people abusing the process and so that can be really hard sometimes it requires, well I think it requires a lot of front loading if you like - triaging right from the beginning. And I think Judges should be allowed to be involved much more right at the beginning and dealing with files then and considering whether applications should be rejected.  What’s happened is over the years is there’s been a change in approach with how the staff deal with applications, a number of years ago we would have very experienced staff and they would be vetting these applications and rejecting them if they didn’t met the standards but now that doesn’t happen and the focus has shifted and I think it needs to return back to that, it might be with the introduction of Family Court Associates that might happen I would be interested in working with them and Court Staff to achieve that. 

Can you tell us more about Family Court Associates? 

Sorry? 

Can you tell us more about the Family Court Associates? 

So the Government has provided funding for the appointment of Family Court Associates and the Legislation is being drafted at the moment for the role of Family Court Associates.  We’re not quite sure what the Government is going to agree on and what calibre of person that will be.  Ideally from a Judicial perspective it will be really good to have experienced lawyers who are doing that. I think in other quarters they are suggesting that experienced Case Officers in the Ministry could deal with that but I think we need someone who has powers to actually do things, would make a difference so that’s still in the early stages but hopefully by the end of the year we will know better about that. 

And so do you have any thoughts about how we, what tools might help or how we should try and meet that challenging behaviour from litigants? Obviously Family Court Associates is one hopeful.

Yeah, it’s hard, I think the key to it is the Judge really because it’s the Judge who controls the Court and that’s where I think it becomes important in having as we did in Auckland have Dockets - what we call Dockets - so in the Auckland Office there were two Judges in each Docket who have a number of files that they control so it’s either one of those two Judges and the idea of that is to have one set of Judicial hands rather than having a different Judge each time, we were finding that you could have  6 or 7 Judges dealing with one file and it can easily get out of control practically when you are dealing with difficult litigants or one party is very keen on dragging things out and we do that particularly in the area of Relationship Property because that’s often neglected.  We try and do it for Family Violence cases but frankly there are so many it’s very difficult to manage in that way.

A related issue is wars of attrition and you have touched on that, which is another form of abuse a sort of well I guess it is an economic abuse, where the economically more powerful person is able to draw out proceedings and win the war by wearing the other down or running out their energy or emotions.  Do you think that lawyers carry some of the blame for that and might a way of solving it be by going after the lawyers?   

Well we like to finds a scape goat sometimes, the reality is that lawyers are like anyone else - we’ve got some really good lawyers and some not so good lawyers, and the purpose of having a lawyer is to have them act for you and provide legal advice and sometimes that advice is needing to drag cases out and that’s where the Judge becomes important so that the Judge can see what’s happening and take steps to remedy that or deal with it.  And that’s why I think it’s important that you have Judges allocated to files which is what happens in Australia.  The lawyers are also required to promote reconciliation under the Act or conciliation at the very least and so they have  a duty to work with people, but you know we find from a Judicial perspective we find that there’s a whole range of different experience and expertise of lawyers.  So even very experienced lawyers can do things to slow the system down and they will do it for particular reason that is related to the client so it’s not just the lawyer who might be doing that it will be because they are led by the client to do that. 

Of course.

What sort of pressure can you bring to bear on the lawyer or how can we shift the onus on the lawyer to also start cleaning up some of these applications? 

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I think as a Judge one of the things that you can do is to set standards for lawyers and how the Court operates and for Judges to make that clear for the lawyers, sometimes we are dealing with lawyers who have difficult personalities so you know, lawyers, like the community, some are on the spectrum and you have to take that into account when dealing with them as well so again I think it’s important for the Judge to control that kind of environment and allow a scope for being heard but also making it clear about what the parameters are and what your expectations are. 

Do you have the power to do things like award costs not just against the party who you might decide has vexatiously litigated a point that didn’t need to be raised but maybe against the lawyer personally? 

You can do that but in very limited circumstances but what I find is affective is if you make an Order for Cost against the client they very quickly get their lawyer into line because they don’t want to pay costs. 

And when I say we in terms of the Legal process we should be spending more time educating lawyers about what you can put in affidavits because I find those first affidavits are often full of things that aren’t relevant.  And all they tend to do is make matters worse. In Auckland we have a lot of applications that are made to strike out parts of affidavits. That is an expensive process and it can be time consuming as well and that’s why I think we need to spend more time with education with lawyers saying what is acceptable and what isn’t.

And what are you looking to see in an affidavit - or not see? 

Yes, that’s right.

Is that something the Family Court Associates can help with or is that totally unrelated? 

