Join us as Gina Badding talks about her deep-rooted connection to Carroll, the lessons she learned from her early jobs, and the challenges she faced in law school. She reveals how her passion for criminal law and the mentorship from influential judges guided her career. This episode is a candid and inspiring look at what it takes to balance a demanding career with family life.
SPEAKER 02 :
This is Must Know People. I'm John Ryan with you. Of course, we continue our series of talking with local people, making them the stars of the whole broadcast. Today, it's very exciting. We have a appeals court judge with us today on the program. Gina Badding is joining us. First of all, Gina is, I call you Gina. Is it your honor, Judge Badding?
SPEAKER 01 :
Gina is perfectly fine.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, I didn't want to overstep my boundaries.
SPEAKER 01 :
Not at all.
SPEAKER 02 :
So, and also, by the way, we're recording here in the I don't think I've ever been in this room before. Been in Carroll 30 years. I've never been in this room. It's a little nerve wracking. I got to admit.
SPEAKER 01 :
That's a good thing you've never been here.
SPEAKER 02 :
Probably.
SPEAKER 01 :
Although that means that you haven't been called for jury duty.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, that is very true. I think I got called once, but I never got called in.
SPEAKER 01 :
Sure.
SPEAKER 02 :
So yeah, this is kind of my first time in here. You work here. So this is kind of crazy. What was your first feeling walking into this place?
SPEAKER 01 :
You know, I first was in this courtroom when I was in high school, not because I was in trouble, but for mock trial. It was a new thing that was started back when I was in high school. John Worden, who's the Carroll County attorney, was our mock trial coach. And so before our competition, he had us do our trial in this courtroom. So that was my first time in the courtroom, and it was pretty neat. You know, years and years later, I got to come back here as a judge. Well, first an attorney, then a judge.
SPEAKER 02 :
So one of his students is now the person he's probably arguing cases in front of, right?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes, yes.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, let's start back. You grew up in Carroll. Tell me about that. What street did you grow up on? Tell me about your mom and dad, your family, everything.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yep. So we grew up, my grandpa has or had a farm north of town, about a hundred acres right near the municipal golf course. So my grandparents' house is that long lane. If you go up next to the softball, baseball fields that are out there, my aunt lives kind of in the middle of the hill. And then my parents and I were at the bottom of the hill. So that's where I grew up as a child.
SPEAKER 02 :
What's your maiden name?
SPEAKER 01 :
Stence.
SPEAKER 02 :
Stence, okay. So what was it like growing up in Carroll back then? I assume Carroll has changed a lot.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes, it's expanded quite a bit, but it was the most wonderful childhood. So I'm so happy that I get to give my children that same sort of childhood. We were surrounded by family. All the time. My mom was a teacher for 40 years. She worked first at Ar-we-va and then IKM - Manning.
SPEAKER 02 :
What'd she teach?
SPEAKER 01 :
She taught English and French high school.
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh, so you know French.
SPEAKER 01 :
Oh, a little bit. I'm not going to embarrass myself.
SPEAKER 02 :
So what did your dad do?
SPEAKER 01 :
And then my dad was a printer at Stone Printing. He was a teacher early on in his career. They taught together in Omaha for about 10 years at a Catholic school there. And then they moved back and he started working at Stone Printing. So I grew up at Stones. I went there after school. I'd sit at the counter, do my homework, have a pop, and then eventually I started working there. My brother worked there for a long time. I have uncles and aunts who worked there. So actually just this morning I was at the funeral of Tom Chase, who was the owner of Stones. So, yeah, it was very sad to send him off, but he had a long, wonderful life.
SPEAKER 02 :
So you're multi-generational here in Carroll.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 02 :
How many generations does that go back? Do you know? Have you ever traced that?
SPEAKER 01 :
No, I haven't. I believe my grandparents moved here when my mom, I'm going to mess it up, junior high, maybe middle school. So yeah, just my grandparents and then parents and me.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay. So you must have liked Carroll. Obviously, you came back here for reasons that we'll talk about here in just a little bit. But you said your first real job was working at Stone's?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yep.
SPEAKER 02 :
So that's working for your dad?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 02 :
How about a job that wasn't working for the family? Do you remember that first job?
SPEAKER 01 :
I worked at Tony's Restaurant. I did waitressing there. And then those were my only two jobs in high school. And then once I went to college, I worked at the hospital.
