Justice Consuelo Marie Callahan, Circuit Judge, United States Courts of Appeal [70:45-75:45]

little bit in the sense of you know I always like the surprises in life from the standpoint that nothing really is for sure and I always tell people sometimes they say well I'm not going to get this why should I put in for it and I say well you know well the one thing you know for sure you're not going to get it if you don't get that application and they're not going to if you sit at home and watch TV in your jammies no one's going to come and knock at your door and say hey do you want this and so if you want it then you need to go for it and I've been an unlikely appointment more than once in my life and a surprise to others and they sort of think well how did you know how did that happen not that they thought that I wasn't qualified but I was the dark horse as you would say so I think that I like to tell that to people because I think for other people don't you know don't always look at a situation and say well I'm not the pick I'm not the anointed one I'm not the sure shot if this is something that you want the first step is you've got to put the application in and then work for it and let you know don't don't self-determine that you're not going to get something you want that's a that's terrific advice I mean countless times I've heard people not put in because they didn't think that they were the favorite it was promised for someone else how long are you on the court of appeal I was in heaven for six and a half years I call the my years on the state court of appeal as that you know the years I died and went to heaven I loved my I loved my time on the third district court of appeal it is a wonderful court and when I was there well as you know now there are two women and you that's the only time they've ever had two women it was always been one at a time they got one whether they you know whether they needed her or not and and so I was one with at a time that there were ten I guess and maybe did they go are you at eleven now yes yeah and I think that so at one point I was one woman with ten men and so I kind of had my posse as a as opposed to otherwise but they were I I just have to say it's such a wonderful court the collegiality on that court first under Justice Pullia as the presiding judge and then under Justice Scotland the leadership of those men I learned so much and I have to honestly say that those people were my mentors in so many ways and I learned so much about leadership from the men on that court and how to to work with others and how how to pull your weight but also how to contribute and that court they took me under their wing in so many ways and I think I came out of there definitely a better judge but also a much better leader and I think that the opportunities that I've had since I feel very indebted to the men on that court for making me step up to the plate and take on challenges and be better than I had been when you first started there what was one or several of your greatest challenges well I think I that we've talked about this but and interestingly I guess in sometimes your it's sometimes it's good the things you don't know about what you don't know because looking back I knew so little in the sense I was a very experienced trial lawyer I was a very experienced trial judge I had never done a pellet work at all and here I am on an appellate court and looking around now that I've been on appellate courts that I've realized that most a lot of people that come on to appellate courts either were appellate practitioners at some point in their career had done some appellate work I had not done any not written a brief still haven't written a brief because I've never gone back to the I've never been an appellate lawyer so that was my you know that was my biggest challenge learning about what appellate lawyers do which is very different from what trial lawyers do my advantage obviously was having been in the trenches so much in terms of evaluating evaluating the weight of trial error whether it's prejudicial whether it's harmless I had a lot of context I had a very real understanding of what goes on in trial courts and the challenges that face trial judges and what is harm was there what is prejudicial errors so I guess I had some real advantages and I guess I had my intellect and my work ethic but certainly I didn't have much I had had no experience in appellate work so that was my that was my biggest challenge how did you prepare for a case how did you prepare to draft an opinion how did you prepare to read the numerous briefs how did you prepare for oral argument well I guess from the standpoint I was very