Rick:

Hello, and welcome to Northwest Philly Neighbors.

I'm Rick Mohr, and my guest is Tiffany Palmer.

She tells inspiring stories from her work in LGBT family law, where simple things like visiting your partner in the hospital or being recognized as your child's parent can be legally impossible.

Hear how she prevented a well-known actress from backing out of motherhood after a surrogate birth?

How she intervened when airport security stopped a gay couple and their baby because no mother was present?

And how along the way she won a state Supreme Court case, allowing people in non-traditional families to have full parental rights.

She's just the kind of person you'd want on your side, full of heart and integrity and on top of the details.

And she's about to start a new chapter as judge in Philadelphia's Court of Common Pleas.

She talks about her eye-opening campaign and the kind of judge she hopes to be.

Stay tuned.

You went straight into law from college.

Was there a moment when you knew you wanted to go into law or did you always know?

Tiffany Palmer:

Well, when I was in college, I studied journalism and I was the editor of my college newspaper.

But there were some experiences I had as a student journalist that made me excited about law.

When the president of our university tried to stop us from publishing certain stories and censorship issues, and we had to call it like the ACLU student hotline.

That started me thinking about the role of law in society.

I also graduated from college at a time when print journalism, the writing on the wall that this is not going to be the future of communications.

I took the LSAT in my senior year of college and did very well on it without having really done a prep course or anything.

I thought, well, maybe it's something I'm naturally inclined to.

I was also very interested in politics and public policy.

And I just happened to find Rutgers, which has a joint JD and MS in public policy and got in.

So I chose the school that was the furthest away from home and got on a plane and went sight unseen all by myself across the country to go to start Rutgers.

Rick:

And pretty early on, you started focusing on LGBT issues.

Tiffany Palmer:

Yes, I did.

I think, you know, for me, going to law school was really about civil rights and social justice issues.

And it was really about the role that the law plays in our systems of government, particular with protection of people's rights.

And that's what had got me excited about the law.

And I'd also just come out as, you know, a young gay person myself and was starting to just face all of the discrimination that, you know, is out there in society and realizing the impact it had on me personally and my friends and wanted to try to find a way to make a difference and try to improve our entire system for everybody and not just myself.

Rick:

Was there a specific time that was particularly noticeable that kind of sent you in that direction?

Tiffany Palmer:

I mean, I think in the early 90s, you didn't really have a lot of LGBT role models in society at all.

You know, it was before Ellen came out, before Melissa Etheridge came out.

I mean, like the very obvious sort of gay icons that we have now were closeted, you know, then.

And there just really wasn't any media representations of any positive LGBT families.

The idea of being a parent seemed impossible.

And, you know, no one was even considering anything like gay marriage.

I mean, that was just so far out of the realm of what people would even think was possible then.

So I think it was just kind of thinking about a life facing kind of all those challenges, trying to envision what it could be like if there was access to justice through laws, through a systemic change in the laws to be more inclusive.

So I really became interested, I became very involved in LGBT activism in college.

And then when I went to law school, really wanted to focus my attention on how can I be part of this movement.

Rick:

Yeah.

Was there somebody at Rutgers that was inspiring in that way, or were you kind of forging your own path?

Tiffany Palmer:

I was really forging my own path.

I mean, I certainly had some professors that were very supportive, but there was only one out lesbian professor in my entire law school.

Rick:

Yeah.

Tiffany Palmer:

I was one of the only people in my entire law school that was willing to be out.

We were told by career services and other well-meaning professors, don't be out on your resume, don't go work for gay organizations, because it will prevent you from ever getting a job in the future, because no one will hire you.

But I didn't follow that advice.

I went to work for Lambda Legal for one of my summer internships, which is the National LGBT Civil Rights Organization in New York City at the National Headquarters.

Rick:

Was that a hard choice, given that advice, or were you pretty clear that you wanted to forge ahead?

Tiffany Palmer:

I was pretty clear that I was going to forge ahead.

I was not daunted by that because I couldn't envision myself in a corporate job where I had to pretend to be someone that I wasn't, and that's not why I went to law school.

So for me, I wasn't motivated by career status and money.

I was more motivated by the social justice movement part of law, which meant that I got no money, which meant I was going to be a public interest lawyer starting my career.

But I was very young and it was a trade-off I really wanted to make, actually.

So for me, it was more important to be part of something bigger, like the LGBT civil rights movement at that time.

Rick:

Which has come so far.

Tiffany Palmer:

It really has.

Yeah, it's been really exciting to be involved over the past 20 years just to see the trajectory of how far things have come.

And to have a part in that has been really exciting.