SPEAKER 02 :
What did that teach you, your first job? I always love to ask that question of people because everybody's got that little job that they start out in, and that really shapes a lot of things in the future.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, so my job at Stone's primarily was collating, so back before they had machines that would do that work.
SPEAKER 02 :
You were the collator.
SPEAKER 01 :
Right, so you would walk in a line all day long, hour after hour, and put those pages inside one another. So it left a lot of time for daydreaming, you know, because it was before, you know, I didn't have AirPods or podcasts to listen to. So it was a long, long day, and it taught me that I wanted to do more with my life, for sure.
SPEAKER 02 :
Back in the stone ages of the 80s and the 90s, right?
SPEAKER 01 :
Right.
SPEAKER 02 :
So talk about school. What were you like in school? Good on academics, I assume. You're a judge now, so I would assume that's pretty safe, right?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, yeah. I was, you know... My best subjects were English and social studies and things that involved a lot of writing and reading. My worst subjects were math and science, so I knew I wasn't going to go into the medical field or anything like that. I was pretty involved in music. I played the piano and clarinet and viola. I was involved in theater, really liked all of that stuff. So not very athletic at all.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, but hey, as long as you're involved, right? Are your kids involved in a lot of things when they're in school?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 02 :
What are their ages, by the way?
SPEAKER 01 :
They're super busy. My oldest is 17. His name is Fletch. His full name is Robert Badding, but we call him Fletch.
SPEAKER 02 :
Cool nickname.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, thanks. My husband's favorite movie is Fletch and Chevy Chase. But I'm like, I don't know if we can... Give our kid just that name to go by.
SPEAKER 02 :
Nickname, fine. Given name, no. It's not appearing on the birth certificate.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yep. So he's named after his grandpa, Bob Badding. And then our second oldest is Charlie. He's 15. He'll be 16 at the end of October. Lucy is 12. And then Baxter, our youngest, is 10.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, so you got them stretched out for a while. You haven't hit the college years yet with them.
SPEAKER 01 :
No, not yet. Fletch is a junior, so he and Charlie both run cross country, but their main love is soccer. All my kids love soccer, so they're all involved in that. And then they all play piano. Fletch and Charlie don't take lessons anymore, but I had them do it up until high school. Baxter and Lucy are still taking lessons. And then they're all involved with All Strings Attached with Becky Windschitl, who taught me viola back in the day.
SPEAKER 02 :
They're like, yep, you have the same teacher that I did back then. We forgot your husband. Tell me about Tony.
SPEAKER 01 :
So Tony grew up here. He is a true multi-generational family here. I don't know how long the Baddings have been here.
SPEAKER 02 :
If you're abating, you're probably related to at least half the county, I'm thinking, right?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes, yeah, that's true. So he was a year ahead of me in high school, but we didn't start dating until actually my first year of law school. I lived with his cousin during all throughout college, and then he got a job in Cedar Rapids. We went to school at Iowa. He got a job in Cedar Rapids and then started hanging out with us. And then we started dating. So, but his uncle Nick just recently retired, although he's still working at baiting. So Tony was named president of baiting construction just this past year. So I'm super proud of him.
SPEAKER 02 :
Their name is all over the place. They've built a lot of great things here. Between the two of you, I mean, you're a judge and he's running a construction company. You've got to be running 20 different ways all the time, right?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER 02 :
And then running to soccer matches and running to all that other stuff, right?
SPEAKER 01 :
We forget kids sometimes. Luckily, we have a lot of friends in town who know that we're forgetful and we'll pick them up and take them home for us.
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh, that's the Badding kids. We'll just pick them up and take them home. Yeah. So what led you to law? Did you know right away that you wanted a career as a lawyer?
SPEAKER 01 :
I wouldn't say right away. I gave a speech a couple years ago for this organization called PEO. And it happened to be right around the same time as our 25-year high school reunion. And I got this packet of letters that everybody in my class had written themselves when we were seniors. And so I pulled out my letter. And in that, I talked about wanting to be a lawyer, a criminal defense attorney, to be specific. And I don't, you know, looking back, I don't remember having that specific of an idea in my mind. But the letter surprised me because it must have been there all along. When I was in college, I was an English and religion major. And I really enjoyed my religion classes and thought maybe briefly about becoming a professor later. But I talked to one of my religion professors, and he kind of steered me towards law school.
SPEAKER 02 :
So you'll be in business a lot more defending people than you will being a professor of religion.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, it was, you know, I think I always had it in the back of my mind and kind of, you know, did those English and religion majors because it seemed like a good preparation for law school, which I really think it was.
