Sandvik has some advice; next judge takes some

Judge Ken Sandvik had his turn at passing down some knowledge to a judge-elect earlier this month. Mike Cuzzo visited Sandvik at the chambers in the Lake County Courthouse.

Sandvik said he offered some advice he received about a judge's work, a "Ten Commandments" to follow for the job. "Patience is one through eight," he said.

Cuzzo called Sandvik "gracious" in his advice. "He's gone out of his way," he said.

It was one of many chores for Sandvik as he wraps up 26 years on the bench. There are many files to go through and an office full of memories and knick-knacks.

Both men said the state does a much better job in getting incoming judges up to speed on the kind of work they will do than they did when Sandvik took the place of outgoing judge Walter Egeland in 1984.

"He left and that was it," Sandvik said.

He said the state provides "bench manuals" that will help Cuzzo get acclimated.

It's impossible for an attorney to have all the experience a judge needs, Sandvik said. And the trend is for attorneys to be specialized in the cases they do.

"People don't appreciate all that comes with being a judge," he said.

Cuzzo admits there are areas he will have to learn that aren't part of the general practice at his firm in Duluth. He plans to spend the first week of January sitting in and studying other district judge cases. The Lake and Cook county docket was cleared so he could take part in the "four-day training."

Cuzzo will be sworn in at the courthouse the morning of Jan. 3.

Sandvik said it will help that there is computer-

assisted legal research to fall back on. He said he has been helped over the years by getting advice from other cases so he wasn't "reinventing the wheel" when it came to decisions.

Cuzzo said he's prepared for what's ahead. "It's something I thought about before I entered the race," he said. "I thought long and hard about it."

Sandvik remembers his first cases in 1984 at court in Grand Marais. The first was for a man charged with entering a parade on his motorcycle without a permit. The second was someone charged with trying to flee to Canada after breaking into a park ranger's home. The third was a fight among family members over ownership of a stepladder. "I thought, 'Wow, the

variety,' " Sandvik said.

Today, Egeland is in Florida for the winter. He resigned from the bench because of injuries he suffered in a car accident. "Get into a good hobby," he said of retirement. "And keep busy at it." Egeland said he has done woodworking over the years. He warned that things get "very quiet" once you leave the bench. He was judge from 1952 to 1984.

Sandvik has several ideas of what he might do after Jan. 3. Probably none of it will include law work. "I have five grandkids and one on the way," he said. "There'll be no more Monday mornings."