Rick:

So many of our laws were written before any inkling of artificial reproductive technology or same-sex marriage.

I gather when people now start families in non-traditional ways, they can run into all sorts of challenges.

And you've helped people with many, many of those challenges.

Could you just paint a picture of some of the challenges that people face?

Tiffany Palmer:

What's very complicated about the laws in our country are that every state has their own set of laws.

And all of family law is governed by state law.

So you basically have 50 different versions of the law, which can be really challenging for families when you have some states that define parent one way and other states that define it differently.

Some states have very comprehensive laws around assisted reproduction conceptions, very detailed laws about surrogacy and donors and who is a parent and who's not a parent, and other states have no statutes at all.

And Pennsylvania is one of those states that has no statutes governing assisted reproductive technology conceptions, really, or LGBT families.

We've been able to find ways to protect LGBT families through the laws that we do have, but they certainly weren't written with that in mind.

Rick:

Could you maybe give an example of some people that you worked with and what they were trying to do and how they came up against?

Tiffany Palmer:

One of the things that we do a lot is something called second parent adoption.

If one person is already a parent to a child, second parent adoption is a process that allows the genetic parent's partner to legally adopt that child so that now both people are full, equal legal parents to the child.

And that's something we were able to start doing before marriage equality.

Pennsylvania has allowed those kinds of adoptions since 2002.

I drew a Supreme Court case that I was able to work on when I was at the Center for Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights.

Rick:

What was that case?

Tiffany Palmer:

It was called RBF and RCF.

It was a second parent adoption, like I described, but the lower court had said these aren't permissible in Pennsylvania and had denied the adoption.

Rick:

Why did they say it was not permissible?

Tiffany Palmer:

It was really that the second person couldn't adopt unless the first person terminated their rights.

The only exception to that would have been if they were married, and it was a step-parent type adoption, and because it was a same-sex couple, they couldn't get married.

Rick:

So it was legal for married people, but not for single parents or non-married people.

Tiffany Palmer:

Right, not for unmarried people.

So it ended up going all the way to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to make the final decision on this.

And they decided that second-parent adoption was allowable, that the first person shouldn't have to terminate their parental rights, because that doesn't make any sense.

The whole point is for the kid to have two parents, so we're going to go ahead and allow it, which was great because that kind of opened the door for all of these people to be able to protect themselves now with the second-parent adoption process.

Rick:

As you were helping people get these second-parent adoptions, were you citing that case often to people who didn't think it should be allowed?

Tiffany Palmer:

Yes.

Once the Supreme Court ruled on it, every trial court pretty much had to follow after that.

Rick:

But you may have to point it out to them.

Tiffany Palmer:

Yes.

We often had to point it out, cite to it.

From that point forward, we were probably doing around 50 a year doing these kind of adoptions, and I still do them.

They're very important tools to protect people from future risk that their parental rights will be challenged.

Rick:

Okay, so that's one example.

And you've been involved in surrogacy in a lot of different ways.

Tiffany Palmer:

Yes.

What I do now a lot of is gestational surrogacy.

Where intended parents are seeking to conceive a child, and sometimes they have their own embryos that they've created.

Perhaps they've been using them trying to get pregnant within the couple themselves, and it hasn't worked.

So they need to find someone who can gestate and carry the embryos to term.

So that's where a gestational carrier could help provide essentially the uterus on the equation.

And sometimes it's used by people who have medical conditions or problems where being pregnant would be too dangerous.

And sometimes it's used by, I work with a lot of same sex male couples where they just don't have a uterus in the relationship.

So they need to find someone else who's willing to contribute that part to their family building.

So then you need to have the legal component to determine and make sure that the courts and society knows who the parents are to that child.

Because it's a problem.

So we submit a petition to the court explaining how the conception happened with affidavits from physicians and everyone signs off on it.

And then we get a court order that says who the parents of the baby will be at the birth.

And that's the names that will be issued on the birth certificate.

So even though the gestational carrier, the surrogate gives birth, her name does not go on the birth certificate as the mother.

Rick:

And that's when everything goes well.

Has there been a time that you've seen where that didn't go so straightforwardly?

Tiffany Palmer:

Yes.

Probably one of the most high profile cases I ever worked on was a surrogacy case where things didn't go well.

And that was the Sherry Shepherd surrogacy case where Sherry Shepherd is an actress and she and her husband had decided to conceive a child through surrogacy.

They lived in New Jersey at the time and they found an egg donor in Massachusetts and they found a surrogate in Pennsylvania.

So they created a set of embryos using the egg donor and her husband's sperm and then they implanted those embryos into the surrogate who lived in Pennsylvania.

