The First Circuit’sFirst Wom a n Late one night, when the Sandra L. Lynch was right. tourists had returned to their hotels Congress was appalled. Lynch’s and the streets of Isla Verde, Puerto dissent caught the attention of a For the Rico, were all but deserted, a young congressional staffer, also a woman, woman stepped out of her car, and a who persuaded a legislator to author Honorable man’s voice immediately ordered her a bill making it clear that the term Sandra Lynch, back in. The man, holding a knife, “serious bodily injury” includes the most forced her to drive to a deserted rape. important beach, where he brandished a gun “Apparently the bill flew through and raped her. Sometime later, when both houses in two weeks,” says decision is the police found the woman running Lynch (LAW’71). “I thought it was about the case along the road frantically waving her lucky that there was a woman staffer that isn’t in arms, she was so traumatized she in Congress who saw the issue the front of you could not speak. way I did and had the willpower to The weapon-wielding assailant bring it up.” By Art Jahnke was convicted of carjacking, and ten At the time, in June of 1996, years were added to his sentence Sandra Lynch was the only woman because the crime involved serious serving on the First Circuit Court bodily injury. But when the case was of Appeals and the only woman who appealed, the ten-year premium was had ever had served on it. Lynch dropped. A three-judge panel of the had arrived on the bench thirteen First Circuit Court of Appeals found months earlier, chosen by President that under statutory definition, rape Bill Clinton to fill the seat vacated was not a serious bodily injury. by newly appointed Supreme Court A petition for a rehearing was Justice Stephen Breyer (Hon.’95). filed with the full six-judge Court of For Lynch, the appointment was Appeals, and one of its members, a another in a string of career firsts. woman relatively new to the court, She had been the first woman to read the panel’s opinion and wrote clerk for a federal judge in Rhode the following: “The victim was taken Island and the first woman to head to a remote beach by a man with the litigation department at the weapons, forced to strip, and then Boston law firm Foley, Hoag & Eliot. raped. To say that this testimony And now there is another first. Last provides ‘no record of support’ for a June, she became the first woman finding that the attack on the victim to serve as chief judge of the First involved extreme physical pain Circuit Court. ignores the reality of what she went Michael Keating, a friend and through.” former colleague at Foley Hoag, as “Congress,” she went on to write, the firm is now called, recalls the dissenting from the court’s denial of scene at Lynch’s induction into the the rehearing, “would be appalled at federal judiciary: “When you looked this outcome.” at the lineup of new judges, it looked As it turned out, the Honorable like the first tee of a golf club. There 32 BOSTONIA Winter 2008–2009 PHOTOGRAPh by melODy kO First Wom a n Sandra Lynch is known as a pragmatic, no-nonsense jurist who wears her role- model status lightly. Winter 2008–2009 BOSTONIA 33 Decisions, Decisions /// Law professors rate Supreme Court worthies for a whole industry or a whole In 2004, two law professors, one at ions were cited by courts in other circuits segment of society. The hardest Berkeley and one at Georgetown, con- (using a judge’s top twenty citation- part is thinking through the ducted an academic exercise that used receiving opinions). In that category, ramifications of whatever objective criteria to identify the most Lynch was the highest-ranking judge. articulation of law you come up qualified candidates for a seat on the Su- On the tournament’s “Quality and Re- with, for the next case, the case preme Court. Their study, titled “Choos- spect” measure, which tallied “total that isn’t in front of you. You ing the Next Supreme Court Justice: outside citations,” Lynch had the third are worried all the time about An Empirical Ranking of Judge Perfor- highest score. whether you have articulated mance” and published in the Southern Finally, when the authors excluded a rule that makes sense, that California Law Review, placed circuit two judges who overwhelmingly domi- will work in the future, and that court judges “in a tournament based on nated a contest of “measures for judges you haven’t set up a rule that is relative objective measures of judicial under sixty-five with various weightings going to cause injustice or cause merit and productivity.” (quality, productivity, independence),” irrational results.” The two legal scholars created a the number-one scoring judge — among Lynch typically hears about series of “measures of merit” focusing a more diverse field of winners — was 180 cases a year and writes on productivity, opinion quality, and ju- Lynch, who, incidentally, was appointed summary dispositions on dicial independence and applied data on to the First Circuit Court when Stephen hundreds more. Her caseload opinions written by active federal circuit Breyer (Hon.’95) moved up to the high ranges from ordinary civil cases, court judges from the beginning of 1998 court. such as contract or employment to the end of 2000. Do those numbers mean that Lynch discrimination, to terrorism Among the ninety-eight federal has a shot at a seat on the highest court? cases to death penalty litigation. circuit court judges studied, the Hon- Most prognosticators place several The court receives appeals orable Sandra Lynch (LAW’71) scored candidates in line before her, but some from federal courts and federal at or near the top on several important of Lynch’s friends hold out enough hope administrative agencies, as well measurements. that they refuse to talk about the pos- as habeas corpus petitions from To determine opinion quality, the au- sibility, for fear of jinxing any chance state and federal prisoners, and thors looked at how often a judge’s opin- she may have. also some original proceedings. “The hardest cases have been figuring out not only what Congress meant,” says Lynch, were all these old white guys. brain tumor patients who died “but also thinking through the And there was Sandy.” after receiving experimental ramifications. If I answer the In her new role, Lynch heads treatment decades ago. question one way, it will have a court that handles appeals (In that case, Lynch found these ramifications; if I answer in civil and criminal cases that testimony against the it the other way, it will have from federal district courts hospital was based on research these ramifications. And very in Maine, New Hampshire, published after the patient often, Congress uses ambiguous Massachusetts, Rhode Island, experiments were completed.) language because it’s the only and Puerto Rico. She is also They have denied requests way it can compromise and responsible for the dispensation for a new trial by plaintiffs get a bill through. And then it of misconduct complaints who claimed that a Cape Cod falls to the courts to work out against seventy-five federal wind farm was built without exactly what Congress meant. judges a task, says former proper oversight by the state. You really have to enjoy solving chief judge Michael Boudin, (In that case, the court found problems.” that can involve “painful issues that the state had no authority “Judge Lynch is first and and painful relationships.” over federal waters, which foremost pragmatic,” says Lawyers who appear in begin three miles from shore.) Amanda Teo, who clerked Lynch’s court describe her And they have ruled that a for Lynch as a Harvard Law as no-nonsense, a jurist who Lexington, Massachusetts, student three years ago. “She is knows her facts cold, whose parent cannot sue the town interested in what makes good opinions are not colored by because the high school law and what would resolve the ideology. Her decisions have newspaper refused to print an dispute for the parties. That overturned a jury verdict ad for sexual abstinence. allows her to get to the core ordering Massachusetts “My job isn’t boring,” says of a case and actually do good General Hospital and one Lynch. “It presents very hard law, which is something that of its brain surgeons to pay problems. We may have a is an accidental by-product in $8 million to the families of problem that has implications many courtrooms. And she is, of 34 BOSTONIA Winter 2008–2009 course, a great role model.” In 1978, Lynch joined Foley audience, “we had a contracts Lynch’s take on her status Hoag, a firm known for its professor who used the Socratic as a role model is nothing if absence of an old boy network. method. Normally, in any given not judicious. “My generation She was soon leading the firm’s hour, a professor will call on of women is used to being the litigation practice. half a dozen students. This male first,” she says matter-of-factly. “Sandy is the person you professor called on a female “Sometimes we are the only want in the foxhole with you,” student for the entire hour, women in a particular position says Keating, who worked with not just the first day. He called of responsibility. So what you Lynch on the defense team for on her every day for the entire find in the first woman role is chemical company W.