Last Saturday, Pavi and I had the privilege of hosting an absolutely beautiful Awakin Call with Sue Cochrane.

Sue Cochrane served as a judge on the Family Court Bench in Minneapolis for 18 years, pioneering a new model on her cases to transform the structure and practice of Family Court into a holistic, empowering, client-centered model. She has worked with leaders from around the world on innovative ways to incorporate love, forgiveness and compassion into the contentious divorce process, both in and out of the courts. Growing up, Sue experienced firsthand many of the same challenges her clients faced: poverty, violence, addiction, divorce and sexual abuse. Through exposure to the Japanese art of Kintsugi, Sue came to embrace the imperfections, suffering and pain of the early part of her life. Sue’s childhood experiences inspired her to use her law degree and the court to bring compassion, dignity and empowerment to families who suffered in the legal systems. She is currently facing a terminal (recurring) cancer diagnosis with vigor and courage.

Below are some of the nuggets from the call:

• First sense of an inner life and/or a higher power or deeper force operating in life: I had that sense honestly when was when I was in a young girl and in a Catholic school – they taught us about Jesus and his unconditional love, that God was all knowing and all powerful. In church in formal setting, I honestly felt something inside and even thought I might be a nun. At the time they told us that girls could only be a wives or nuns. And what I saw in my home motivated me toward being a nun. With everything in my home, I prayed but nothing changed. But I did feel it [the sense of a higher power] early on.
• Selective mutism – how she literally lost her voice and found it later: It’s a condition that I don’t know how it happened or where it came from. When I started Kindergarten, I couldn’t speak or sing with the class. I just couldn’t make myself do so. My father, before he lost everything due to alcohol, he was a trial lawyer and my mother was a social person, very funny, witty. They tried everything to get me to talk – bribery, shaming. No one saw it as anything other than shyness. I really wanted to speak. I had a voice, they just didn’t see it. I had it through my music. And I wrote poetry. I could speak at home, mostly to my younger brother, and to our neighbor friends mostly when we were older. I never raised my hand all through school and even in law school. But my writing was good – I got straight A’s, so the teachers thought I had something to offer. There really was no way out for me. Now there’s more treatments, thankfully, for children, having that condition It [selective mutism] is not willful; it’s not stubbornness. It’s not necessarily from trauma. They really don’t know. Now it’s in the DSM [Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders] as a social phobia. We’ll leave it at that. That voice problem for me became one of those themes for my work – I knew what it was like not to have a voice. I made it my mission to make sure that people had a voice that come into contact with me, either as a client or before me as a judge.
• About the difficult crucible of her childhood: It started out quite idyllic. Father was a successful lawyer. Mother stayed at home; she was witty, artistic, a gardener. She gave us everything. She read poetry to us when we were babies. I remember the celebrations we had – it was like a movie of just happy things. But apparently she knew he [my father] had a drinking problem when she married him and hoped it would get better, but it didn’t. He began to abuse her (sadly even when she was pregnant once). I witnessed his violence toward her – the smashing, screaming, suicide threats. But the system thought he was incredible lawyer. We hid it all – it was a story of hiding and shaming behind our door. Mom called the priest one day and said she needed a divorce; they threatened she would be excommunicated. She was such a devout Catholic (I was age 9 – and that really started me to question the faith). Ultimately they divorced (it was my Dad who left us) and he didn’t pay the support. We experienced a crash from being affluent to having nothing. There were times with no water, no electricity. My other got MS (had symptoms her whole life, but got diagnosed before Dad left). She was incapacitated within few years from then. Facing addiction, poverty, and disease, she became incredibly depressed. We never saw him again (after one post-divorce meeting). I think That’s enough for now.
• What gave her strength during those difficult times: Two people were there for me – one, my younger brother Mick (our older brother had his own life and friends – he was more mature and outgoing for us). I started speaking for the stuffed animals [see this beautiful piece of writing by Mick where he describes the wonderful stuffed animal world of his and Sue’s imagination]. I created a whole system of nice, kind teddy bears. He calls it like Sesame Street – we had a radio show, a kitchen. I had an incredible array of voices there. And then [there was] my grandma. My mom would drop us off there. They had incredible love for us – not many words, they were German – all they did was love us. They put no pressure on us, other than to kneel for rosary and pray every day. And so those two, and then I had a voice through music, and puppets, and writing. I am reminded of the beautiful piece you ran by Dr. van der Kolk – “imagination and creativity is the answer for trauma.” That was probably the theme that kept us going.