She became pregnant and everything seemed to be going along fine.

They had very detailed in-depth contracts about what everyone's role was and how this was going to play out.

And then things went wrong when Sherry and her husband Lamar broke up and they broke up around the 20th week of gestation.

So the surrogate was already very pregnant.

Sherry decided she no longer wanted to be a parent to that child because she was in the process of divorcing and she wanted to walk away from the whole situation.

And that is where things went pretty crazy in the courts because the surrogate became very scared and nervous because she didn't want to be the mother to this child because she hadn't anticipated having another child in her family.

And this was not a child that was genetically related to her.

And she really was doing this only for Sherry and Lamar.

So she filed a petition in the court saying, I want to be sure that I'm not the parent of this child.

I don't want to be listed on the birth certificate to try to force Sherry Shepherd to sign the papers that she needed to sign.

Unfortunately, that didn't go to a hearing before the baby was born.

So there was no legal determination on who the parents were at the time the baby was born.

Rick:

And how did you come in?

At what point did you come in?

Tiffany Palmer:

I became involved right after the baby was born.

Because there was no legal determination of who the parents were.

The birth certificate was issued in the name of the surrogate as the mother and Lamar as the father, as he was the genetic father.

I became involved in representing Lamar, who was the birth father, the husband of Sherry Shepherd.

We also agreed with the surrogate that Sherry Shepherd should be listed as the mother, not the surrogate.

So we filed that petition in the court.

This was in Montgomery County.

Sherry Shepherd's counsel filed a petition saying that the surrogacy contract should be declared avoid and against public policy in Pennsylvania, and that surrogacy should be illegal, essentially.

So she was trying to get out of the contracts that she signed.

Really took it head on to try to shut down all of the procedures that we've had in Pennsylvania for the past 20 years.

So we had to go through a very almost year long litigation in that case.

We had a two day trial to try to bring all of the issues to the court on surrogacy and the legality of it and all the contracts that were signed.

And ultimately, the judge decided that the contract was enforceable and that Sherri Shepherd was a parent to the child.

And the birth certificate had to be amended to reflect that.

Rick:

So was it close?

Were you sweating it every day?

Tiffany Palmer:

I was sweating it.

It was a pretty high stakes.

Because if it had come out a different way, it would have shut down surrogacy in Pennsylvania for everyone.

And there's only a few states where surrogacy is legal.

So it would have been very regressive.

Because most states are moving the opposite way towards making it more legal because it is becoming more prevalent medically.

Rick:

Have you seen cases where the surrogate decides that they really want this baby?

Tiffany Palmer:

That is a lot less common.

Everyone thinks that would be the more common scenario, but actually it's much more common for the intended parents to try to walk away.

I have not been involved in any cases where a gestational surrogate wanted to keep the baby.

Most of the people who get involved in this are very well vetted by the medical professionals.

They have to go through a psychological screening.

They have to go through very intensive testing to make sure that they understand what they're getting into.

And most of the time people are doing it for very altruistic reasons that they really want to help someone else be a parent.

Rick:

I think I saw the fraction of same-sex households that have children.

Was it a quarter or half or a large number?

Tiffany Palmer:

Yeah, it is a large number.

I think more and more couples now are forming their families with having children.

Rick:

And men?

Do you have a story of some men that went...

Tiffany Palmer:

I've represented a lot of men in their family building and becoming parents.

And I've actually represented a lot of men from Europe because surrogacy is actually not legal in most countries in Europe.

So many times they're coming to the United States for their family building.

So I've represented people from Italy, from Hong Kong, Australia, the UK, Norway, Norway, you know, who've all been coming to the US to work with fertility clinics here.

And that's been exciting and also just interesting to understand, like the lengths that some people have to go to to become a parent.

Rick:

And I would think that men would face kind of additional barriers.

Tiffany Palmer:

There is a gender bias against men as primary caregivers.

There still is that sort of view in society, especially for infants, that they need a maternal, you know, caregiver.

And I think what has been so wonderful to see is how many men really do want to step up and be a primary caregiver, whether they're in a, you know, a same sex couple, two men, or even in my, you know, cisgendered married friend who have a man in the couple who wants to be the primary caregiver, who wants to be a stay at home dad.

Or I think I've learned a lot and have a lot of respect for the men who want to have that role, because it is a non traditional gender role in society.

And I do think they face, you know, discrimination as a result.

Rick:

Do you have a story of two men and that had some significant challenges along the way in that regard?

Tiffany Palmer:

Well, you know, I think every same sex couple that I've worked with with surrogacy oftentimes face some issues at the hospital, in their discharge process with nurses or other people making assumptions about their ability to parent or their level of commitment to, you know, parenting an infant.

