Ever since he enrolled in law school, David Pepper, candidate for a Kings County Civil Court bench seat, has been completely immersing himself in the world of law, both national and local, and both criminal and civil.
His decades of experience have imbued him with a sophisticated understanding of how law affects us. If elected, he pledges to use his knowledge to navigate the uninformed and the underprivileged through the tumultuous legal system.
Pepper, by his own account, had a happy, active childhood. He loved school, and engaged in several extracurricular activities, ranging from sports to theater. From his mother, he inherited a love of reading and a thirst for knowledge, and from his father, a sense of diligence and a strong work ethic.
Pepper attended university at SUNY Binghamton, and graduated on the Dean’s List. During his undergraduate years, Pepper developed an interest in social justice and got involved with civil rights and women’s liberation groups on campus.
A few years afterward, he enrolled in Brooklyn Law School and graduated cum laude, in the top ten percent of his class.
“I enjoyed law school,” he says, “in part because I did well, but more because I love to read and truly love the law. I feel quite blessed to have found a career that is so fulfilling.”
After law school, he worked at a few different firms, engaging in several different legal areas, from commercial litigation to trust to estate matters. In 1988, he found work as a law clerk, which he enjoyed immensely. This, in part, was because it allowed him to employ a greater degree of impartiality than he did before.
“It is an enormous luxury to be neutral and follow the facts and the law wherever they lead, and not have to try and tailor them to a client’s needs,” he says.
For the next eight years, Pepper would work in the felony parts of the Supreme Court. As Pepper recalls, the period was an arduous time for New York, when crime rates were distressingly high and the crack epidemic was reaching its peak.
From his experience in criminal court, Pepper learned one of the hard truths about his line of work; namely, that it involves inflicting pain. As a judge, he knows that some of his rulings will inevitably leave at least one litigant upset.
“You have to be ready to cause some discomfort,” he says. “When I was in criminal court, I saw thousands of people get sentences – and I mean serious sentences. And for every one of those sentences, I had a sense of failure… that we hadn’t come up with any way to reach this person, and avoid this kind of result.”
In 1996, he began his work alongside Judge Martin M. Solomon, who would go on to become one of his closest colleagues. The two of them worked together in the Civil Court of Kings County until 2003, when both he and Solomon were promoted to the Supreme Court of Kings County, which they still serve on today.
Pepper maintains that the breadth of his experience, which includes years of work in both civil and criminal court, makes him more qualified for the position than any of the other candidates.
“My education and experience has given me a deep understanding of how legal actions affect the lives of people,” says Pepper. “Court proceedings are often bewildering and intimidating to the general public, especially when they are unable to afford lawyers. For nearly three decades, I have worked to make that experience easier, less frightening and more understandable to the users of the court.”
If elected, Pepper said he will do everything in his power to make the Brooklyn civil court system as balanced as possible, ensuring that those who cannot afford adequate legal representation have just as much of an opportunity to prove their case as those who can. For as long has he can remember, Pepper has been passionate about working on behalf of the marginalized and underprivileged.
“I think my upbringing contributed to my interest in social justice, and my sense that everyone should fulfill the highest level of their destiny that they can – regardless of their race, color, religion, gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation. Those things aren’t the essence of what people are,” says Pepper.
In order to ensure the highest possible level of courtroom equality, Pepper will refuse to let lawyers mislead him during court hearings. This, he says, is especially important in situations where one litigant can afford better legal representation than another.
“I rarely rely on what a lawyer tells me the law is,” says Pepper. “Even in Supreme Court, I’m perfectly willing to take out the books. One of the ways you even the field is not to let the lawyers mislead you on the law, whether intentionally or by accident.”
As a civil court judge, Pepper will also try to prevent underrepresented litigants from signing off on settlements that they can’t afford.
“I’d have a rule that any agreement and stipulation that is being entered into has to be done over by either myself or the court attorney before the unrepresented person signs it,” says Pepper. “I’m not sure that I could make this happen all the time because of time constraints, but I would certainly strive for that.”
Pepper is a candidate with both the wherewithal and the desire to make civil proceedings as comprehensible and comfortable as possible – particularly to the unacquainted everyman. His courtroom philosophy is one defined by patience, compassion and empathy for the disenfranchised.
“You go gently, and you explain things to people,” says Pepper. “You explain why things are the way they are, you persuade rather than coerce, and you take a gentle touch. It’s like giving a cat a bath; if you try to force it underwater, it’s gonna scratch you all to hell. If you talk nice to it, you’ll get it underwater.”
The Democratic Primary for Civil Court Judges is Tuesday Sept. 12. There are 11 candidates and five open civil court bench seats.
