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Hogue to Retire From L.A. Superior Court
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Amy Hogue will retire from the bench at the end of this month after a 20-year career on the bench.
She was appointed on May 22, 2002 by then-Gov. Gray Davis. At the time, she was a senior partner at a firm then known as Pillsbury Winthrop.
It was Lillick McHose & Charles when she joined it 22 years earlier; it became Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro; it’s now Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP.
Hogue was was co-chair of the firm’s Intellectual Property Group and headed its Media Advertising and Content Team.
Represented Media Clients
She defended media and advertising clients in right of publicity cases filed by actor Tom Cruise, astronaut Neil Armstrong, television personality Vanna White and basketball star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. The lawyer also defended against defamation actions filed by then-actor Arnold Schwarzenegger and by a former flight attendant who sued the weekly Globe saying that it paid her to seduce sportscaster Frank Gifford and wired her hotel room without her knowledge.
Her 1974 undergraduate degree is from Duke University. She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and graduated summa cum laude.
The following year, Hogue attended Cambridge University in England as a Fullbright Scholar, attaining a master’s degree in philosophy. In 1975, she was a graduate fellow at Harvard University Kennedy School of Government.
Returning to Duke, Hogue was on the editorial board of the law review. She received her J.D. in 1979.
Buckley Comments
Retired Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Daniel Buckley, a former presidsing judge, commented yesterday:
“I have been extremely lucky to know Judge Hogue since we attended New Judge Orientation together almost 20 years ago. From the moment I met her, I was so impressed with her intelligence, presence, and class. Those, and other qualities, have allowed her to be a superb judge. I have heard from many attorneys that they love being in Judge Hogue’s courtroom. She is patient, insightful and efficient. And she has the rare knack of being kind to attorneys and litigants while moving the calendar the way she wants.
“Beyond being a judge’s judge, Judge Hogue is the ideal colleague—a team player who is the best sounding board for those of us who need advice and direction. We who worked side by side with her have countless examples of her making our court a better court. Just a few examples include Judge Hogue being a fantastic teacher of judicial education; she working in the trenches when we opened the Personal Injury Hub courtrooms; her being the ‘go to judge’ for many legal issues and case management strategies.
“I know the complex judges will desperately miss Judge Hogue. Actually, all L.A. judges who served with her will miss Judge Hogue.”
Her reflections appear below.
★★★★
Reflections: Savoring Boxes of Chocolate
By Amy Hogue
(The writer is a judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court, readying to retire from the bench.)
“Momma always said life was like a box of chocolates. We don’t always know what we’re going to get.” (Forrest Gump)
Approaching retirement from the Los Angeles Superior Court, I realize that—with the court as enabler—I have been shamelessly gorging on chocolates over the past 20 years. The feast began when, as a “big firm” partner, I was asked to mediate a couple of copyright cases. Settling them was a magical experience, so much so that I sought out and mediated another 40 cases before it dawned on me there were hundreds of full-time neutrals presiding a few blocks away in the Stanley Mosk Courthouse.
I submitted an application and soon found myself presiding over felony arraignments and misdemeanor trials in the Huntington Park Courthouse. Although this was a world unknown to me and unlike anything I had seen in 23 years of business litigation, it turned out to be a sweet assignment in many ways. It was exhilarating to get to know Huntington Park and the vibrant surrounding communities. It was also gratifying to come away with two very close and lasting friendships. One friend was Soto—the beautiful stray dog I picked up on the Soto onramp to the freeway. The other was Judge Mary Strobel, a recent appointee who landed in the Huntington Park Courthouse a few weeks before I did. Although she never lets me forget she has more seniority than I do, we’ve remained close friends for more than 140 dog years as we moved, almost in tandem, through various criminal assignments, independent calendar civil courts and even the writs and receivers court.
More delectable opportunities came from volunteering to teach judicial education courses on everything from writs of habeas corpus to anti-SLAPP motions. Aside from the pleasure of learning a particular topic in depth, the fun of teaching is the interaction with co-instructors and the mentoring relations with students that result. More opportunities came out of my 15 years’ service as chair of LASC’s Media Committee where I worked to foster relationships and facilitate communication among our Public Information Office staff, fellow judges and representatives of the local media outlets. Even the “bad times”—like the 2013 budget crisis—have spawned rewarding relationships as I teamed up with smart judges and capable court staff to consolidate the personally injury cases into the hub courts and set up the Department One Master Calendar Court. Over the past four years, I’ve relished the camaraderie and intellectual rigor of the justices, judges and attorneys working to craft and revise civil jury instructions for the Judicial Council’s Advisory Committee on Civil Jury Instructions (CACI). And I’ve loved working with my family of ever cheerful, hard-working and resourceful courtroom staff.
Most of all, I’ve been honored to serve alongside Carolyn Kuhl and the other complex judges who have so generously shared their friendship and knowledge on a one-on-one basis and in our weekly lunch meetings. These very supportive and collaborative friendships are the key to the complex judges’ success in actively managing an ever increasing docket of JCCP mass tort cases, class actions and complex commercial cases through the COVID crisis and beyond.
I’m, of course, looking forward to sampling new boxes of chocolates in the post-retirement world. But I will always savor the ones gobbled down in the courthouse.