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SCREEN TIME continued from page 19
OF COUNSEL continued from page 28
9. Rory Cosgrove, Effect of Digital Read- ing and Writing Appellate Briefs (Feb. 16, 2 0 1 8 ) ( a v a i l a b l e a t h t t p s : // w w w . c a r n e y - law.com/effect-of-digital-technology-on- reading-and-writing-appellate-briefs/) (citing Mary Beth Beazley, Writing (and Reading) Appellate Briefs in the Digital Age, 15 J. APP. PRAC. & PROCESS 47, 49 (Spring 2014)).
10. See Mary Beth Beazley, Writing (and Reading) Appellate Briefs in the Digital Age, 15 J. APP. PRAC. & PROCESS 47 (Spring 2014).
11. See id.
12. E.g., Anne Enquist, Multitasking and Legal Writing, 18 NO. 1 PERSP: TEACH- ING LEGAL RES. & WRITING 7 (Fall 2009); Lauren A. Newell, Redefining Attention (and Revamping the Legal Profession?) for the Digital Generation, 15 NEV. L.J. 754 (2015); Patrick Meyer, The Google Effect, Multitasking, and Lost Linearity: What We Should Do, 42 OHIO N. U. L. REV. 705 (2016).
13. Jill Barshay, Evidence increases for read- ing on paper instead of screens (Aug. 20, 2019) (available at https://hechingerre- port.org/evidence-increases-for-reading- on-paper-instead-of-screens/).
14. Id.
15. Jakob Nielsen, F-Shaped Pattern For
Reading Web Content (Apr. 16, 2006).
16. In addition to the articles cited in these notes, see, for example, Charles T. Frazier, Changing Habits, New Principles: Legal Writing in the Electronic Age — Part 2, 59 No. 12 DRI FOR DEF. 96 (Dec. 2017); Ellie Margolis, Is the Medium the Message? Un- leashing the Power of E-Communication in the Twenty-First Century, 12 LEGAL COM- MUN. & RHETORIC J. 1 (Fall 2015); Amanda Watson, Don’t Burn the Books, Read Them!, 46 INT’L J. LEGAL INFO. 79 (Summer 2018).
17. Mary Beth Beazley, Writing (and Read- ing) Appellate Briefs in the Digital Age, 15 J. APP. PRAC. & PROCESS 47, 49 (Spring 2014).
18. These serif typefaces make long passag- es easier to read and understand. Cosgrove, supra, n.9.
19. Id.
20. Adobe’s instructions on how to create bookmarks are available at: https://helpx. adobe.com/acrobat/using/page-thumb- nails-bookmarks-pdfs.html.
on it doesn’t work,” she says. “For me, it’s nice to be able to ask questions to show them that this person who is trying to assist in resolving the case actually put in the time to prepare and knows what is contained in your submission and what is contained in the exhibits to your submission.”
She will reserve as much as 45 minutes to hear from a party. “When you’re talking about non-IP cases — a job discrimination case, say — that person needs to vent about whatever wrong that plaintiff feels his present or former employer did,” she says. As a result, she hears much that counsel cannot express in a 15-page mediation statement, and is better able to suggest how a settle- ment may be fashioned.
The pandemic has impaired mediation. “Eye contact is important. It’s not just what’s coming out of their mouths. You want to get to know them, and build that trust. That’s difficult to do by telephone, and not much better by computer. You’re looking at little boxes.”
For 15 years, until Leonard Stark joined the ranks in 2007 on his way to appointment as a district judge in 2010, she was the only magistrate judge in the Delaware District. Now, in a court that had 1,400 patent filings in a recent 12-month period, she is Chief Magistrate Judge, with three colleagues — Christopher Burke, Sherry Fallon and Jennifer Hall — who share the load, including rotating week-long readiness for criminal emergencies.
“Over the years, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten a call on Sun- day. ‘Judge, we have this emergency search warrant that we need.’ They’ll send me the materials, I’ll have the AUSA on the phone, or sometimes they’ll come to my home,” Thynge says. “The meat and potatoes of any search warrant is contained in the area of probable cause. I can think of five that I’ve denied because there wasn’t enough information to support probable cause — and I would tell them.”
She tries to find room for three externs each year, from Delaware and Vil- lanova, instilling the circumspection she learned early: “What I want them to learn is how to analyze a case, to write clearly, concisely, and to eliminate garbage. I’ve said to them repeatedly, ‘Less is more.’ You render a decision on what counsel has put in front of you.
“You have to assume that counsel might misrepresent. You have to look at the docket, and the exhibits. You can’t just rely on what’s in their briefs. Be- cause they’re going to do the spin. That’s their job. At the same time, I want the experience to be pleasant.”
The daughter of a DuPont chemical engineer and a dietician, Thynge is a six- year cancer survivor. Her attending physician was Greg Pahnke, her classmate in the then-largest, and perhaps most talented, high school class ever in Delaware, at Brandywine in 1969. She has also battled scleroderma to a draw since 1997.
A young lawyer who considers a path to the bench should take no shortcuts, Thynge says. “You have to understand what is acceptable to the judge, and what isn’t, and make sure that you respond and meet that judge’s expectations appropriately. If you don’t, your chances of even thinking about becoming a judge are nonexistent. What you need to do initially as a young attorney is to get into your work, to get your own work, to develop a work ethic that works for you but maintain respect for, at least, the institution of the court, and make sure that you show it.
“The rest of it comes somewhat naturally. At least it did for me.”
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