SPEAKER 02 :
So you wanted to go into criminal law.
SPEAKER 01 :
I did.
SPEAKER 02 :
It was not civil law because a lot of folks are exactly the opposite. They want to do civil law, but they don't want to have anything to do with criminal law. What was the difference for you?
SPEAKER 01 :
I loved murder mysteries, those type of things when I was a kid and reading books and watching shows. It just was always very interesting to me. And I felt and I still feel like criminal law was an area where you could really make a difference in someone's life. So that was kind of my focus early on, but my path didn't necessarily lead me there. I did a little bit of criminal defense work when I was practicing, but not exclusively by any means.
SPEAKER 02 :
So that's interesting that, yeah, you went to the criminal side of things instead of like just civil. So tell me about college getting prepared for law school. How tough is that? Because everybody, I mean, becoming a lawyer is a pretty daunting task educationally.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, you know, I took pretty general majors, but really a lot of being a lawyer is interpreting the written word, being able to write persuasively. And so English and religion majors really prepared me for that.
SPEAKER 02 :
I bet. Yeah, I never thought about that. Yeah, I bet it did. So what was the hardest class getting ready for law school for you at the University of Iowa?
SPEAKER 01 :
When I was in college or well, it wasn't getting ready for law school, but I had to take I didn't take French my senior year of high school and you needed four years of a foreign language at that time. for college requirements, so I had to take French for one semester my first year at Iowa, and it was a 7 a.m. class Monday through Friday, so that was my lowest grade, and I had my mom on the phone constantly trying to help me.
SPEAKER 02 :
The worst schedule possible for a college student, 7 a.m. classes, five days a week?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yep, it was terrible.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, so tell me about school. Were you one of those kids that you came back every weekend to Carroll? Did you stay at school? I mean, talk about your life in college.
SPEAKER 01 :
I didn't come back at all. I think my first time back was Thanksgiving, my first year. My brother was two years ahead of me at Iowa. So I had him, I, you know, spend a lot of time with him, but our parents, you know, really encouraged us to stay at school and, you know, get involved there and make our, make our lives there. So we would come back for, you know, holidays, occasional weekends here and there. I came back my first summer after school and, But the rest of the time I just stayed at Iowa. And I loved Iowa City. I still love it.
SPEAKER 02 :
You must have loved it. What did you love about it? What did you love about your college years period?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, it's such a selfish time, right? But in a good way. You know, it's one of the only times in your life where you can really focus on yourself and kind of, you know, do what you need to do and what you want to do without worrying about other people necessarily. I loved all of the classes that I got to take, all of the cultural opportunities that were in Iowa City, the friends that I made along the way, many of whom I'm still in contact with. So just everything about the college experience was wonderful.
SPEAKER 02 :
You get to make your own rules.
SPEAKER 01 :
Right. For the first time.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah. That's fantastic. But let's talk about law school. I mean, you knew you wanted to get into law school and probably University of Iowa. Natural fit, of course. Was there any thought of going anywhere else to law school?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yep. I applied to Drake as well and got into Drake. I decided to stay with Iowa because I, you know, like I said, I loved Iowa City. I was familiar with the town. My brother was still there. He was in med school at Iowa at the time. And then I had quite a few friends who were in pharmacy school at Iowa. So they were kind of finishing up their last years of pharmacy school while I was starting my first year of law school. which looking back, you know, maybe that wasn't the best decision for me because I started my first year of law school still thinking like I was, you know, in college. And so it was a little, I needed to buckle down more my first year of law school than I maybe did.
SPEAKER 02 :
So not a lot of football games probably once you got to law school.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, I still tried, but that first semester was rough.
SPEAKER 02 :
Talked about law school. Everybody's got this impression in their head and I do too. I don't know if you know the movie The Paper Chase.
SPEAKER 01 :
I haven't seen that.
SPEAKER 02 :
Or anything like that. But when you see movies about law school, okay, Legally Blonde. Yeah. I hope that is not what law school is like.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes and no. Really? There were some classes where we had seating charts and the professor had you know, even our like pictures on the seating chart and so that they could call on us during class to talk about the cases that we were supposed to read. And that was shocking to me, you know, because Iowa is such, undergrad is such a large school. You're in these huge lectures and you don't have that individual focus and attention on you. So Some classes were certainly designed to kind of put you on the spot, but others were not. So it's not quite as intimidating as they show in the movies, but there's a little bit of truth to it.