• On unconditional love and not judging: I loved my mother despite all her imperfections, and the house went to hell, I’ll just say that. Everything fell apart. No dishes were done. But I LOVED her. And I even loved my father still; I wanted him to get sober and come home. I loved Mick, I loved my grandparents, and I felt the love in return, which I think helped it to grow. And I loved music and my animals. But I think loving some very imperfect people like my mother, that helped me to – I had a funny thing I’d say to myself: “I want to be the judge that doesn’t judge.” I really do care; I don’t judge people. I mean I do, we all do sometimes. But it’s not one thing I go to immediately. I just don’t go that way too much. I hope that answers it a little bit. [On Sue’s blog, “The Movement of Healing,” there is a button on the right that says “click here for unconditional love.”]​​​​​​​
• So then how did the “judge who didn’t want to judge” come into the world through the law? “Not very willingly,” Sue said, noting that her bout with alcoholism was part of her journey of law school. She had a deep love for arts and language and for French – and spent a semester abroad thanks to a perceptive French teacher. She was accepted into a degree program in Stanford, which she turned down to attend law school to fulfill her mother’s aspiration and to take care of her in those years. “Law school was not my first choice. [After I considered a Ph.D. program in French], my Mom told me I promised to go to law school. I didn’t remember that. Someone in our family seemed to have to do that – my dad used to say one of his sons needed to be his partner [it was never anticipated that his daughter could do that]. So I took a year off – prayed for miracle to guide me. The miracle didn’t come.” I thought law school would help me get rid of shyness and introversion. It didn’t. It just pushed me into more drinking because I was having so much social anxiety. A slight part of me came alive – I made it through because I can read and write well. But talking wasn’t there. A professor said he thought I was going to pass out during moot trial. I got through it, graduated, and then found sobriety. That helped me get on the right path and then I found my voice.​​​​​​​
• Her draw to family law and her role as a reformer: I came to realize that if I was a lawyer, I would help people like my mother. My uncle (also a lawyer) came to my mother’s funeral. We were standing in the receiving line, and he said “come to my office Monday, I have a job for you.” He was very gregarious, he had an opulent law firm specializing in antitrust. I was in night law school. His rich clients, if they had a divorce, they would give it to me, maybe because I was a woman. I enjoyed it – I got to learn about their lives. Then I went off on my own [in my own practice]. I had the rare opportunity of representing very wealthy people in court, and then when I was at Legal Aid, I was a lawyer for Native Americans and some of the poorest of the poor of our urban area. So when I started to come in with them, I saw that suddenly we were last on the docket with them. Some people were very biased against people on assistance (some judges and lawyers didn’t know about an existing federal law on assistance – the Indian Child Welfare Act – for more than a decade after it was enacted, for example). Some judges were harsh and insensitive, and some were just wonderful. That inspired me. We needed more like them [the kinder judges]. I wanted to be fair, and treat people kindly and equally. ​​​​​​​
• Beginning the reform process as a family court judge from an adversarial system to more cooperative: At first I went along with what was there – I’d go out into the courtroom and handle my cases like everyone else. At that time we had an armed deputy sitting in the courtroom. We would sit up high as judges on the bench, wear a robe, had a lot of that court decorum, a staff surrounding us. I was never comfortable with that. For example, when someone is appointed to the bench, they say “so and so was elevated to the court”. I never liked sitting up there; I liked being down on the floor with my clients because I could identify with their problems. So it took me a few years, but it took me one week to know I had to start changing that initial divorce hearing – it was so adversarial between the parents and their lawyers. They simply couldn’t get along enough to co-parent their children; it was too late. I knew I had to find a way to get rid of that find hearing and find a more humane way to handle their cases. That was my first goal. I would call it [the change journey] an organic process. I would walk into work normally, and there would be a stack of files on my desk, and I would just do it. I called the clerk one day – I had an idea that the court has to educate the parties on the damage a contested case could cause their family and give them the facts. We had a movie that we would show them in what I call the “one size fits all” program, and then we had a judge talk to them afterward. I could see them get bored during the movie – but they really loved the q&a with the judge.
