SESG Attorney Appointed to Maine District Court Bench

John O'Neil: Saco Attorney Selected from Pool of 215 to be One of Five District Court Judges.

By: Chris Flood

Staff Writer

Source: Biddeford-Saco-OOB Courier

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Page: 10

 

Recent press coverage of Maine Gov. John Baldacci would have you believe he’s only been involved with trying to save the state money, which has resulted in the cutting of hundreds of – what were previously considered useful – state government jobs.

 

But a closer look at Baldacci’s recent agenda would show he’s been busy doing other things like, and perhaps just as important as cutting back on unneeded government jobs, appointing five new District Court Judges to the state’s court system.

 

Which is where John O’Neil, an Old Orchard Beach High School graduate class of 1979, a trial lawyer and partner at the Saco and Portland-based Smith Elliott Smith & Garmey law firm (since 1991), and currently a Kennebunk resident, will be for the next seven years.

 

“I’m pretty excited to be able to focus on working with the law again, which is what someone gets into this line of work to do,” say O’Neil. “With all of the business that comes with being a lawyer today, you don’t always get to be able to help affect people. I’m looking forward to being able to devote all of my time to that.”

 

For those who aren’t familiar with how the courts system works in Maine, it could be compared to a three-legged stool. One leg is the Supreme Judicial Court, which is the court of final appeal. This court hears appeals of family, civil, and criminal cases from the two other courts. The second leg of the stool is the Superior Court, which has exclusive jurisdiction over all criminal and civil matters that are not the exclusive jurisdiction of the District Court (it’s also the only court where there’s a jury during trial), our final leg of the stool. District Court has a few different roles. It hears civil and criminal matters; divorce and family matters (such as child support and paternity cases); child protection cases and serves as Maine’s juvenile court.

 

O’Neil began his legal career as an assistant to the District Attorney in York County after graduating with a law degree from Suffolk University, which is located in Boston (he has a BA in mathematics from Boston College).

 

“When looking for a job after law school, I thought that working with the district attorney seemed pretty cool. You only got paid $18,000, but I had the opportunity to do 30 jury trials in my first year,” says O’Neil. “If you get a job in the private sector, you average about two trials a year. In some of those places you can’t even send a letter with your name on it without be being read by a partner first. I didn’t want that.”

 

After his job with the district attorney, O’Neil moved into the private sector where he tried complicated civil cases dealing with medical malpractice and sophisticated personal injury work.

 

“Lawyers, who get into this sector tend not to become judges. It’s pretty lucrative, so financially it’s not easy to walk away from,” he says, adding, “But I enjoyed my time when I worked with the DA. I enjoyed being in court, working with the victims and doing good things everyday.”

 

What O’Neil, a year-round surfer and member of three hockey teams, also enjoys is sports, which he used as a way for him to perform better in court and soon will use behind the bench.

 

“There’s the competition in both of them. If you like sports, there’s a real easy cross over area,” he says. “Trying a case is a lot like playing a sport, you’re trying to win in both.”

 

O’Neil admits there are a lot of different ways to learn how to be competitive, but for him sports was what taught him how to be competitive with another person and still respect them in the end.

 

“When you’re dealing with other attorneys, it’s like having sportsmanship. There are two sides to a fight, with each one trying their best to point out the weaknesses of the other with the hopes of coming to the truth in the end,” says O’Neil. “But, just like in sports, after you compete with somebody, you shake their hand in the end. It’s like that cartoon where a cat and dog ride together to work. When the bell goes off the dog chases the cat for eight hours, but at the end of the day they get back in the car together.”

 

Besides the competitive aspect, O’Neil feels playing on his sports teams will help him in at least one other way. He feels he’s a pretty regular guy.

 

“When the guys on my team found out about this, some of them didn’t even know I was an attorney,” he says. “I think it’ll be important that I don’t come across as a high-powered attorney who became a judge. If you can’t talk to people on a normal level, it’s easy for them to lose respect for the law.”

 

The process of becoming a judge is similar to applying for any other job. Once you have what you feel is the proper amount of experience, you put that along with a list of your accomplishments in with the state. The one big difference is that you never know when it’s going to happen, which is why when he first applied for the appointment four years ago, he put it out of his mind.

 

“I didn’t hear anything,” he says. “This has come as a complete shock to me. It wasn’t something I could plan for – it just happened. There was no upside to thinking about it.”

 

The magnitude of dealing with such sensitive issues like divorce and child protection isn’t lost on O’Neil, and he’ll draw on the experiences of his past civil trials to help with those.

 

“District court can be real emotional, especially when you’re dealing with divorce or eviction,” he says. “Most of the time I was dealing with tragic events, which allowed me to learn how to deal with peoples emotions.”

 

All that being said, O’Neil is still going to have some jitters when he gets behind the bench for the first time.

 

“I’m really excited, but slightly apprehensive of the responsibility of doing a good job. The responsibility is pretty overwhelming,” says O’Neil, who’s been asking for advice from his colleagues. “I was talking with Dan Wathen, former Chief Justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, and he said in most of the cases you’re going to know the answer pretty quickly. It’s those other few cases where you have to do your best, make a responsible decision and hope for the best.”