Robin Richardson with the Marshall News Messenger did a nice job covering Judge Roy Payne's investiture Friday - here's a link to that article. It provides some useful background on Judge Payne's 17 years of prior service as a magistrate judge before leaving the bench for seven years for private practice - and now coming back on board in the Eastern District of Texas.
"Practicing these last seven years has made me more in tune of both the importance and the difficulties of what lawyers do in representing and defending the interests of their clients in our courtrooms,” she quotes Judge Payne as saying. “Those seven years of talking to clients has also made me understand better that justice delayed is justice denied." Judge Payne said that the Eastern District of Texas has a very proud reputation of trying to minimize that delay, and that he looks forward to doing that.
Judge Gilstrap shared how Payne fits the bill of Lord Lyndhurst’s description of what makes a good judge.
Lord Lyndhurst said first, you must be honest, second he must possess a reasonable amount of industry, third he must have courage, fourth he must be a gentleman and then if he has some knowledge of the law that will help. I can tell you in the short time that we have been colleagues together, Roy Payne is all of those things except he has a tremendous knowledge of the law. I’m excited about our future together.