I've even had couples stopped at the airport because they were concerned that they were kidnapping a child because there was no mother leaving the country with the baby.

And my clients didn't speak English, so they had to call a translator service and patch me in because they got detained by the TSA.

One of them was a genetic father.

They had used an anonymous egg donor and a surrogate.

And his husband was the other parent, but they were like, where's the mother?

And, you know, they tried to communicate.

They had a complex way that they built their family.

Basically, we had to get, you know, other professionals involved to verify that there is no legal mother.

They are allowed to travel internationally with their child.

But they thought it was some sort of kidnapping.

But I've never had a woman leaving with an infant and been stopped in the airport.

So I think those are just those gender assumptions, you know.

Rick:

Yeah.

Well, and you have a daughter.

How has the world treated your two-mom family?

Tiffany Palmer:

You know, I think we're very, very fortunate partly just because we live in Mount Airy, which is such a wonderful, welcoming, fantastic neighborhood.

I can't say enough about how much I love Mount Airy.

And we also, you know, live in the city of Philadelphia.

And I think in many ways we are in this very protected social bubble where our family hasn't really had to face that much discrimination because of where we chose to live.

Now, I feel it or I see it more when we travel and when we're in other places where I don't feel as sort of safe or protected as I am in this neighborhood where I know that the vast majority of my neighbors share my political ideologies.

And then I live in a city that has a lot of policies and government officials that are all very openly affirming of LGBT families.

You know, our daughter attends a Philadelphia public school.

You know, she's had a great experience there having two moms and it's really never been an issue ever.

You know, we do a lot of educating if people don't necessarily understand who's who.

So, you know, there's that aspect to it.

But I don't feel like there's necessarily been openly hostile discrimination.

Certainly, we faced legal discrimination.

We got legally married in 2010 in Vermont, but our marriage wasn't recognized in Pennsylvania until 2014.

Rick:

Did that feel different when you were able to be legal in Pennsylvania?

Or was it more of a formality?

Tiffany Palmer:

It felt different.

It definitely did.

There is absolutely something major and significant about having a governmental recognition of your family and your relationship when you've been denied that for so long.

So, you know, the first time we were able to like file our taxes jointly was like a big deal because our taxes had been so complicated for so many years, having to file separately, but having the same house and the same child and trying to figure out, you know, what goes on whose return and it was always such an ordeal.

And just to be treated as just a normal married couple like you should be, it's wonderful.

I'm happy that this next generation won't ever have to feel the difference, you know, that they'll just be able to fall in love and get married and, you know, file their taxes jointly and do all the, you know, boring stuff that you do as a grown up without it being a big issue.

Rick:

Well, and when the Supreme Court made it legal in the entire country, that was such a huge step.

Tiffany Palmer:

Yes, a huge relief.

You know, there were many years that there were places in the United States that we felt we really couldn't even go to.

Florida being one of those states before marriage equality, we actually would not go to Florida because we were too worried that something could happen there.

There were instances and cases where a woman had a stroke and her wife was denied access to her while she was dying because their marriage wasn't recognized in Florida.

And stories like that that make you scared.

For us, for years, we would have to carry around health care power of attorney forms when we traveled just because we were worried if somebody got into an accident or got hurt, would we be denied access to each other at the hospital?

It's a kind of thing where a lot of married couples just take that thing for granted, that they're next of kin, that if somebody's hurt, you're going to be the one they turn to.

But if you're in a same sex couple and your marriage isn't recognized, you have an extra level of fear that something like that could happen.

Rick:

Well, and I think I saw an article you wrote saying that even though that was such a huge step, it was not the end at all, and in fact it raised some other issues that are still being resolved.

Tiffany Palmer:

Absolutely, yeah.

So, you know, a lot of people think with the LGBT civil rights movement that marriage was sort of the pinnacle and the end of the story.

But really, there's still so much, so many things that are left open and need to be done.

One of the biggest issues is workplace discrimination and employment discrimination.

So, there still is no national law specifically protecting individuals from sexual orientation discrimination.

Maybe our Supreme Court will rule on that, on the two cases that are pending there, and we'll know about that in the next year.

But until then, there's no national protection and there's no state level protection.

So, a lot of times, same-sex married couples face discrimination in their workplace because being married forces you to be out at your job in a way that maybe you didn't have to before, because now you have to list your spouse on your benefits if you want to include them up for your health insurance and other documents.

So now people have to be out in their workplaces.

And the other really big issue that isn't resolved is the legal parentage question.

And that's something I've been working on for many years.