Yeah I think it’s to do with education in conjunction with the law Society I think in the Old days, I’m speaking like an old man now but in the old days when you were admitted as a lawyer and joined a law firm your law firm would take you over to meet the Judges. Now I know that’s impractical but I think something like that should be done where Judges spend time talking to new lawyers and stressing the importance of contents of affidavits and what’s acceptable and what isn’t and that’s why I think it’s helpful for lawyers to have a criminal experience first because they very soon learn about what the rules of evidence are and that’s an area that is a bit of a hobby horse of mine. 

While you’re on the hobby horse what would be your 3 top things that you would like to get across in terms of educating people about affidavits. I guess you are starting with don’t make legal arguments in affidavits?

Yes, I think the first step is to look at what it is that you are applying for and what you need to support that and often people forget what it is that they are applying for and that’s how they include a whole lot of information that is irrelevant.  I think it’s helpful to have a framework for an affidavit for example when preparing a Without Notice Application for a Protection Order it’s really important to work on what the key elements are that a Judge needs to have in mind when they grant the Application and its very simple: we want to know whether they are in a domestic relationship that’s a qualifying relationship and we want to know whether there has been violence and what their concern about that is, you know that they are scared there is going to be further violence or whatever that might be, its actually very simple but you would be surprised how often we receive affidavits that don’t have the key elements in it. 

So it’s telling the lawyer to go back and read the law 

Yeah it is.

and then make sure they satisfy the limbs.

You know as Taina said before about my IT abilities I actually have hundreds of templates that I use day to day for work that I do and what they are designed to do is to remind me of what the key elements are of what I am dealing with and that helps me focus on that and it also helps me focus the lawyers then on that because they might make submissions that are entirely irrelevant to the application itself so I’m constantly bringing them back and say les focus on this. 

As a lawyer you were a member of a profession with a bit of a mythology of heroes succeeding against the odds. We don’t like to bash out profession do we but sometimes we feel a bit like heroes, Do judges feel the same thing? And when Judges go out on a limb with decision-making you have got the additional fear I guess if your decision being overturned on appeal – do you worry about that or do you still see your role as to be creative in order to achieve a just result?

Um I think, well there was a few questions in there 

Yeah, some input from dad in that one

Ok, my Hero was Lord Denning when I was a student you know  you learnt that he decided what he was going to do and then he worked back from there 

The Justice Judge 

Yeah that’s right exactly and in terms of the rest of your question I guess I worried when I was first made a Judge but I don’t know I guess I worried when I was first made a Judge about what was going to happen higher up but the reality is that you have so many of your decisions appealed that you can’t spend your time worrying about that and you just hope that the higher Courts get it right, sometimes you agree with them and sometimes you don’t - mostly you do agree with them - occasionally you will think yes they made a good point there I stuffed up in that regard, but it’s very satisfying I’ve had a few decisions go to the Supreme Court that have upheld or restored my decision and that’s very satisfying as well particularly if the Courts in between mess with my decision.

 Which sometimes does happen, I’m on record for saying “why does the High Court have to be so mean?” because they always seem like the mean ones, I know that is a very simplistic view of things, they seem like the bad guy at the end of the day, don’t they? 

Yeah they can be, depending which side you are on I think.

So we are never intending to have a High Court Judge on the podcast. 

Or hope they don’t listen to the podcast. 

Well go straight to the Supreme Court. 

So you were Counsel for Child when you were a lawyer and that’s a special kind of lawyer.  Not just everybody gets to be Counsel for Child or should be, in some decisions they have had a reasonably rough time and you start to wonder whether you would want to be a Council for child?  Do you think we could and should be making that job better and if so what should we be doing? 

I’m not sure how you could make it better, I think we have a really good system that is not shared around the world and we are the envy of the world really for having Counsel for Child but increasingly I notice that it’s not necessarily a safe role to play. We recently had a lawyer that was assaulted very badly, so badly in fact that he has put a hold on his legal career, and I know that other lawyers have had really terrible experiences for whatever reason.  That comes with the territory in a sense  but they tend to be the extreme in most cases you are dealing with people who really care about their families and want a good outcome. 

It’s interesting when I first started law I focused only on the law and then I went through a period in my legal career where I was concentrating more on people and then I came back to the law and I think what happens in the Counsel for Child role is that it’s really important not only to know the law and the bounds of that but you are dealing with people so you need to be good at relationships and making people feel that they are being heard making them feel that they are understood.  And so that’s a crucial role in being able to negotiate settlements or agreements that parents reach and keeping them focused on their child. 

Ok, I think we may have covered this anyway but; 

What is one thing you would change about the Family Court if you were given a chance to do that?   