SPEAKER 02 :
How hard is it, truthfully, the academic work and all of that? I mean, is it studying constantly and you're always up all hours of the night doing that? Is it like that?
SPEAKER 01 :
It's hard. It's very hard.
SPEAKER 02 :
I'll tell you, broadcasting school was not like that.
SPEAKER 01 :
I mean, I wouldn't want to go back and do it again, although I really enjoyed all the things that I learned. But a lot of our classes had just one test. So that's a lot of pressure to put on yourself at the end of the semester. You know, it's learning to think in a different way, which, you know, takes a little bit sometimes. Learning to write in a different way. So it's tough, but the subject matter was really interesting. You know, regrets, like looking back, I wish I would have taken... taxation course I wish I would have taken a real estate course but I stayed away from those because I was worried that I wouldn't do well on them but those are kind of the practical things that I saw right out of the gates when I started practicing give me a circumstance where it was you were questioning maybe because everybody questions what they're doing there is this really the path I want to follow was there any moments like that for you The first semester, I think getting through that first semester, learning how to study, you know, learning to kind of separate my life as an undergrad from my life in law school. And then I would say my third year of law school, we started interviewing pretty early on. I think the first semester, you know, interviewing for our permanent jobs afterwards. And I, you know, I was looking to go anywhere that would take me. I was interviewing with a lot of big corporate law firms and I was not having hardly any success at all. In fact, it was so bad that the career services advisor called me into her office. And I thought she was going to give me a pep talk, but instead she sat me down and said, you know, I think these places that you're applying for, they're not the right fit for you. And she was completely right. It hurt at first because, you know, what I heard in my head was you're not ever going to get a job after spending three years of school, you know, time in school and money. But I think she was right. Like what I needed was not a big corporate law firm, but something that smaller and more focused on direct work with clients and helping people, which is what I really enjoyed all along.
SPEAKER 02 :
I don't care. Rejection in anything is hard to deal with. How did you deal with that?
SPEAKER 01 :
I cried. I talked to my friends, went for a run, and then I picked myself back up and re-evaluated where I was applying and what I was trying to do. After I did that, I applied for position as a law clerk for the district court in Cedar Rapids and I got that job and I think that's where it really solidified for me the dream of becoming a judge I had maybe had that in the back of my mind but as a law clerk you're able to work directly with these really impressive people and you know seeing what they were able to do and how they approach cases you know really made me want to have that for myself someday
SPEAKER 02 :
Impressive people, I love that phrase. Give me some names. Impressive people that have influenced you up to this point.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, so probably my biggest influences in my legal career have been the judges that I worked with early on. Van Zimmer, he's a judge from Venton, Iowa. He was one of the first judges I worked with. John Miller, he's a judge in Washington, Iowa. He was another judge that I worked with. They were both on the Court of Appeals, and I worked for them as a staff attorney for about six and a half, almost seven years. They retired midway through my time at the Court of Appeals as a staff attorney, so then I worked with Judge Anu Vaitheeswaran and Judge Rick Doyle. And each one of those people shaped the way that I approach cases now. And they shaped the way that I approached cases as an attorney, too.
SPEAKER 02 :
How hard of a boss were they? Were they demanding on you?
SPEAKER 01 :
You know, no, no. The Court of Appeals has a huge caseload. And so there is an expectation that, you know, we get our work done as quickly as possible and as thoroughly as possible. But we also really strive to create a welcoming, fun work environment. And so they did the same thing. So no, they were wonderful bosses for sure.
SPEAKER 02 :
So you're ruining my impression of that. The law firm is like John Grisham books, all of them. It's not like that.
SPEAKER 01 :
No, not for me. Not for me, it wasn't.
SPEAKER 02 :
The FBI has never approached you to solve big crimes or anything like that.
SPEAKER 01 :
No, no.
SPEAKER 02 :
So if you had to pick a TV show that's the most like actual practicing law, give me one that might stand out for a reason.