Just because you're legally married doesn't mean you're both parents to the child that you have together in your marriage if one of you is not also genetically related to that child.

So it affects almost all same sex couples.

It also affects couples who conceive through assisted reproduction.

So that's where we try to also do second parent adoptions to protect those families as well.

Rick:

So you've helped so many people in your many years as a lawyer.

Are there other cases that stand out?

So you think back over here.

Tiffany Palmer:

You know, the cases that really mean the most to me are the ones where I helped protect someone's right to be a parent to a child.

Rick:

Yeah.

Tiffany Palmer:

And that, you know, can you think of one that you want to?

There's a lot.

There's a lot.

A lot of times this comes up in cases between same sex couples who are separating.

Oftentimes the biological parent will use homophobia and the lack of legal protection as a weapon against the other partner in a breakup to say, You're not the parent to this child.

So you have no right to see the child.

You have no right to have custody or to continue to have the relationship after the breakup.

So I've handled many, many cases like that.

Unfortunately, they definitely mean the most to me when we are able to protect the relationship that the child had with the partner who's been cut off.

It's just so painful to be denied access to a child for both the child and for the parent, you know, for a child to be told this isn't your mom anymore, to be able to protect that person in court and make sure that they are able to have a relationship is so important.

You know, psychologically, for that child's future development to not be abandoned and feel they've had that loss.

Rick:

Could you tell the story of a particular case like that?

And sure, kind of what came up in the courtroom and what were the?

Tiffany Palmer:

Yeah, I mean, one of the first cases that I took on when I started my firm, I got a call from a woman in Florida who said that she and her partner had a child together in Florida and that they used an anonymous sperm donor and her partner was the biological mother.

Because they lived in Florida and because it was in the early 2000s, they weren't legally married and they couldn't do an adoption in Florida.

They split up and the first six months, they sort of shared custody back and forth as a normal type of schedule, you know, 50-50.

And then her partner said, I've met someone and I have a new job and I'm moving to Pennsylvania and you're never going to see this kid again and just left.

You know, packed up and remarried someone in Pennsylvania, took a job at a university teaching in Pennsylvania and cut off all contact with her former partner.

And this is the child at the time was six years old.

So for six years, my client had been mama to this child and she was also a lawyer.

So that was intimidating to represent a lawyer.

But, you know, she called me and said, well, what can I do?

You know, I've been separated from my child.

They're now in Pennsylvania.

And unfortunately, Florida law was much worse than Pennsylvania law.

So I told her we have to wait until Pennsylvania law becomes the law that we have to follow.

In interstate custody cases, you have to wait until the child has been in the new state for six months in order for that law to apply.

So one of the most painful things I ever had to do was to tell her we can't do anything for six months.

You know, we can't file any papers in court because if we do, she'll move back to Florida where you she can really cut you off and you'll never see the child again.

But if we wait six months, Pennsylvania law is actually better than Florida law.

And we can try to make a case for you to see your child.

So we waited six months and then we filed for custody under legal theory called in loco parentis saying that her partner had been in the place of the parent was basically a psychological parent to the child.

And it was one of the first cases that this county in central Pennsylvania had ever heard of any kind of same sex family.

So we had a two day trial as to whether or not my client had what's called standing standing is the right even to ask for custody.

So it was pretty grueling, you know, putting exhibit tabs on like Mother's Day cards and the child's picture of her family, you know, that's all very heartbreaking things to have to break down and bring up in court.

Yeah, but we were successful and proved that she was in fact in local apprentice that she was the psychological parent to this child and the judge gave her standing and she was awarded partial custody.

So she was able to see the child in the summers because they lived in different states.

Yeah, but she got to spend every summer with her and then every long weekend during the school year.

And so we actually had a custody order that would be pretty similar to what a parent who lived in another state would have.

But, you know, it's very high stakes because if we had lost that hearing, then she would have no contact ever again with that child.

So and you know, what means the most to me is they send me a holiday card every year, you know, and now, you know, her daughter is finishing high school.

You know, it's so it's amazing to see that relationship continued because of her ability to access the courts and to get justice and to have her relationship protected.

And without that process, she would have lost her child.

Rick:

What a thing when the law can give you your dignity back.

Tiffany Palmer:

Yeah, it really can literally make and break families.

Rick:

Well, so you decided to embark on this transition from lawyer to judge.

Tiffany Palmer:

Yes.

Yes, I did.

Rick:

Was that brewing for a long time or was there a moment when you knew you wanted to do it?

Tiffany Palmer:

I think there were a few little moments that all started to add up.

I had reached the 20-year mark in my career last year, and I think 20 years in anyone's career is sort of a time for reflection on, do I want to keep doing this for another 20 years or do I want to try to do something different?

