A Houston judge was suspended from her job on Friday amid accusations that she solicited prostitutes, sexted from the bench, and used her bailiff to buy drugs.

Hillary Green, who has been a judge since 2007, presided over misdemeanors, traffic cases, and civil suits for Harris County Precinct 7. Her lawyer called the decision “frustrating and surprising” in addition to arguing that many of the accusations were already public when Green was reelected with 86 percent of the vote.

She will remain suspended until a civil trial is held to make a final decision, but her lawyer said that trial could be years down the line and another judge is already slated to replace her, according to the Washington Post.

Accusations against Green first arose during her divorce from Houston Controller Ronald C. Green in 2015. It was at that point that Green said his now ex-wife “operates daily with impaired judgment as evidenced by her presiding over cases in which she has ongoing sexual relationships with litigants and witnesses,” according to the Houston Press.

Suspicions rose further when Claude Barnes, who Green admits she had an affair with for many years, came forward with allegations regarding drug use and hiring prostitutes for threesomes.

“The three of us sat,” Barnes said. “We smoked marijuana. We had a couple drinks and then three of us had sex.”

These accusations led the Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct to file its first formal inquiry into the Houston judge’s behavior, an investigation that culminated in a 316-page recommendation to suspend her that was released this year. Executive Director Eric Vinson said that the commission has been investigating Green for almost four years and that in his decade in that role he has never seen a judge contest proceedings this strongly, according to the Houston Press.

The commission took note of Green’s inability to change her behavior over a five-year span and called out Green’s “outright betrayal of the public’s trust” in the report.

Other stories allege Green and Barnes smoked marijuana that was confiscated from a citizen, bought cough syrup from a drug dealer named “lover boy,” and that she texted her bailiff about explicit sexual acts that she would perform with him later.

Green admitted to buying $500 worth of cough syrup and smoking marijuana daily, but denied hiring prostitutes. In addition to smoking weed and drinking the syrup, she and Barnes took ecstasy on multiple occasions, but Green denies paying for it. So, even though she was sentencing people for committing minor drug offenses, Green frequently undertook similar behavior, according to the report’s findings.

Disgusted with her behavior, the commission asked the Texas Supreme Court to suspend Green while officials prepared their case to permanently remove her. The state bar wrote in May:

To this day, Judge Green has apparently made no attempt to reassign the bailiff with whom she actively participated in an inappropriate sexual texting relation and whom she recruited to assist in illegal drug activity. She engaged the services of a peace officer to commit a criminal act, and indeed he was apparently willing to do so. Incredibly, Judge Green sees nothing wrong with the arrangement.

Green and her lawyers countered that the allegations are the result of a bitter divorce and that Ronald Green could have stolen her phone and sent some of those text messages. They also argue that the accusations were improperly filed, creating a bureaucratic legal issue. Still, there is already ample evidence that the judge crossed several lines.

Even if some of the allegations aren’t true, Green has already admitted to multiple acts that would break the Code of Conduct for United States Judges. The code explicitly states that appropriate action must be taken if a judge is impaired by drugs and that judges must maintain professional relationships with their staff.

Though Green’s civil trial is over a year away, she will almost surely not be reinstated from her suspension with the concrete evidence the bar association already has. Green, who was once part of a powerful political marriage with Ronald, has now had a meteoric fall from grace.

Josh Schmidt

Josh Schmidt is an editorial intern and is a native of the Washington D.C Metropolitan area. He is working towards a degree in multi-platform journalism with a minor in history at nearby University of Maryland. Contact Josh at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Professor Jon Hanson of Harvard Law School has set out to change the way law is taught. This spring, the professor welcomed roughly 50 students into the inaugural Systemic Justice class at Harvard Law. The class will teach students to examine the common causes of injustice in history and explore ways to use law and activism to make positive changes.

