In the morning, the Casic interns, Carrie, and I headed over to the United States District Courts. It was a huge building that I never got to clearly look at. Inside the building, it was dim and quiet. We walked into the elevator (rather, a “car”) and headed up to Judge Lew’s chamber. When we entered the chamber, we were met with a large painted portrait of Judge Lew. The portrait looked old-fashioned, something we rarely see in the technological age. Then we sat down with the Judge and introduced ourselves.

Meeting Judge Lew for the first time, I felt scared. He is such a powerful man. He began to talk about how he always worked to give back to the community and his journey of becoming a Federal Judge as one of the first Asian Americans. He told us judges must be impartial. Being an Asian American did not matter – it was about your qualifications. Judge Lew is very admirable and wise. He really thought about his answers and even was funny about some of the answers.

He cared about the laws a lot, and despite his own feelings, would judge with what the law says. One important point he made was that as a judge, you are in a sterile environment. You cannot allow your own personal feelings distract you when debating on a case. Knowing that, I respect Judge Lew a lot for being able to separate his feelings out of the courtroom. Being a judge seems harder than I thought. Meeting with Judge Lew has given me a different perspective on what a judge has to do.

After our questions and answers session, we were luckily given a tour of Judge Lew's chamber. It was bigger than I had imagined. One of the interesting parts of the Judge's chamber is his section of souvenirs. He had so many little objects placed neatly on the shelves, such as a stuffed eagle. Judge Lew told us they were all from his travels. We moved to other parts of the room such as the break room, interview room where there were tons of books that were bigger than a dictionaries, and the detainee room. Finally, we moved to the court room. It was my first time in a courtroom and it looked awfully intimidating.

In the end, we took a group picture with Judge Lew. We bid goodbye and thanked him for his time. Overall, the meeting with Judge Lew was fascinating and will be remembered for a long time.


CASIC Interns with Judge Lew