LT: I am from New Orleans. I went to Redemptorist High School in New Orleans, one year of college and a little business school. That is my formal education. I have been with the Federal court system since 1966. I started with the 5th Circuit in October 1966.

LT: Yes, Federal 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. It was down at the old Wildlife and Fisheries building, which is now the State Supreme Court’s courthouse in the French Quarter.

LT: Twenty-one. I had gotten out of high school and had some other jobs, and I answered an ad the 5th Circuit put in the newspaper. I don’t recall what position they were trying to fill, but I went over there and interviewed. I told them that I could not take less than $400 a month. They hired me.

LT: I was a file clerk in the clerk’s office. I started as a file clerk, then became a docket clerk. I would travel to different states in the 5th Circuit. At that time we had Louisiana, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas and Georgia. I would travel three to four weeks out of the year to open up court. It was a one-week session in each area. I would travel with the records and everything else we needed. I’d open the office of the court, attend court while court was going on and pack it all up when we were done and ship it back.

LT: The weekend before we would send all the records and whatever else we needed to open the office and court for the week in a huge trunk to the courthouse.

LT: Yes. One of the other guys and I would go up. He would be the crier and I would be the clerk, and then we would just open an office up there, be in court for the arguments, shut it down and send everything back.

LT: When I returned to the office, I would resume my docket clerk duties.

LT: At that time the clerk’s office had six people, not including me.

ATB: That was all of the employees at the 5th Circuit Clerk’s office in 1970?

LT: Right. Maybe one or two more, but I think that is it.

LT: The only ones that had offices in New Orleans at that time were Judge Wisdom and Judge Ainsworth.

LT: Yes, I finished my tenure with the 5th Circuit in the Wildlife and Fisheries building. How I got up here was that the district court in New Orleans was looking for someone to come up to the Baton Rouge Clerk’s office. At that time Baton Rouge was a division of the Eastern District of Louisiana. I came in June of 1971. The Eastern District Clerk’s office offered the position to their staff, but no one wanted to transfer to Baton Rouge. So they came to the 5th Circuit and asked if anyone would be interested in the position. I was a friend of the clerk for the 5th Circuit. He told me about it, and I agreed to come to Baton Rouge. At that time the Baton Rouge office consisted of one judge, Chief Judge West, and two staff members, Charles Banta, who was the deputy in charge, and Mary Ann Sanford, a deputy clerk.

LT: Yes. New Orleans was the Eastern District with one divisional office and Shreveport was the Western District with several divisional offices. Baton Rouge was called the Baton Rouge Division of the Eastern District of Louisiana. The unique thing was that Judge West was the Chief Judge of the Eastern District, but he was stationed in Baton Rouge. Most of the court operations were performed in New Orleans.

LT: We were in the old building, which faces Florida Street, currently housing the Bankruptcy Court. Our office was on the 3rd Floor in the space the public defender now occupies. Judge West was on the 2nd Floor, which is now the bankruptcy court.

LT: Deputy Clerk. I was still employed by the 5th Circuit and was called a "Special Deputy" for the Eastern District.

LT: Well, it happened so fast. The Clerk was then Ben Reisch. He brought me to Baton Rouge in his motor home and I met Mr. Banta and Judge West. They hired me with the title of Special Deputy to the Eastern District of Louisiana. Before moving to Baton Rouge, I commuted from New Orleans to Baton Rouge for 30 days. I cannot remember the reasons, but for a period of time I was still officially with the 5th Circuit but worked for the Eastern District as a special deputy. I was with the Eastern District for about six months and then they created the Middle District on April 16, 1972.

LT: So then they created the Middle District and with that, they created the U.S. Attorney’s office and then the Clerk of Court for the Middle District. The U.S. Attorney had maintained a one-man skeleton crew in Baton Rouge prior to the creation of the Middle District.

LT: Correct, Judge West. Judge Frank Polozola became a Magistrate Judge. So you had Judge West and one Magistrate Judge. When Judge West took senior status, Judge Parker was appointed to the open judgeship. Then the second judgeship was created, and Judge Polozola was appointed to that judgeship.

LT: Hubert Banta. He was the Deputy in charge of the Baton Rouge Division prior to the creation of the Middle District. The first Chief Deputy was Mary Ann Sanford. I think the first U.S. Attorney was Doug Gonzales.

LT: We were on the 3rd floor of the old building in a corner. When I started working, we had the Border Patrol, Naval recruiting, ATF, FBI, GSA, U.S. Marshal, Probation and one or two other agencies all located in the courthouse. That is how small we were. As we grew, we eventually took over the whole building. Bob Sibille was the first Probation Officer. The first Marshal was Tom Grace.