  
  So I called the head clerk, a court administrator, and asked if there was a flow chart of family court – I wanted to send out letter before anything is filed. She said we didn’t have one, but she made a quick and dirty one. And I still remember that piece of paper. I saw so many boxes and arrows and labels; it gave me a headache to look at it. But there was one box at the top that said “start here” – papers filed, judicial officer assigned, and there was my opportunity. So I would send a hand-signed letter, saying “I will waive the one-size-fits-all program if you just come in and talk with me before you file any papers.” That’s how it started. And I decided to do it just the way I thought would be most helpful. We met in my chambers. I did not have my robe on (I had my kids’ squiggly pictures on my wall and their photos on my desk), and they saw me as an equal – as I had hoped – as a fellow human being. I did have the flow chart blown up and hidden behind my desk (turned to the wall). I told them a few basic things: If they choose to litigate, they would turn their lives over to me and I would do my best – but I would never meet their children, I don’t have degree in child psychology, but I will be asked to decide everything – when you see your children, how much money you live on, where you live, where they live. And I had one more fact I had to tell them: that 95% of all cases settle without trial, but almost all go through the hideous chart before they settle – after they spent money, energy and lost all cooperative ability. So I held up the chart at the end, and said: “This is family court” – and we’re here, and I pointed to the “Start here” box at the top. You can choose a different path right now and not have to go through all that. And If I were your best friend or your sister, I would recommend that because I want to empower you to make the decisions. I don’t think you need someone making your decisions. Then I would have them to someone about the alternative, and 99% chose that [the alternative way of proceeding], and then the court took notice​​​​​​​.
• Empowering others through deep listening: I had not encountered meditation, Buddhism or mindfulness then. But I have learned a lot about equanimity in the last 20 years from them. I put it together myself at first. I just wanted to create an open space and let people have their voice – and sometimes it wasn’t comfortable, sometimes there was shouting, sometimes there was anger (almost all the time) – and sometimes my staff would look at me and say “should I press the red button?” and that’s when all the deputies would come pounding in, and I would shake my head “no, I don’t need them.” When people are able to share what they need to … I would ask people if they would be ok if people just spoke one at a time – and let the other person speak while they took notes and had their turn later. I would go with what they needed [for example, allowing couples to solve their own problems with the assistance of extended family -- while feeding them trays of fruit!]. I would do whatever called me – “what did they need?” People often can solve their own problems if they’re given support.
• On motherhood and mortality: I was 40 when our first baby boy arrived, and 42 when the twins arrived (we didn’t expect twins, no one does, I think). I had already been on the bench and so that was a big commitment. There’s this part of me that I just wanted it all. I wanted a career, I wanted to be a mother, I wanted to do good in the world. So I took on quite a lot, but I couldn’t have done it without my husband (we met in law school) who had a steady job as a city prosecutor. Those years – I was really happy and I was really glad I made that decision (and he’s even older than me). We rose to the occasion, and our neighbors would see us come home and run to the park, and say “they’re either going to kill you or keep you young – we’re not sure, but we love watching you.” We were so busy. And then I found a breast lump one day. I was still in my early-40s. My physician said it was probably benign but sent me to the top surgeon just in case. She did an ultrasound, and it came back as simple fluid-filled cyst, and she (expert surgeon) didn’t think it was necessary to do anything to it – it would just go away. I disagreed, but there was a moment where I couldn’t speak up. She was very much in charge; one of those experts, intimidating kind of, which also made me never want to be an expert. I never want to do that to people. If she had just asked me “what do you want to do?”, I would have said to take it out. My friends agreed that the machine was right. She said to just wait a year. I waited more than a year (I was busy and it wasn’t cancer so I didn’t want to be a hypochondriac). Well, it was cancer, and by the time they got to it, it was Stage 3. I blamed myself in part, and I was in shock because I thought I’d had enough bad things in my life – I thought it would be smooth sailing for the rest of my life. I thought that was the deal. But it wasn’t. Facing that was very hard. The breast center I was focused on the needs of patients – it inspired me to have the court system do that more. They give you tea in nice china cups, and just make you feel like you’re not alone. They gave me a healing coach – there again is that theme – she just listened to me, and listened and listened every week. Until I went through a lot of grief, about about my mother’s death – I didn’t want that for my boys. She gave me Rachel Remen’s book – about how one doctor created a more healing system. So the healing came when they offered me that healing coach. And then I started to commit to find more healing.
• On turning health crisis into a deeper healing opportunity: So in the 10 years between the first diagnosis and the second, I was very afraid of recurrence. I went to Commonweal – to their cancer help retreat, and met the co-founders. I had gone to AA earlier when I was getting sober, and so I realized I needed to be around people who had cancer. That was very healing to do that small group for a week. I started meditating there. I came back and found a local meditation center. I just jumped in with both feet. It was just what I needed. I still am connected with them. I tried acupuncture. I read healing books. I turned it from a crisis to a healing opportunity. Healing is when everything feels ok – it’s the way it is. The way it’s meant to be. That may seem a simplistic answer. But even if I’m going to die soon, sooner than I want to, I can actually get comfortable with that and not have that conflict inside about it. And feel loved. Healing was about getting more love into my life. I went to a spiritual director who just listened and listened and listened. That’s when I learned that listening is really an active thing – that really helps people. We have to be able to receive it. My poor mother wouldn’t go to a doctor, she wouldn’t get self-help. She shut down. There are times when I did not want to do that, so I had to make a conscious decision to do that – such as saying yes to this [conversation]. I can receive love and help from many sources, and I’m so grateful for that.