From the first day of the term, it became clear to students that the new class was unique. Referring to the students in the class as a “community,” Professor Hanson came across lighthearted and funny, cracking jokes and even asking the class to come up with a name for said “community.” He said to students on the first day of class: “None of us really knows what ‘systemic justice’ is—yet you’re all here.”

Traditionally, law students enter law school expecting to master existing law and to learn how to apply those laws to jobs as attorneys. However, a survey revealed that students are actually most concerned with big, unsolved social issues–which is where this class comes in. Students believe that law is part of the issue when looking at social problems such as climate change, income inequality, and racial bias in policing. The goal of this class is to introduce a new approach to examining and dealing with these issues.

This class is just one facet of a new Systemic Justice Project at Harvard, which is led by Professor Hanson and recent law school graduate Jacob Lipton. The project arose out of a growing recognition that law students need to be trained to be problem solvers and policy makers. Another part of the program is a class called the Justice Lab, which is a think tank style class designed to ask students to analyze systemic societal problems and propose solutions from a legal perspective. In April, students from both classes will attend a conference alongside experts to discuss their findings.

In some ways, this project is part of a widespread effort to introduce a greater policy focus into law schools. For example, Stanford Law School recently launched a Law and Policy Lab that tasks students with finding policy solutions to real-world problems. After graduation, many former law students will go on to become policy makers, judges, politicians, and organizational leaders. According to Sergio Campos, a law professor at the University of Miami and a visiting professor at Harvard, those lawyers could be in trouble if they do not develop a background on policy during their time in law school. He worries that for those students,  “when you get to a position where you can change the law, you don’t have a background on policy and what it should be.”

The program has already gained popularity with students at Harvard who are, or desire to be, active in fighting for social causes. However, not all law students are interested in learning about policy–some just want to learn about existing law, and that’s fine too. This project is designed to be a way to extend a traditional legal education, not replace it. Even so, participating in a class such as the Systemic Justice class can give law students a new and valuable perspective that will strengthen their overall legal education.

Brittany Alzfan

Brittany Alzfan is a student at the George Washington University majoring in Criminal Justice. She was a member of Law Street’s founding Law School Rankings team during the summer of 2014. Contact Brittany at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Judges are supposed to be the good guys, the gatekeepers of justice, and the people that we turn to make sure that justice is served. But sometimes judges deserve some judgment themselves. They act inappropriately and do really stupid stuff. So here are the top nine biggest WTF things judges have done in recent years.

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Anneliese Mahoney (@AMahoney8672) is Lead Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

Featured image courtesy of [Andy Pixel via Flickr]

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Top WTF Moments By Judges appeared first on Law Street.

As a young woman, I have been inundated with advice on how to dress myself appropriately for a professional situation for years now. My first introduction to professional dress was in high school when I did Model UN. We competed at tournaments around the East Coast a few times a year, and every time we were told to wear “Western Business Attire.” For boys, that was easy. They had to wear khakis or suit pants with a button down and tie, with maybe a sports jacket. But for us girls, it was different. The guidelines were clear, but finding clothes that were appropriate and still cute were difficult. We occasionally got in trouble for wearing skirts that were too tight or short, but we still talked about other girls’ inappropriate club-like dresses with a certain sense of satisfaction.

In college, it got even worse. I compete in intercollegiate mock trial, where formality is even more intense. Girls wear suits in grey, black, or navy; collared shirts; conservative heels; and pantyhose. I make younger members of my team show me their outfits before we compete. I do this because I have received comments about my appearance before — my skirts are too short, or my sleeves are too long, or I chose the wrong color blouse.

And as it turns out, the pressure doesn’t change when you make it into the legal profession, because we hear things about women needing to dress more appropriately for court all the damn time.

