Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and first investor to Facebook, has become famously associated with one question, which he uses in interviews and over long dinners. Whenever he interviews someone, Thiel likes to ask, “What important truth do very few people agree with you on?”
This question sounds easy because it’s straightforward. Yet it’s very hard to answer and emotionally difficult, because anyone trying to answer must say something about themselves or something they know to be unpopular.
Now change it up and ask, “What important truth do very few judges agree with you on?” Think about that question for a couple of minutes. Answer it yourself. You'll find the question is asking for a variety of things: information that might be perceived as negative by some or personal value systems for your judgement.
What does this contrarian question have to do with the future of our judges and our courts? We all hope for progress when we think about our future courts. We all want to leave things better for the judges who follow us and the citizens we serve. How do we achieve that? For Thiel, any progress takes place in two ways.
Horizontal progress means copying things that work. Horizontal progress is easy to imagine because we already know what it looks like. It’s a safe change to known processes or products or policies. Vertical or intensive progress means doing new things. Vertical progress is harder to imagine because it requires doing something nobody else has ever done. It takes courage. It takes hard work. It takes creativity. If you take one typewriter and build 100, you have made horizontal progress. If you have a typewriter and build a word processor, you have made vertical progress.
My own answer to the contrarian question is in two parts. Spreading old ways of administering justice driven only by the executive demand for file velocity is unsustainable. File velocity is a dull horizontal replication of running courts under relentless pressure where the levels of psychological distress will remain significantly higher. If we want resilient, healthy, compassionate judges and courts, where everyone, regardless of means, abilities, culture, or race, gets heard and achieves justice, then we need to work less and slow down. We need to mandate counselling for judges. We must also resist any attempt to contract out judicial function to executive employees. This last worrying trend will sorely challenge judicial independence.
Secondly, judge-led initiatives most often typify vertical progress in our systems of justice. They are too humble to take a bow, but the work of Noel Cocurullo in court technology, Forrie Miller in judicial self-governance, Jane McMeeken in the Christchurch youth drug court, and John Bergseng on case-flow management are good examples of where creativity and grit are making a difference to us and the people we serve. And there are so many other examples, especially Te Ao Marama creating a court environment that looks and feels unmistakably like Aotearoa New Zealand. Let's ask Thiel’s question again at Wairakei during our September gathering. Register early, it’s a great opportunity to talk about these things that must endure and matter with friends both old and new.
Gerard Winter
JANZ President