It also came right after the 2016 election where I think after Trump was elected, a lot of people in our country started looking at themselves and thinking, am I doing enough?

What more can or I should be doing to have a positive impact in our systems of government in our country?

And for me, I really think that judiciary is the place where I can have the greatest impact with my background and experience.

I also kind of understand from my own legal background and work the real critical importance that state courts have.

Yeah, in progressive change in our country, in protecting civil rights and family law and all the all the many ways that these kind of issues come up before the courts that really state courts are going to have a huge impact over the next 10 years and shaping the civil rights in any kind of progressive movements in our in our country.

Rick:

Is that because that's where the cases arise first?

Tiffany Palmer:

It's also because the federal courts, the past few years, there's been a lot of appointees with very conservative backgrounds and they're appointed for life.

So the ability to have progressive social change in the within the federal courts is becoming more diminished.

And state courts also provide another avenue for progressive change, which is state constitutional law, where under state constitutional law, you can actually have more rights and greater rights and protections than you can under federal constitutional law, because the federal constitutional law is sort of a floor.

That's the minimum of what you need to have.

But the state constitutional law can go beyond that.

So that's where we're seeing, you know, with the state Supreme Court's making a lot of very important decisions that are changing the nature of our democracy, really.

Things like redistricting, you know, Pennsylvania Supreme Court's decision on that was very impactful.

So I really think the state courts is a really important place for judges to play a critical role.

And, you know, I'd also had a lot of personal experiences where I saw judges that didn't necessarily have a cultural competency in working with non-traditional families or understanding sort of the non-traditional families that I've worked with a lot in my career.

So whether it's grandparent kinship caregivers or same sex couples or transgender people or I think just my background and the types of clients that I've worked with over the years gives me a perspective that I think will be really important on the bench.

Rick:

When you thought about it, was it pretty clear that you wanted to do it or were you really torn?

Tiffany Palmer:

I think I was torn because I really do love what I've been doing for the past 20 years.

I really enjoy working with my clients.

I really have enjoyed the types of cases that I've done.

But on the other hand, I do feel like it's time for something new and time to find out what kind of change and impact I can have on the judiciary as a judge through this position.

So I talked a lot about it with my spouse, who's wonderful and very supportive, but it's a very daunting undertaking.

So it took a lot of planning and, you know, trying to figure out how we can make this work.

So like running for office while working full time while being a mom and a Girl Scout troop leader and being involved in my daughter's school.

So it was a lot of balancing.

Rick:

You didn't watch a lot of TV during that time.

Tiffany Palmer:

No, I did not watch any TV during that time.

Rick:

Yeah, well, so you put together a whole campaign.

Tiffany Palmer:

I did, yes.

Rick:

What was surprising about that whole experience for you?

Tiffany Palmer:

You know, I think just being involved in Philadelphia electoral politics is very illuminating and sometimes surprising on how our system works in essentially a one-party town.

The primary is the election that matters.

So it's really mobilizing the different factions of the Democratic Party, like which Democrats can you get to support you?

You know, and I tried to approach it really strategically with help from wonderful friends that I have, very talented friends.

I basically pooled all the talent of people that I already trusted and, you know, had relationships with who were graphic designers and web designers.

Rick:

I mean, it sounds like because of who you are that people really wanted to help.

And you made a lot of good connections along the way.

Tiffany Palmer:

Yeah, that was a really nice feeling.

And I think, you know, it was just about building relationships with all the different groups I've been involved with over the years.

You know, it's like you try to do good work in your community.

And then when you ask for your community support, you have it.

So, yeah, the person who ran my put my numbers for me to help me figure out what kind of votes I needed from where is a professor at Drexel, a longtime friend of Dave Goldberg of my wife and I.

He helped me figure out how many votes I needed to win.

And he came up with a number and stuck with it.

And he was exactly right.

He said I needed to get 38,000.

And so we tried to figure out how we could piece together those numbers around the city.

And we came up with a strategy and a plan and we really worked it.

And it came out exactly as we had predicted.

Except I actually did better.

I got 54,000 votes.

But the lowest vote getter of the six got 38,000.

So we knew that that was to be in the top six to win one of the seats.

I had to get a minimum vote number of that.

Rick:

What was one of those situations of encountering the city political machine that was surprising?

Tiffany Palmer:

You know, I wasn't necessarily surprised, but it was discouraging that merit is not the highest factor in making some of these decisions.

Rick:

Even for a judge.

Tiffany Palmer:

Yeah, even for something as serious and significant as judge.

The difference between judge and many of the other elected offices like city council and mayor, they're elected for four year terms.