A few weeks ago, Loyola Law School sent out a memo about female students dressing appropriately at their jobs or internships. The school’s externship director wrote, “I really don’t need to mention that cleavage and stiletto heels are not appropriate office wear (outside of ridiculous lawyer TV shows), do I? Yet I’m getting complaints from supervisors.” Last fall, law firm Clifford Chance sent out a lovely memo detailing how exactly women should dress — and act, and speak, and breathe, but that’s besides the point. (If you missed it, by the way, definitely read Hannah Winsten’s takedown on that memo.) Some of the tips were real winners: “Understated jewelry, nothing jingly or clanky.” “Don’t dress like a mortician: if wearing a black suit, wear something bright.” “If wearing a scarf, make sure it stays tied.”

These are by no means isolated incidents. In fact they’re more common than you probably think. And they’ve once again started a debate about what female lawyers should be wearing, who is allowed to comment on their dress, and why we care. So as someone who someday hopes to be a female lawyer, here are three things I think we all need to keep in mind.

3. ‘Lady in the streets, freak in the sheets,’ anyone? 

This entire thing reminds me of that saying, because that’s what women are taught. Women are expected to dress conservatively in the courtroom, but still retain femininity. They’re expected to be professional in the work place, but not dress too masculine — after all pantsuits have only become acceptable for women in the last couple decades. Think about how women and men dress up throughout their young lives in Western culture. Little boys wear little suits to say, a cousin’s wedding. Girls wear puffy, pink frocks. Young men wear nice suits or tuxes to prom. Girls wear ball gowns. Men wear tuxes to their wedding. Women wear gigantic white dresses.

For every single part of our lives, we’re taught that different things are acceptable, while men wear essentially variations on the exact same outfit. And that’s because women are taught that their roles are different at each of those events. At prom, be a princess. At your wedding, be a pure virgin. In court, be strong and masculine.

2. Pop culture and societal pressure.

Think about youngish female lawyers on TV and in movies. They’re all gorgeous. We have Reese Witherspoon’s immortalized portrayal of Elle Woods in Legally Blonde. Casey Novak, played by Diane Neal on Law & Order: SVU. Calista Flockhart’s Ally McBeal.

The only way female lawyers are ever portrayed otherwise is the sort of elder stateswoman type, but still incredibly attractive. Think Diane Lockhart in The Good Wife, for example.

Now, it is pretty fair to say that everyone on TV and in Hollywood is attractive. But the men on legal shows usually wear pretty basic suits. The women wear incredibly expensive and well tailored outfits, all beautifully put together. This just continues to propagate the issue of balance. Most women don’t look like the fictional lawyers we see on TV, and that’s completely okay. But that fine line between feminine and too sexy, or between professional and stuffy is not helped by the images of female lawyers in the media.

1. Apparently men can’t control themselves. 

Now, women should dress appropriately in the courtroom. There are  no ifs, ands, or buts about it. It takes some effort, but it’s not that hard. I absolutely judge grown women who cannot dress themselves appropriately. When you walk into a courtroom, you need to impress the judge, and you need to impress the jury. But judges are mostly men — women usually make up roughly 1/3 of the bench. But one of the big issues, as XoJane points out, is that women’s clothing in the courtroom is not standardized the way men’s suits are. Every judge has a preference: “Some never want to see pants, for example, while others abhor specific hemlines or colors.”

And some of these male judges say BS, like District Judge Richard Kopf. He recently published a blog post in which he described how he leers at one of the attractive young women around the courthouse, and suggested, “You can’t win. Men are both pigs and prudes. Get over it.”

I can win. I can look professional, despite all the ridiculous double standards that abound in women’s clothing choices. But that doesn’t mean that I have to get over the fact that I’m held to those double standards. Why do I have to accept that a male judge is either going to mock me for being too frumpy, or eye me for being too sexy? And, most importantly, why in this day and age do we focus more on how smart, capable women dress than what they say?

So new rule, everyone. Let’s all dress appropriately…and all treat each other like respectable human beings. Deal?

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Anneliese Mahoney (@AMahoney8672) is Lead Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

Featured image courtesy of [Martijn Schornagel via Flickr]

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Three Reasons to STFU About Female Lawyers’ Clothes appeared first on Law Street.