SPEAKER 01 :
You know, Legally Blonde, actually. Really? I know that's not a law firm, but, you know, some of what's shown there with the law school classes, and maybe I'm picking that, too, because it was kind of inspiring to me. Like, Belle Woods can do it. I can do it, surely, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER 02 :
Talk about, like I said, what advice would you give somebody going into law school? They're thinking about becoming a lawyer because clearly there's a lot of folks that are saying, I want to go into law that are not going to eventually become lawyers. What advice would you give them about what it takes to become a lawyer?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, you have to go in with a mindset that you're going to need to work hard and to study hard. And I think most people, you know, probably do that by the time they get ready to apply for law school. But then also go in with the mindset, sometimes people get into it and they'll do an internship and think, this being a lawyer thing really isn't for me. Or maybe they have trouble passing the bar exam because that's a terribly tough test. But law school is still worth it because there's so many other jobs aside from being an attorney. You can take your legal education and apply it to many different jobs outside of the legal field. So Yeah, I would say work hard, study hard, and perseverance for sure.
SPEAKER 02 :
You mentioned study earlier. You learned how to study in law school. Like first semester, you had to change the way you studied. Tell me more about that. How did you have to change, and what was that?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, I don't mean to sound, this to sound bad at all, but undergrad, I skipped classes quite a bit.
SPEAKER 02 :
The truth comes out.
SPEAKER 01 :
I did not study like I, like I should have. I was taking these lots of English classes. And so, you know, my homework would be reading a book and writing a paper. And, you know, so I didn't really have to like buckle down and spend hours studying. And that was very different in law school. I had to, you know, separate myself, get out of my apartment, go to the library, shut myself away and focus more than I ever had to do in undergrad.
SPEAKER 02 :
Were you part of like study groups that divided any work at all like they show on TVs and things like that?
SPEAKER 01 :
I didn't do that. There definitely were study groups. I worked better just kind of on my own and isolating myself. My study buddies were a bottle of Mountain Dew and sunflower seeds. Whatever kept you awake, right? Right, right.
SPEAKER 02 :
Talk about the bar exam. How tough is it and how terrifying is it to take that?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, it's so tough. There's an essay portion that's specific to the state, and that part's very doable and not quite as intimidating as the, they call it the multi-state, multiple choice portion. And that's very hard because it's not just an A, B, or C answer. It's, you know, then you get down to D and it'll say A and B. And then you get down to E and it'll say B but not C. You know, even the way that the choices are structured is confusing. Yeah. Yeah, the bar exam is terribly, terribly tough. I don't know that it really tests the skills that will tell you if somebody is going to be a good attorney or not, but it's what we have.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, it's the one exam that everybody knows about, the bar exam. So talk about how long did it take you to pass the bar exam, to study for it, and to pass it?
SPEAKER 01 :
I spent the whole summer studying for it. The bar exams typically administered at the end of July. So as soon as I graduated from my last year of law school in May, then you start bar exam prep courses all throughout the summer. I was lucky or passed on my first time, but I would say many people walk out of the bar exam and you think that you've just, you know, bombed it, especially when you, you know, we all went to a nearby bar after the bar exam and, you know, having drinks with each other and celebrating being done. And then you start talking about the questions and, You hear somebody say, well, I answered this and you think in your head like, oh, my God, I answered the complete opposite.
SPEAKER 02 :
But the second guessing and the doubts all come in there. So if you don't pass it that time, you've got to wait a whole nother year.
SPEAKER 01 :
They actually administer it twice a year. So July and then they have a February bar exam to six months is a long time to wait, though, too.
SPEAKER 02 :
I mean, that's that's a long time. So what defines a successful lawyer for you?
SPEAKER 01 :
You know, somebody who is, I think, dedicated to helping people. I think that's, that was my primary goal when I was practicing. I really, you know, when you have clients come into your office, they're usually not there for a happy situation. They're there because they need your help. So working with them to find the best solution possible to the problems that they were bringing to you. Aside from that, somebody who's very prepared, I would spend a lot of time making sure that I had all of my questions written out before trials, all my exhibits prepared, all my written motions done and filed. So I think that level of preparedness really helps make you an effective attorney too.
SPEAKER 02 :
There was no mention of money anywhere in that conversation. But it does come with a significant salary and things like that. Do you see any people out there that are just kind of in it for the money? Or is that not possible in the law? If you become a lawyer, you have to have a level of dedication.
SPEAKER 01 :
I think you have to have that level of dedication. I mean, sure, there's attorneys out there that are making really good money, but the time and effort that they put into it, it's deserved. And the education, the time that they spent educating themselves to become good attorneys, I think they deserve those fees. But in Iowa, I've never run across an attorney who seemed primarily motivated by money. So I think we've got a really good legal community in our state that we should be proud of.
