AMARILLO, Texas (AP) - It was more than 80 years ago, but Mary Lou Robinson still remembers one of the events that set her on a path to becoming a lawyer.
A young girl she went to school with was not allowed to attend classes after she refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance out of religious reservations.
An outraged Robinson wished that something would be done to help the girl.
“It seemed to me that when things were really wrong in the world, that law was what changed it and that lawyers were the ones that motivated the changes,” she said.
Robinson, now 89, is in the twilight of a six-decade career as an Amarillo judge that has been capped off with a more than 35-year run as U.S. district judge for the Northern District of Texas.
On Wednesday, Robinson assumed senior status, a form of semi-retirement where judges may work a lighter caseload while still drawing salary.
“After 60 years as a judge, you’re willing to do a little less,” she told the Amarillo Globe-News (https://bit.ly/1PB2j3Q), “but I’m still working.”
Robinson was born in 1926 in Dodge City, Kan. Her family moved to Amarillo when she was 6 and just beginning grade school.
Encouraged by her mother, post office supervisor Frances Aynn Strueber, Robinson’s goal was to be the first person in her family to earn a college degree.
She graduated from Amarillo High School in 1944 and Amarillo College two years later, where she is recognized as a distinguished alumna.
After that, Robinson earned an economics degree in 1948 from the University of Texas and a law degree from the University of Texas School of Law in 1950.
She was one of six women in her graduating class at law school. Today, women make up nearly half of the school’s graduating class in any given year.
She married A.J. Robinson, who died in 1992, while still enrolled in school, and together they started a practice in Austin called Robinson and Robinson.
After graduating from law school, she and her husband moved to Amarillo and continued their practice.
Doors started opening up in front of her after that, she said.
The first opened in 1955, when Potter County Commissioners’ Court named her judge of the newly created Potter County Court at Law. Robinson, 28 at the time, became the first woman to serve as a judge of a court higher than a justice of the peace court in Amarillo’s history.
“When I was first a judge, women couldn’t serve on juries,” she said, recalling the many barriers that women faced.
Robinson, one of just two female lawyers in Amarillo, was keenly aware of her responsibility as a pioneering female judge.
“If I really fouled up, it wasn’t Mary Lou that fouled up,” she said. “It was women who couldn’t do the job.”
Robinson also had to juggle the needs of a family with her duty to the courts. She gave birth to daughter Rebecca in 1954 while working in private practice and Diana in 1957 while she was judge of the county court at law. A son, Matthew, followed three years later.
“She came home from work every night and cooked dinner for the family and was there to help drill us on multiplication tables and spelling,” said Diana Robinson, 58.
“It probably wasn’t until I was grown and had a family of my own that I could appreciate how much energy the woman had because she made it all look easy.”
In 1960, another door opened for Robinson. She was elected judge of the 108th District Court in Amarillo, and in 1973 she was appointed justice of the Seventh Court of Appeals in Amarillo, making her the first female appellate judge in Texas.
She was appointed chief justice of that court in 1977 and continued to serve in that capacity until 1979 when President Jimmy Carter nominated her to the federal bench, where she has remained ever since.
She became the second woman to serve as a U.S. district judge in Texas.
Sarah T. Hughes, who administered the U.S. presidential oath of office to Lyndon Johnson aboard Air Force One hours after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas, was the first. Kennedy appointed her in 1961.
Robinson’s appointment 18 years later was seen as a milestone for many.
“She is one of the women who really has paved the way for many, many others to see the potential to enter the legal profession,” said Darby Dickerson, dean of the Texas Tech University School of Law.
“Her success in the different roles that she has taken on helped people understand that women were very capable of holding these positions.”
Two words have defined Robinson during her distinguished career, friends and colleagues said. The first: “Stern.”
Come to court unprepared, speak out of turn or attempt to showboat for the jury and you can expect a swift reprimand from Robinson.
“I’ve seen her lower the temperature in the courtroom from 72 degrees to 32 degrees just with body language,” said Chuck Frease, Robinson’s briefing attorney for over 20 years. “It is scary.”
Amarillo lawyer Kelly Utsinger remembered a sense of “sheer terror” the first time he tried a case in front of Robinson.
“I’ve been in front of her a lot, and when I go over there, I still get sweaty palms,” said Utsinger, who has been practicing for more than 35 years.
Still, Robinson is a person of great compassion, Utsinger said. He recalled a time when he was notified during a cross-examination that his father had suffered a stroke.
Robinson shut the trial down for the afternoon and the next morning to allow Utsinger to be with his father, he said.
Melba Fenwick, Robinson’s longtime judicial paralegal, said of Robinson’s courtroom style, “It’s not personal. It’s business.”
Robinson sees her strict attitude in the court as a necessity.
“It’s a judge’s job to be firm, and people need to know where they stand and where they’re going,” Robinson said. “You’re not doing an attorney any favors when you’re wishy-washy.”
Another word that defines Robinson, and one she hopes to be remembered by, is “fair.”
“I’ve won a lot of cases and I’ve lost a lot of cases, and you always leave feeling like you’ve got a fair shake,” said Mark White, an Amarillo lawyer and former president of the Amarillo Area Bar Association.
Bonnie Gunden, a federal public defender who has been trying cases in front of Robinson since 1991, echoed the sentiment.
“She ran a tight ship,” Gunden said. “People always had a fair trial.”
Robinson’s two defining qualities were on full display during the most-watched event in her court, the 1998 Oprah Winfrey trial. Robinson said she regards it as the most sensational trial of her judgeship.
The six-week trial pitted the beef cattle industry against the media mogul. Beef producers claimed Winfrey made defamatory remarks linking mad cow disease with American beef during a 1995 episode of her television talk show. The remarks had a damaging effect on beef prices, the plaintiffs argued.
The trial thrust Amarillo and its veteran federal judge into the national spotlight. Mobs of national media members and celebrity chasers took up residence in front of the federal court building.
But Robinson ensured the mayhem stayed outside of her courtroom, issuing a broad gag order over all parties in the case, limiting the number of reporters who cover the case in person and holding only about 60 seats aside for the general public on a first-come, first-served basis.
“We weren’t too far removed from the O.J. Simpson trial, which was sort of criticized for having a circus-like atmosphere,” said Chip Babcock, an attorney who represented Winfrey.
“This trial was the antithesis of that. It was run with dignity. It was run with precision. We started on time, we ended on time, we took our breaks on time. The judge made timely rulings.
“It was a clinic on how you should run a federal courtroom.”
The trial concluded with Oprah triumphing over the cattle ranchers, and as the national camera crews packed up their gear and left town, Robinson continued doing what she had always done: Sternly but fairly running her federal courtroom.
With her transition into senior status, Robinson will not take any criminal cases for a while, but will still occupy her post on the second floor of the J. Marvin Jones Federal Building in Amarillo as she has for decades.
Her daughter, Diana Robinson, a lawyer in Dallas, has followed in her mother’s footsteps, a possibility in part because of her trailblazing mother and other women like her.
“With my mother as my role model, it didn’t ever seem like a challenge to me. I always knew it was an opportunity,” Diana Robinson said of her decision to pursue a law career.
Diana Robinson graduated from the same law school as her mother, albeit with many more women in the graduating class.
“I didn’t have to open any of those doors for myself. I didn’t have to crash through them,” she said.
“I’m tremendously proud of her and glad to be her daughter.”
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Information from: Amarillo Globe-News, https://www.amarillo.com
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