And then if you don't like the job they're doing, you have a chance to reelect them in four years.

They have to come back to you for your vote and people could run against them.

That's not the case with judge.

It's a 10 year term and you don't run for reelection.

You run for retention.

And almost I think no one has ever been voted out of Common Pleas on retention.

So many of the judges who are being elected will serve until mandatory retirement age, which is 75.

So you're essentially electing some people to a 30 year slot.

That's very, very high stakes.

When you think about the decisions that judges make about things like who's a parent to a child, are someone's parental rights going to be terminated and they're going to lose their child?

Are they going to go to jail?

You know, so many of the decisions that judges make are life changing decisions, like very significant.

Rick:

And so I would think that would motivate people to base it on merit.

Like those aren't political decisions.

Tiffany Palmer:

Those are not political decisions.

And they should never be swayed, you know, by political factions.

You know, that's where we've seen judges get in trouble and lose their positions.

So, you know, for me, it was somewhat discouraging that merit was not the highest factor that gets considered in the process.

Rick:

Now, in what way did you see that?

Tiffany Palmer:

You know, just as far as different political groups, endorsements and things like that.

Now, that's not true, you know, universally, because I think more and more people are understanding the importance that judges have.

And we're considering merit.

And that's really where my support came from, which was those groups around the city that cared about sort of the candidates that had the highest qualifications.

So I really tried to find those groups that made that their number one determinant and get their support.

And there are, you know, there's a lot more words around the city that are willing to do that than they ever have in the past.

So and I was able to get the endorsement of all of the words that were willing to endorse based on merit rather than other political factors.

Rick:

And was that just a one by one journey?

Or yes, once you had a few, were the other ones a little more likely to come along?

Tiffany Palmer:

A little bit of both.

You know, it really was one by one, you know, finding those groups around the city and trying to get their support and convincing them.

And then sometimes if you had certain groups already that had endorsed you, other groups were more likely to endorse you as well.

Yeah, sort of the more momentum you get by stacking those up.

You know, I was fortunate that I got the highest recommendation from the Bar Association of highly recommended.

Rick:

Which is somewhat rare, I understand.

Tiffany Palmer:

It is, yeah.

So there was, I believe there was 26 candidates and they gave that recommendation to four of us.

It is a very high threshold to me to get that.

And it was a very grueling and intensive process.

And I think more people are starting to pay attention to those ratings because some of the judges who had issues or problems and had to be removed from office were judges that were not recommended by the Bar Association.

Rick:

Well, so you've had a chance to watch a lot of judges.

Are there particular qualities that you were wanting to emulate and avoid?

Tiffany Palmer:

Definitely.

Yeah, I mean, each judge, I think, has their own sort of style.

And I think I'll have to develop what that will be.

You know, I was just yesterday in court for a second parent adoption hearing.

And the way that the judge spoke to and treated my clients as a family made us all cry because it was so beautiful and so touching.

Rick:

What kinds of things did they say?

Tiffany Palmer:

She basically said that they were already a family, you know, with the love that they brought into the courtroom, but that she was there to legally make it so.

She also said that she wanted to thank them for taking the legal step of doing the second parent adoption to protect their children from any possible question in the future about who their parents are or whether they had rights to each other and that not all families take that important step.

She acknowledged that it was something that she wanted to thank them for, for preventing a situation where she would have to make a difficult decision in a contested case in the future.

She just said a lot of wonderful things about them as a family and it was very touching.

She also had a magic wand that she waved over the children that made a little sound and she's just wonderful and, you know, inspirational.

And some judges treat it like you're at the DMV, you know, just getting your driver's license sort of like next.

And, you know, when it's very it can be very special for families.

And I think it's important to acknowledge that this is a moment to recognize.

Rick:

And you were elected to the Common Pleas Court.

All of your experience and interest is in the family court.

Do you know that you will be assigned to family court or is that just up to somebody?

Tiffany Palmer:

I don't know yet.

It's up to the president judge and the administrative judge.

I certainly hope that I will be assigned to family court because that's really where my background and experiences and where I really think that I could do the most good quickly and kind of be up to speed.

Certainly, I would be very happy in anywhere I would be assigned, criminal or in civil.

I do know that there are a number of openings in family court, so they definitely will meet, I believe, at least four of the seven judges will likely be there.

Rick:

Well, and a big fraction of your work has been with LGBT clients.

That will be much smaller in any case.

Tiffany Palmer:

Yes, it will be much more of a broad segment of all of society.

One of the things that I talked a lot about when I was campaigning, which a lot of people don't realize, that in family court, more than 80% of the people who come into family court do so without a lawyer.

