Robert G. Flanders Jr.
Position: Partner at Providence law firm
of Hinckley Allen & Snyder
Background: Recently resigned from the Rhode Island Supreme Court after
eight years of service as an associate justice with the state’s highest appellate
court.
Education: Received degree from Harvard Law School in 1974. Completed
undergraduate work at Brown University as an English and American literature
major.
Residence: East Greenwich
Age: 55
After serving as an associate justice with the Rhode Island Supreme Court
since 1996, Robert G. Flanders Jr. decided to return to where he first made
his name in the state’s legal system, handling corporate, government and business
litigation matters in private practice. He joined the Providence office of Hinckley
Allen & Snyder on Sept. 1. Flanders will also teach constitutional law as
a distinguished visiting professor at Roger Williams University Law School and
as an assistant professor in Brown University’s department of law and public
policy this fall.
Prior to his time on the bench, Flanders established his own firm, Flanders + Medeiros Inc., from June 1987 to March 1996, after spending the previous dozen years as partner at Providence-based Edwards & Angell, where he served as chairman of the firm’s litigation department. He and his wife, Ann, have three children.
PBN: What led to your decision to step down from the state Supreme Court?
FLANDERS: Well, I had completed eight and a half years on the Supreme Court and it was a time in my life that I decided if I could do anything else, other than serve as a Supreme Court judge for the rest of my life, that it was time for me to consider what else I might want to do. And so, in thinking about that, I enjoy practicing law. I was a lawyer here (in Rhode Island) for over 20 years and always enjoyed legal practice and I also wanted to do some teaching, constitutional law in particular.
Q. Why join Hinckley Allen, as opposed to going out on your own again?
A. Well, first of all, Hinckley Allen’s a top-flight firm, they’ve got really top legal personnel here in all kinds of legal specialties, and I’ve long known and admired the quality of the work they do and the type of lawyers they have here. So that’s one major reason. … As far as going out on my own, right now, I have no clients, or very few to speak of, hopefully the phone will ring. But working with a major firm like Hinckley Allen gives me an opportunity to work with existing clients of the firm as well as develop my own clients.
Q. After your tenure on the bench, do you have a better appreciation for lawyers?
A. No question about it, I think it’s very difficult work at both ends because you have a limited amount of time to persuade people. Judges are very busy people and you have to get to the heart of the matter as quickly as possible and the best lawyers are able to persuade the judges by being direct and focusing right in on the issues of the case and helping the court resolve the issues as best they can. And, obviously, they try to do it in the favor of their client, but the best lawyers are those who really act in a way that suggests they’re helping the court reach the proper result in a case.
Q. What was the one thing that convinced you to keep on with the demanding schedule of a lawyer in private practice?
A. I think it’s the contact with people and the wonderful feeling that a lawyer gets when he’s able to help somebody through a time of crisis in their life, or their business, and put things on a better plane for them. That’s a great feeling, helping other people, and while judges do that indirectly, hopefully by the quality of their work, lawyers can have a direct impact on people’s lives through helping them through difficult periods.
Q. Do you think everybody in Rhode Island gets a fair shake in the court system?
A. I’d like to think so. Obviously, we can always improve the quality of the legal representation we give, particularly at the lower ends where we want to make sure that everybody has the opportunity for legal representation. One of the trends today, that is observable from the judicial side, is that more and more people are choosing to represent themselves, perhaps out of economic reasons, but it’s a phenomenon in many ways that I don’t think is a healthy one. I don’t think people are particularly well served when they try to represent themselves. I think it’s important that the Bar Association and the courts try to do everything they can to make legal representation affordable and available to as many people as possible.
Q. While sitting on the bench, what were some of the more interesting cases that came before you?
A. The most interesting cases for me were in the area of constitutional law, which is the subject I’ll be teaching. The cases having to do with the separation of powers in Rhode Island, with victims’ rights, with the rights of defendants to have a lawyer and to serve as their own lawyer. These are examples of the kinds of cases where there’s a clash between what the Constitution seems to require and the practical difficulties of affording people those rights.
Q. I know you’ve published law articles on the importance of dissent opinions. Did you write a lot?
A. I think compared to other judges who have served on that court, I did. But it was less than 5 percent of the cases we handled, so in the big picture, it wasn’t a lot of dissents and certainly many less dissents than someone like a John Paul Stevens – who serves on the U.S. Supreme Court – would write. But for Rhode Island, it seemed to be more dissents than was customary. I thought it was a healthy thing, I think it improved the quality of the work on the court, because sometimes dissents never get published and they have an effect on the majority opinion, or even become the majority opinion, so it’s something that the public never sees but I think it adds to the overall quality of the work that the court does.
Q. You also taught while you were on the court.
A. The first year I taught a course in Rhode Island practice, but I didn’t teach beyond that. The workload was more than I bargained for, my first full year as a judge; I found that I wrote 88 opinions. I used to blanch at the thought, as an undergraduate, of writing three papers during a term. … The job involved an incredible amount of writing, and not just writing, but writing in a way that could be cited as a precedent and be published and looked to in the future in similar cases. And so it was all-consuming in that sense.
Q. You do a lot of volunteer work with local health care groups. Do you have any thoughts on the state of the industry in Rhode Island?
A. I’m presently chairing a commission that is looking into the future of health care facilities in Rhode Island. … Health care is something that’s a major concern to all of us, it consumes a great percentage of our spendable income in dollars, both at the state level and in the private sector and it’s something that none of us can ignore. …
Q. Do you think changes to the health care industry are going to have to come through legislation?
A. I think that’s part of the answer, because I think that health care is a very regulated area right now. And one of the issues that needed to be looked at and has been looked at is to what extent does legislation or end regulations influence the health care system here for good or for ill? If there are changes that need to be made, for example, in the reimbursement system, that are not going to happen through the competitive process, then it seems to me the only option is to look at what changes can be made in the law through the statutes or regulations that might improve the situation.
Q. In terms of the state’s court system, what could be changed for the better?
A. I think the judicial system is in good shape in terms of the quality of the people, and not just the judges. I’ve been impressed with the other people that I’ve worked with. … What I would say is that the court should continue to move toward becoming more user-friendly. More a system that can relate to people who, for example, don’t speak English as a first language, continue to reach out to those who may perceive that it’s difficult to obtain justice in a system that you don’t understand. … As our community becomes more and more diverse, I think it’s incredibly important for the courts to reach out to those people and to be judged, in many ways, by how well they served the least advantaged people in our community.
Q. Your resume mentions you spent a couple years playing minor league baseball for the Detroit Tigers. Growing up, did you want to be a baseball player or a lawyer?
A. There’s no question I wanted to be a baseball player. And if I didn’t hit .238 as a minor leaguer maybe I would have gone that route instead of deciding to become a trial lawyer. But what I’ve found about litigation and trial practice is that it’s very much like sports because it’s preparation, it’s winning, it’s losing, it’s very competitive.