I would pay the Court staff a lot more money, they are the lowest paid Government department in the Country. And I noticed recently that there was a new Government department that was introduced and the Ministry of Justice still came last in the remuneration so we have very dedicated staff who really believe in the work that they do but it means that we are not attracting some of the managers that we need in terms of experience, expertise and quality and I think we can do a lot better in that regard and that is one of the reason why we have such a high turnover staff and that’s not good for the system so that would be one thing that I would change, improving the working conditions for staff.

Ok, we will get working on that! 

Why do you think that is? Why are they lowest paid? 

Well its always been low on the priority list, we even get a lot of staff going to other Government departments because they get paid more for example a lot go to ACC they have a lower case load and they get paid way more. 

And they are such a crucial part of like you were saying the triaging process, managing files, keeping lawyers in line, I’ve had emails keeping me in line.

Yeah and it doesn’t seem like that’s an easy job that you would be trying to meet a lot of needs I guess and people putting pressure on you a lot. 

Yes and that’s a good point because I noticed with emails for example once emails were used the Court staff were just bombarded with emails, you wouldn’t believe the numbers of emails that come in from all directions and they get copied into things they don’t need to and they receive voice messages on their phone that are not good on a Monday morning, they will be during the weekend, late at night ….

So other than lobbying for higher pay how can lawyers show the love to Court staff, what should we be doing? 

Having your papers in order. 

Writing a good affidavit. 

You know for example filing documents on time makes the job a lot easier for Court Staff because they are always scrambling at the last moment to collect everything that is filed late so that’s an area that would certainly make it a lot easier. 

What can lawyers do to get the best out of their judge on the day?

Be respectful, be focused, be organised and prepared. Know what you are wanting and understand what the element legal elements are to achieve that and if you are coming to Court because you want a hearing you need to be talking to the Judge about how that can be achieved.  Timetabling Orders for filing affidavits that sort of thing.  We get a lot of unrepresented parties now a days and I think it would  be really good for unrepresented parties to get legal advice from time to time, especially at the beginning.  We welcome people who are not represented and we do our best to accommodate them but we have to be careful that we are not seen to be favouring them against someone who has a lawyer.  So what I tend to do when Court starts is I actually address both the parties directly even if they have got lawyers so they understand what’s going to happen and what the expectations are. The same applies for unrepresented people, if it’s a 15 minute conference you don’t have much time to have your say so if you have prepared something in advance which you have filed then all well and good. 

It sounds like preparation is the key, the Girl Guide Moto be Prepared. 

Yes it is. 

Some people rely on film ( I mean, not us) and television experience to work out what it will be like to attend the family court as a party.  Can you give a potted version of what to expect for someone who might have to attend the family court?

There are some videos actually on the Ministry of Justice Website with mock Courts but what you can expect is I guess it depends a little bit on if you have a lawyer, but what you can expect is you will be seated at a table if you don’t have a lawyer and you will be invited when it’s appropriate to say what you want. You should stand when you are speaking to the Judge and the reason why you do that is it means that you have the floor and no one can interrupt you while you are having your say.

And what do they call you when they address you in the Court? 

They should call you Sir or Ma’am and most Judges will begin whatever the Court event it is by explaining what is happening and making sure that everybody gets a turn to speak so it is important when other people are speaking that you don’t interrupt them because it can look as though you are being disrespectful.  If you are not sure about the process just ask the Judge and if the Judge has forgotten to say something about when it is that you are going to talk you are very welcome to ask the Judge politely when you will get a chance to speak or whether you will be getting a chance, sometimes that’s a polite way of reminding the Judge not to forget you. 

Ok our last section is our  Quick fire question time where we have 10 questions with 10 seconds each to answer them - take some of the pressure off the considered answer - so here we go you are allowed to longer than 10 seconds, sometimes we take longer than 10 seconds with the question. 

1.       What on screen lawyer would you be given the chance?

On screen lawyer… I don’t watch lawyer’s programmes, there was that Australian lawyer who was the criminal lawyer I can’t remember the name of the series, really irreverent, naughty criminal lawyer. 

Yeah I think I remember that one 

Not the one in the castle obviously? 

No, did he have a drinking problem? 

Yes he had a drinking problem, I loved that one. 

Rake – Apparently he’s called Rake. 

Thank you. 

That’s my favourite. 

2.       What famous case would you travel back in time to rehear?

Famous case, 

Like a famous case, maybe one of Lord Denning’s? 

No, I think it would probably be the abortion case in the States in Supreme Court. 

Ah Roe v Wade, wow OK that’s the subject of a whole another podcast.

3.       What court case are you glad you didn’t have to decide? And it could be the same answer I guess

Probably the Arthur Allan Thomas case. 