SPEAKER 02 :
How mad does it make you when somebody makes a lawyer joke? Do you take it personally?
SPEAKER 01 :
No.
SPEAKER 02 :
No?
SPEAKER 01 :
No, I really don't.
SPEAKER 02 :
I don't know. When somebody makes a joke about something that hits kind of close to home, you tend to get a little... I do anyway.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 02 :
But you develop a thick skin.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 02 :
And I assume as a lawyer, the same thing, right?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I would be going against people that I would see in the grocery store or... you know, at one of my children's games. So you know that there's going to be people out there who maybe don't like you, but, you know, it's just kind of the nature of the job and separating yourself from that a little bit.
SPEAKER 02 :
Talk about going into private practice, because you did that here in Carroll, right? You went from clerking for judges to private practice, I assume?
SPEAKER 01 :
So there was, I did a year clerkship right after law school in Cedar Rapids, Then my husband and I moved to Des Moines because he got a job with a construction company in Des Moines. So I worked for a private firm in Des Moines for about a year and a half. And then I did the court of appeals for about six years as a staff attorney. And then, you know, I had that dream of becoming a judge in the back of my head. And I knew that wasn't going to happen being a staff attorney on the Court of Appeals. And by then, my husband and I have moved back to Carroll. So I decided to get back into private practice. So I started with Eric Neu, Jeff Minnick, Frank Comito with their law firm here in town. And it was the best decision I ever made.
SPEAKER 02 :
Describe what that's like, practicing law here in Carroll.
SPEAKER 01 :
It is a general practice law firm. It's not like the bigger law firms in the metropolitan areas. You're able to kind of focus on one thing as an attorney in those law firms because there's so many attorneys available, but a small rule doesn't. Law practice, you kind of have to wear a lot of different hats and be a little bit of an expert in everything, which can be intimidating, but also really interesting and exciting. I had a lot of people who would come to me with things that I'd never done before I maybe wasn't comfortable with. But they trusted me to be able to figure it out and do it for them.
SPEAKER 02 :
So you were a criminal lawyer, probably doing everything when you came back, right?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah. So Des Moines, I did a lot of what's called court appointed work. So defendants, you know, anytime you're charged with a crime, if you don't have the means to pay for an attorney, the state will appoint one for you. So I did a lot of that work when I was in Des Moines. I didn't do any of that when I came back to Carroll. My criminal work here was more confined to operating while intoxicated offenses and that sort of thing. But some of the interesting things that I got to work on, Legendary Rye here in town, when they got up and going or wanted to get up and going, they came to see me to have me help them get their federal licensing and all of that. And I told them, I've never done this before. You should probably go somewhere else. In fact, I think I went with them to a different firm in Des Moines.
SPEAKER 02 :
You tried to hand them off.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah. And they were wonderful. Rich and Lisa. I know Rich. Yep. Yep. And they said, we want you to do it and we know that you can do it. So that was one of the favorite things that I've ever done as an attorney.
SPEAKER 02 :
Pretty cool to see where they're at now.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, it's great.
SPEAKER 02 :
That is such a successful business there. So talk about Carroll. You moved back to Carroll for a reason. I know your husband, of course, clearly in Badding Construction. He was going to be taking over that family business.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yep.
SPEAKER 02 :
But what were the other factors that went into bringing you back to Carroll?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yep. We moved back in January of 2010, and we had two young kids at the time. Our oldest was three, and our youngest was a year and a half, two years old. So we were starting to look ahead. They're going to be in school before we know it. Daycare is kind of difficult in Des Moines sometimes. So we decided to move back because my parents were here. We knew that they would be able to help us out. Tony's parents lived in Denison at the time. They've since moved to Panora. But we knew that we would have that family support here. We both had such great childhoods here. So we wanted our kids to have the same thing. And we just wanted that more of a small town, you know, feel where they could ride their bikes around. And, you know, we know the parents of their friends and know the school that they're going to. So it's been everything we wanted.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, that comfort zone of being back in Carroll where familiarity, that means everything for a parent.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, it really does. It's so neat to have some of my high school classmates to have their kids in my kids' classes. It's a cool thing.
SPEAKER 02 :
What was the thing you missed about when you lived in Des Moines and things like that? What was one thing you missed coming back to Carroll?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 02 :
Living in the bigger city.
SPEAKER 01 :
I mean, the shopping, you know, Target. Our credit card bills went way down once we moved back here. The restaurants.