• Being open to deep mysteries: After the terminal diagnosis, cancer was almost entirely in my bones (but you can live with that for quite a while, so I was feeling pretty ok). I didn’t need chemo – I took a special pill. Then a brain tumor appeared – it was a complex one. My own surgeon team wouldn’t operate. Then I went to Mayo – and they also said it was too complex. And so I left and prepared for death. My sons were in art high school at the time. One art teacher who makes Joan of Arc medals would give them to women of courage. She gave my son Tom the packet – we opened it together in car – she gave a beautiful message about how Joan had strength to fight an army. I went to buy a chain for the medal, and started sobbing in the store to the woman. She opened her computer to tell me about a surgeon who saved her friend’s life by operating on an inoperable tumor. …. [Sue ended up going to that surgeon, who got the tumor all out, and she has follow-up local surgeries when needed when tumors re-appear, which have happened 10 times.] It does feel like a mystery, a miracle, being taken care of. There is that universe – that web of care out there.
• Story about the title of her memoir, “The Crystal Gavel”: One of my cases involved a poor woman who reminded me of my mother (she was disabled, divorced, her ex-husband never paid support). She had four children, medical problems, no money, so she couldn’t visit grandkids. She had had 10 years of court orders – all ruled against her, on the grounds that her ex-husband had no money. He looked like a pauper on paper. But he was funneling money to girlfriend; long story short, they had an elaborate scheme going. The woman had no attorney. I went back and read everything. We did a trial – and I ruled in her favor and opened up this corporation and added the girlfriend to the divorce (which was unheard of to add third party) to access the assets. Then I got my first cancer diagnosis, and left while their attorneys were writing horrible letters. I had to leave and never knew how it turned out on appeal. I then came back, but found out I still was depleted from chemo/radiation/mastectomy, and so I asked to go part time. Family court was so draining, tiring, and so they said “no, but we have a part-time traffic court division.” It felt like a bit of a step down. It was a tiny office in an older building. But I ended up starting a program there too, where I took court out into the city because we had had a restorative justice one-day-a-year program. Mostly African American men would get stopped, lose their license, keep driving, and end up with massive fines. ,… All judges would meet in their community – they would do a day of community service, get a fresh slate and get their licenses back. Court pulled that program because it too expensive. There was a lot of pain around that for the community. So I just started doing it – I took court on the road into community. Did that part time. While I was doing that traffic court, one day I go back into chambers – there was a package, a beautiful gift of a crystal gavel. It was full sized, and just beautiful. There was a little note from the woman in the case, saying “I hope you don’t mind. I tried to find you and followed you to traffic court. I wanted to thank you for reading everything and for ruling. The appeal court affirmed. My ex-husband settled. I have cash. I can travel. I can get medical care. And this made me think of you.” I’m supposed to return gifts I get – when you’re on the bench, you can’t keep gifts – and I thought “I can’t return it.” So I hid it. But I couldn’t thank her because that would incriminate me [laughing] (the law sometimes does that to your brain). Then I started to display it. Then one day, a deputy came to straighten my bookshelf and knocked it off and broke it. It broke into 5 pieces. I was very sad. I did eventually go back to family court. When the cancer came back, I took out the pieces at home, put them on black pieces of velvet and I move them around – they sometimes make really beautiful new formations. That’s kind of like life is. You just don’t know how it’s going to go, and it changes and we can still help make it beautiful, I hope.
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• One metaphor for the crystal gavel is that it’s like the courts, where we’re not supposed to go into emotions or love or feelings. People are supposed to leave that the door. Everything is a legal problem. But we know it isn’t. There are lots of other root causes to what caused the conflict. We are now making problem-solving courts in the court system. I’d love to see that in family courts where you acknowledge there’s addiction, there’s abuse, there’s mental illness. But we just had to do the legal problem. So the crystal – it’s like it shows all the colors that are already in the atmosphere. But our eyes do not see them, but a crystal refracts it where we can see the beautiful colors. That’s what I realize after the fact I was trying to do – I wanted to bring all of that out and not just see one part of them. And so it felt like that was one of the facets. And also the brokenness. Brokenness is not necessarily the end. It’s just how we’re defining it as broken. We can just transform it into one other beautiful thing I have that I get inspired from.

For more inspiration, here's a link to Sue's CaringBridge journal, where she posts regular updates on her health journey. And here's a link to one of Mick's beautiful poems, Stage IV.
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Lots of gratitude to all the behind-the-scenes volunteers that made this call happen!