4.       Do judges ever get impostor syndrome? Bearing in mind that we are woman and lawyers. 

Speak hypothetically, present company excepted have you heard that Judges ever get imposter syndrome? 

Yes I hear it from time to time from interestingly from female Judges you never hear it from male Judges and that probably says something about how men tend to be full of ourselves. 

And if you can do 50% of it you can do it where woman usually feels like they have to know 100%.

5.       What is your favourite part of your job?

Favourite part of my job is dealing with adoptions and change of gender on Birth Certificates.

6.       What is the worst part?

The worst part is the inefficiencies in systems, I’m a very system orientated person and I like things to be orderly and that’s quite a challenge in this role when you don’t have control in this working environment.

7.       What are you looking forward to about living in Tauranga?

Being closer to my grandchildren and I should probably say my own children as well, although not all of them are in the Tauranga area, but being close to family is very important. 

Hopefully the traffic is better 

8.       I often tell my clients to imagine they have a Family Court Judge sitting on their shoulder in their interactions with their partner... what advice would you give parties if you were sitting on their shoulder?

To listen, to remember that there is another point of view, one of the things that I learnt from my mother she used to drill in us as kids is always put yourself in the other person’s shoes and that’s always a good thing. I think about that very often in the work that I do, understanding why it is that people behave in a particular way in the Court for example or at home or with their partner.

I love that.

It’s the root of empathy isn’t it?

9.       What is one myth about the Courts that you would like to dispel?

That we have a hammer and we bang it. 

That’s a really important one.

Ah that drives me nuts. 

So no gavels. 

No gavel because its only in America and It upsets me when I see on Stuff and the New Zealand Herald when they have  a Justice article and they have a gavel, I’ve written to them both about it but they don’t care. 

How surprising. 

10.   Do judges ever get a thank you, or a sorry?

A thank you … we usually get a thank you after an adoption case maybe that’s why I like doing them but it’s not very often we get a thank you, we are more likely to get criticism than a thank you.

Interesting. 

Well it’s interesting because when you are a lawyer you talk about the Judge all the time but when you are  a Judge that chatter stops you see, so, Judges amongst themselves will talk about lawyers and what happens with them and what they are doing and which ones irritate them otherwise we don’t get feedback at all from the community that we are actually serving. 

We had my going away in Auckland and a lot of nice things were said but I thought it was interesting they left it until I was going. 

Maybe we should start Google reviews for Judges.

Well there was a paper that did that the business paper, what did they call it I can’t remember, but they approached a number of QCs as they were called at that time and they got anonymous information about the High Court Judges and it was very frank and very spot on, but not appreciated. 

I bet

11.   What is one change you would immediately make to the Family Court area if you could?

Haven’t we covered that already?

              This is a 10 second one 

              Pretty sure we covered it 

              We had a previous answer that was abolish it so you never know what you are going to get 

              Yeah I would, the thing I would do is focus on counselling at the beginning 

              Bring back 6 hours counselling 

Yeah we need better counselling and more of it because it has been side lined in the process  that we now do and that was cost savings at the time, you know I’ve been a Judge for 17 years and there have been a lot of political parties during that time so  you see how things change during that time so it depends on what is going on at that time.  

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Then they bring it back in and then they take it back out and then they bring it in. 

That’s right 

12.   Ok, you may have covered this with your mother’s advice but what is the best advice you have ever been given? Maybe apart from putting yourself in somebody else’s shoes which I think is excellent advice. 

One of the really good pieces of advice as a Judge is to let thing go and I think thought that was a really good advice because sometime you will sit on what you have done and wonder to yourself whether you have done the right thing and you can mull over that as it’s good to be reflective but at a point at some point you have to let it go and usually that’s on my bike ride home at the end of the day. 

Our last section is called: The Best Question Ever:

And for you Judge Lex de Jong, that question is:

What do you want to be remembered for?

I think, wow it’s not easy talking about yourself, I guess I would like to be remembered for being kind, compassionate and willing to let everybody be heard but also being firm as well. 

Awesome, I think you are well on the way to that one. 

So thank you so much Judge de Jong for your insights.  It’s been a really interesting session. This has been Divorce Café. If you have enjoyed this episode we would love to hear from you and for you to subscribe so that you get every podcast that comes out.  If you have a burning question you can email us divorecafe@hendersonreeves.co.nz. 

Thank you so much Judge de Jong and best of luck in your new posting

Thank you very much for inviting me, I have enjoyed that – will you going to be playing another one bites the dust as we leave? 

We can edit it in later. 

Yes we can definitely get that one in there if you would like to do a little Karaoke version as we go through the end credits Donny is a muso from way back so we can definitely get that in there. 

Thank you so much Judge de Jong and everyone else we hope to see you next time.