SPEAKER 02 :
Tony didn't miss that.
SPEAKER 01 :
No, he did not. I miss the restaurants a lot. There is such variety to be had in Des Moines. And then we were also really lucky in Des Moines. His two sisters, Tony's two sisters, lived close by us when we were in Des Moines. So we would frequently have dinners and things like that together. But they've since moved. His younger sister is in Bayard right now, and then his older sister is in Grimes. So we're still close with them.
SPEAKER 02 :
Do you guys ever see yourself leaving, Carroll?
SPEAKER 01 :
No. No.
SPEAKER 02 :
Simple. Simple question there. Let's go back to the law and practicing of that. How long did you practice with your law firm here before being named a judge?
SPEAKER 01 :
I was with that firm for about six years.
SPEAKER 02 :
That's a pretty short amount of time before being named a judge. First of all, how do you get your name in to being a judge? Because not everybody, I assume everybody wants it, but not everybody gets it.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, so you have to apply. So we have a really neat system in Iowa. It's a merit-based selection system. So when there's an opening for a judge, whether it's a district associate judge, district court judge, or court of appeals, or Supreme Court, They will advertise that opening. There's a long application that you fill out. It can be upwards of 30, 35 pages. You submit that to a nominating commission. There's some elected members and some appointed members by the governor. The commission will review those applications at the district court level. They will select the nominees that will then go to the governor and same at the court of appeals level. You have to After you file your application, you have to interview in front of the full commission, and then they'll select a slate of nominees that they send to the governor, and then she makes the final selection.
SPEAKER 02 :
I know when I was doing a little research on you that I Googled your name and videos came up of you testifying in front of the nominating committee and things like that.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 02 :
That'd be kind of terrifying. You're putting yourself out there like that.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, it's absolutely terrifying. There's 17 members on the statewide nominating commission for the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court. The interviews take place in front of all 17 members. You walk into the Supreme Court courtroom in Des Moines at the Judicial Branch building. and they're all seated around a table staring at you.
SPEAKER 02 :
And you're at that one little desk. Yep, yep.
SPEAKER 01 :
You give kind of a little brief opening statement, and then the commissioners go around, and they take turns asking you questions. So it kind of feels like you're under a firing squad a little bit, although they are all very nice. Nobody is trying to ask you questions to trip you up. They're really searching for the best candidate, which I love. think is why our system is so good. So what are they looking for?
SPEAKER 02 :
Knowledge, temperament, what, everything? Yeah.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yep. Both those things are at the top of their list. Temperament, especially for district court judges, you don't want somebody who's going to fly off the handle at people. You want somebody, again, who's a hard worker because there's people whose cases are being heard and they're anxiously waiting for a decision. So you want somebody who's going to get their rulings out fast. somebody who's going to be decisive while at the same time being fair and listening to both sides. So yeah, they've got a daunting task ahead of them.
SPEAKER 02 :
What is it like to have to decide a case? I mean, you've got people on either side that are arguing. They passionately believe on their side. They're telling the truth. How do you go about deciding that case?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah. You know, some cases are easier than others. The hardest cases for me are the child custody cases and the termination of parental rights cases. Those are really tough. The custody cases, especially, because they can be close. You have two loving parents who want to see this child as much as they can, and you have to make a decision about what's going to be in that child's best interest, just hearing a snippet of these people's lives. So those are really tough ones.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, you get a couple minutes to hear a few questions and answers in their life, and then you've got to decide. I couldn't imagine doing that. What's a typical day like for you? I mean, what do you do? Are most of your days spent back in your office, or are they spent in a courtroom, or where?
SPEAKER 01 :
My days are really boring right now in my current position on the appellate court. Primarily what I do is research and writing. So my typical day, I'll get up. The kids will get up themselves while they're getting ready for school. I'll work a little bit from my home office. I'll drop the kids off at school. I'll come to the office here. I'll do more research and writing. I usually leave around noon or so. I'll go for a run over lunch or some other exercise just to clear my head a little bit. And then in the afternoon, I go back to my office at home and I work from home until the kids get off the bus and then kind of run them around to their different activities.
SPEAKER 02 :
How many hours a week do you think you put it? I mean, it could vary, I'm sure, for a lot of things, right?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah. The Court of Appeals is so busy. We decide between 1,000 to 1,100 cases per year between nine judges. And then we have some senior judges who help us out as well. So each judge on the court is expected to author about 100 decisions per year, plus we sit on panels of three. So the cases that we're not authoring, we're reading the other panel members' cases and deciding those. So I very frequently will work on the weekends or early in the morning. So it's a lot of hours, but it doesn't feel like work all the time because I really enjoy what I do.