LT: They eventually left and the whole building was ours. Bankruptcy moved to the old movie theater on Fourth Street.

LT: Oh, yes. Like I said, everybody was scattered out, so they wanted to bring everybody back together. The Bankruptcy Court would take the old building.

LT: I came to the Middle District as a deputy clerk whose main duty was filing and eventually performed duties dealing with financial and jury. You name it, I did it. I even cleaned toilets. Then I became Courtroom Deputy to Judge West. What the Courtroom Deputy does is maintain the Judge’s docket. He makes sure the motions go through and that cases are not being left behind. It’s an administrative position. I was with Judge West until he took senior status. When Judge John Parker came on, Nick Lorio was his courtroom deputy. Then Judge Polozola came on and I became his courtroom deputy and still went into court for Judge West. I was with Judge Polozola for about 10 years. When Mary Ann Sanford retired, I took her place as Chief Deputy. I served as Chief Deputy for about 10 years. Mr. Banta retired as Clerk and Mr. Lee Dupuis became the Clerk. When Mr. Dupuy retired, I became acting Clerk for a few months. Then Mr. Richard Martin was hired as Clerk. When he left I again became acting Clerk for about three months, and then the court appointed me the Clerk. I’ve been serving as clerk for about five years. I am working on my 39th year with the courts.

LT: Yes, married, I have five children, but I am too young to be a grandfather, so those are my son’s sons and my son’s daughters. I have four of those, two girls and two boys, and I have another son who just got married and his wife had two children, so I have those too. So there are six total.

LT: Forty years.

LT: Yes, we went to the same high school, Redemptorist, together.

LT: I lived off of Laurel and Webster, which is by Audubon Park. My grandfather owned a little bar and sandwich shop on Laurel and Webster called Chisel’s Original Poboy.

LT: My primary job is to manage the staff and work with the Judicial Officers. I have an excellent staff and, to be honest with you, I turn it over to them and let them do their job. I’m here if they have questions or need a decision on some issues. I have 28 people. Donna Gregory is my Chief Deputy, and she manages the daily operations of the office. Nick Lorio is my Courtroom Deputy/Court Reporter Supervisor and Pam Hancock is my Docket Clerk Supervisor. Nick used to be Courtroom Deputy for Judge Parker. Now he is Courtroom Deputy for Judge Ralph Tyson. Then we have two Intake Clerks. They are the people that meet y’all as you come into the office. They are the ones who set the tone in the office. The Intake Clerk position is one of the most important positions as far as meeting the public and the impressions the public has of the clerk’s office. We have four Courtroom Deputies for the Judges and three Courtroom Deputies for the Magistrate Judges, four docket clerks and one appeals clerk. Rhonda Martin is my Jury Administrator. We have two Procurement Officers, one for furniture and office supplies and one who handles the purchase of automation equipment and supplies. We have a total of five automation staff. Our Automation Manager is Jacques Vignes. We have a financial staff of three. The Financial Administrator is Dana Scott. Then I have the head of human resources, Tina Russell. Everyone is a Deputy Clerk.

LT: We really do. I am not saying we are perfect, but we do stress being nice. We know that the lawyers are our customers, so we strive to be nice. Sometimes we may get cross a little, but the majority of the time we try to be courteous. We stress the importance of being nice to people. If I would go out and hear someone being rude to someone, I would not tolerate it. Vice versa when someone comes in and is rude to my staff. I will deal with the problem. But we do stress service. I know that we can’t please everybody, but we hope to. They will answer some questions. I think the problem is that people get aggravated that we can’t practice law. Some people think that we can answer all of their questions.

LT: We are a automated court. When the Docket Clerks enter a pleading, it goes on to PACER. Every document we receive is scanned and can be viewed on PACER by attorneys and the public if they have signed up for PACER. We have just started e-mailing all orders and opinions to the attorneys who have signed up for e-mail noticing. This is going very well.

LT: I have had attorneys say that they hate coming to federal court. I tell them that it is very simple to get along in federal court. Know the rules, know your case and be prepared. If you follow those three, you will never have a problem in federal court. The only time I have seen attorneys get in trouble is when they were not prepared and didn’t know what they were doing. Know the rules, know the case and be prepared. That will make it a lot easier for everybody. It is that simple.

LT: My direct boss is the Chief Judge. I guess technically he is my supervisor. I was appointed by a majority vote. We had two judges at the time and they both voted for me. I really have three District Judge bosses, one Senior Judge boss and three Magistrate Judge bosses. I am working for all of the judges.