So the vast majority of people coming into court have no representation.

So they're coming before a judge without an advocate, without any legal advice, without someone to speak for them.

And that, I think, makes the judge's role even more important because you have to, as a judge, be looking out to make sure that the people that are coming before you understand what's going on, which isn't always the case, understand what their rights are, and are able to effectively communicate what they are looking for to the court.

And that's where the judge essentially runs the trial or the hearing and helps each side tell their story.

And sometimes that goes well and sometimes it doesn't go well.

Because certainly it would be better if everybody had a lawyer.

But there isn't enough free legal representation to go around.

And family law attorneys are very expensive.

And most of the people in our city who are coming to family court can't afford it.

So the other thing I'm really interested in hoping that I can help work on is increasing access to counsel in civil cases where people don't have an attorney.

Rick:

How can that be done without hugely increasing the budget?

Tiffany Palmer:

Yeah, I mean, it's really a group effort between the court system and the public interest organizations and legal services and the private bar taking on more volunteer cases.

And, you know, everyone needs to kind of do a part.

So I would love to see more increases in a coordinated effort to increase representation for people that are coming to family court without a lawyer.

Rick:

And as you imagine yourself in your courtroom, what are the areas in which you feel pretty confident, prepared, and areas where you feel like going to be a learning curve?

Tiffany Palmer:

I think it's going to be a learning curve for a lot of things.

You know, I think I do feel pretty comfortable in the courtroom as a lawyer.

The lawyer's job is to tell the story in a persuasive way to the judge, essentially.

And I feel like I've got to be really good at that part.

But the judge's role is very different, you know, in that the judge's role is to listen to these two different stories that are being told and try to find where the truth lies, you know, whether that's with one side, the other side or somewhere in between the two.

And it's going to be a mental sort of paradigm shift from being an advocate to being a neutral and trying to look at each case with an unbiased and sort of a clean slate to listen to each side and try to figure out where that truth does lie.

And that's going to be sort of a whole shift mentally that I think I'll have to transition into.

And, you know, I'm looking forward to talking with my other colleagues who have been judges for a while and how they made that shift.

Because, you know, everyone who's a judge started out as a lawyer.

And how do you kind of make that transition?

You know, and I, for the past year, every trial that I've had, I've watched each judge really carefully to try to think about, you know, how did they do that?

And if I would do that the same way, you know, things like ruling on objections or how they handle people who get really emotional or out of control in the courtroom.

Rick:

Can you think of an example that struck you?

Tiffany Palmer:

You know, the cases that I deal with are very emotional cases, you know, and there are people who are crying, who are out of control, who are slamming things down, who storm out of a room, who scream in expletive.

You know, it happens because people are very much at their worst and in a very difficult, stressful situation with the kind of cases I handle.

So, you know, most of the time, the judges, I think, that I've seen handle these things well have to maintain a calmness and sort of rise above the chaos and the emotion, because sometimes the lawyers are also get enmeshed in that chaos and emotion and a lot of times lawyers take on the charge of their clients to the extreme.

And I think the judge has to be almost the entity that rises above those emotions to try to keep a calmness and try to maintain order and keep people on track.

Rick:

Do you feel like that's a strong suit of yours?

Tiffany Palmer:

I think we'll find out.

I think being a parent certainly.

Being a Girl Scout leader, a parent.

Rick:

And do you know what kind of orientation on ramp period you get?

Tiffany Palmer:

There's a week long training in state college.

So I'll be going to that intensive judicial training.

And I'm sure I will learn lots of things.

Rick:

And then it's day one in your own courtroom?

Tiffany Palmer:

Pretty much.

Yeah.

Rick:

Do they give you a mentor or a team?

Tiffany Palmer:

I'm not sure if they give you that.

I have already been trying to develop and foster mentoring with other people that I know who are judges, who are excited about the incoming class of judges and are very open to trying to help us get acclimated.

So I'm looking forward to working with those mentors and those relationships I've already started establishing.

Rick:

Yeah.

That's pretty exciting.

Tiffany Palmer:

It is exciting.

I'm very excited.

Very excited.

So I'm really glad that I only had to run once.

Because it was pretty grueling.

Rick:

Well, thank you so much for coming to share your stories.

Tiffany Palmer:

Thank you for inviting me.

Rick:

For more about Tiffany Palmer, see the show notes or go to our website, nwphillypodcast.net.

If you like the show, please tell one friend about it.

And if you can, take half a minute to leave a rating or a review, which helps other people find us.

I'm Rick Mohr.

Thanks for listening.

See you next time for more stories from Northwest Philly Neighbors.