Helen Toor, '82: Vermont Judges Talk Law, Fairness, and Being Female
Lady Justices: Four Vermont Judges Talk Law, Fairness and Being Female
Female judges enjoy a 3-2 majority on the Vermont Supreme Court. But their numerical advantage does not always translate to respect.
"I've seen male attorneys arguing [before] the Supreme Court mix up the female justices' names," said Deputy Defender General Anna Saxman, a prominent Vermont attorney. "And I have seen the female justices interrupted, shockingly.
"A lot of people are completely unaware that they do that," Saxman said of those who preempt the state's highest-ranking interpreters of the law. "I'm not unaware, and I'm guessing that the justices aren't unaware, either."
'Badass': Helen Toor
Judge Helen Toor has one of those eerily reasonable voices — as unflappable as Siri's, with a cheerful lilt. She could tell you to saw off your own hand with a Swiss Army knife and make it sound like a logical, even delightful, proposition. In a courtroom filled with unhappy litigants, this soothing-but-not-wimpish tone can make all the difference in the world.
Toor, a Vermont superior court judge serving a one-year rotation in Chittenden County, has a reputation for being cool as a cucumber, which you need only google her name to observe. "Judge vs. angry plaintiff," a YouTube video with more than 70,000 views, shows her in classic form, calmly explaining to said angry plaintiff that the fact that he hadn't eaten since 5 p.m. the previous evening did not constitute sufficient grounds to delay his trial.
"She's very even-keeled in the courtroom — balanced and fair, but not robotic," said Stacy Graczyk, an Addison County prosecutor who tried her first case before Toor in 2012. "She can be really tough, but she's also really compassionate."
Ashley Hill, a deputy state's attorney in Washington County, has a phrase for Toor's tough-but-compassionate demeanor: "She swore me in in Addison County in 2013, and afterward, I think I described her as a 'badass,'" Hill recalled. "She's probably one of the smartest people I've ever met. She's always straightforward and transparent, which isn't necessarily the case with all judges."
Toor, 62, grew up in Pittsburgh, the daughter of über-academics: Her father, who passed away in 2011, was the dean of Carnegie Mellon's College of Engineering; her mother, 91, holds a PhD in chemistry.
"My parents raised me and my two brothers to believe that we could do pretty much anything," Toor said last week in her chambers in the Chittenden County Superior Courthouse, after presiding over a docket of relatively ho-hum debt hearings. "Having a really strong mother, I guess I was somewhat oblivious to the fact that there might be barriers."
Growing up, Toor breezed through high school and graduated at age 15. She considered not going to college, but working late-night shifts at a Pittsburgh pizza joint convinced her of the merits of higher ed. ("Talk about sexual harassment," she said, rolling her eyes.)
She enrolled at Chatham College, now Chatham University, then an all-women's school in Pittsburgh that counts environmentalist Rachel Carson among its alumnae. Toor, an aspiring naturalist, left after a year to attend the University of Vermont, where an environmental law course sparked her interest in the legal profession. After graduating in 1978, she went to the University of Chicago Law School, forearms nicely toned from a summer job scooping ice cream at the original Ben & Jerry's shop in Burlington.
Back then, reminisced Toor, it was big news when the Chicago Law School hired its first female professor, and her class was a little more than one-third women. Still, Toor insisted that she almost never felt outnumbered or underestimated. At the New York City firm where she got her first job out of law school, one client didn't take particularly well to being represented by a woman — "but he came around when I pointed out that I was keeping him out of jail," she said.
That job did have an unexpected perk: The firm, Rosenman & Colin, was involved in a dispute between the band Kiss and its record label, and Toor got to see an unpainted, button-down-clad Gene Simmons in a courtroom.
Toor practiced for about seven years in NYC, including two years in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan, but she always had her heart set on returning to Vermont. In 1989, she landed a job as chief of the civil division for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Vermont. After she spent 10 years in that post, then-governor Howard Dean appointed her a superior court judge.
Toor's specialty is civil cases, which tend to involve more outside-the-courtroom homework than criminal cases. She loves the quiet, scholarly stuff — the reading, analysis and writing. She's not one to shoot from the hip; when in doubt, she said, she takes the time to write a decision.
Toor may be the cerebral type, but she's far from cold-blooded: Graczyk remembers seeing her well up during a sexual assault trial as the victims testified. When people who aren't attorneys represent themselves, Toor makes sure they understand what's going on.
"It's hard to watch a lawyer on one side and someone without a lawyer on the other, who might not really understand the issues or how to present their case," she said.
In 2014, with the help of Law Line of Vermont, Toor established a program in Chittenden County to connect people facing eviction with pro bono attorneys. Since its inception, the clinic has been replicated in Addison, Rutland and Washington counties, and plans are in the works to expand to the St. Johnsbury area. Angele Court, director of the Vermont Volunteer Lawyers Project, estimates that in Chittenden County alone, the program has helped more than 100 clients this year.
"Judge Toor has high expectations of the legal system," said Court. "She really values integrity and wants to make sure everyone has access to the courts in a fair way."
Toor acknowledged that her advocacy of the pro bono clinic has led some people to claim that she's biased in favor of tenants. In her view, she's just trying to make the whole process more equitable.
"The system favors people who can hire legal representation," she said. "I'm simply trying to level the playing field a bit."
Last week, Toor presided over a debt case in which the defendant, a young woman representing herself, seemed willing to accept the terms of a repayment deal. During the hearing, Toor addressed her directly.
"Do you understand what you're agreeing to?" she asked, smiling wryly. "Sometimes, lawyers use a lot of words to say something simple."
— C.E.
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