SPEAKER 02 :
I don't know how you focus having to read that much material and things like that. How do you do that?
SPEAKER 01 :
My system is that I take notes as I'm reading. So I have legal pads that are just filled with my handwriting because it keeps me kind of engaged with what I'm reading. And then I can also go back and look at the parts that I've written down. I think I'm unusual in that. I think a lot of other judges on our court will go through and actually everything we read is on the computer now. It's all electronically filed. I think a lot of the other judges on the court will go through and kind of highlight those documents on the computer itself. But I just find I pay more attention and remember things better if I handwrite it.
SPEAKER 02 :
If there's a tough decision that you've got to make, does it cause you to lose sleep or anything like that? Does it affect you personally?
SPEAKER 01 :
Occasionally. I've gotten much better as I've gotten more experience as an attorney and then as a judge. of kind of separating myself from work and being done with it when I go to bed tonight. But there are certainly cases where, you know, you kind of lie awake thinking about it.
SPEAKER 02 :
You wish you'd rather not known any of this stuff, right?
SPEAKER 01 :
Right, right.
SPEAKER 02 :
So yeah, that's, I just, I mean, the workload's got to be nonstop and never ending.
SPEAKER 01 :
It is. I, you know, I'm the type of person I like having a to-do list, but then I like checking things off of it. So sometimes I'll put like easy stuff on my to-do list, like email John Ryan and then check, you know.
SPEAKER 02 :
Which you were very good at, by the way.
SPEAKER 01 :
Oh, I could, I think I could have been better, but.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay. I was trying to be nice, but you know, no, no, no. You were great about it.
SPEAKER 01 :
But, you know, our case list, our cases pending list for the court is never done. Like just when I think that I'm getting a little bit caught up, then we'll get, we call it a transfer, but a new, you know, transfer of cases and it just adds more to your caseload. Yeah.
SPEAKER 02 :
So what about your future? How long do you see yourself being a judge? I mean, is there anything that you want to do beyond this? You got career goals like everybody else, right?
SPEAKER 01 :
It's bad to say, but this was my career goal. This is my dream job. So as of right now, I don't have any aspirations beyond this. You know, maybe in 10 years, I'll be like, I'm totally bored and I need something new. But I just can't see that happening because, you know, we get the routine cases, but there's so many new and interesting things that come along every day. It always keeps me engaged and keeps my mind working. And then on top of that, I work with some of the best people ever. I really, really enjoy my colleagues. We try to make it, like I said before, a fun work environment. We have court dinners once a month. We have lunches together. We really make it a point to get along with each other.
SPEAKER 02 :
Are all those people here in Carroll, or where are they?
SPEAKER 01 :
No, we're spread throughout the state. So of the nine judges on the Court of Appeals, I'm the only one in Carroll. Judge Julia Schumacher is in Schleswig. She's probably the next closest to me. We've got Judge Greer in Marshalltown. We've got a newly appointed one in Okoboji. We've got a couple over on the eastern side of the state. So we're all spread out. But every month we have, almost every month, we have oral arguments in Des Moines at the Judicial Branch Building. So we'll all get together there for those arguments and see each other in person. Aside from that, we have court conferences every two weeks, and we'll do that by Zoom. So we'll see each other then as well.
SPEAKER 02 :
So if the governor came in and said right now, I want to put you on the Supreme Court of Iowa, is the answer yes? You got to say yeah, don't you? Would that be the next step for you?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, I'm pretty impressed I got a judge to come on my podcast. So if I can get a Supreme Court judge, you know.
SPEAKER 01 :
Contact Matt McDermott, Justice Matt McDermott. Don't think I won't. He's a Carroll native. He's very proud of being from Carroll. He lives in Des Moines now, but he's on the Supreme Court.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, we're done with the law and we're done with all that stuff. We're going to get to some really just bizarre questions and some guilty pleasure questions. So let's start with that. What's a guilty pleasure of yours when you're not being a judge, you're not, you know, being a lawyer? What do you do? What's a guilty pleasure of yours?
SPEAKER 01 :
Almost every night before I go to bed, I have a Reese's peanut butter cup, and it has to be one of the special holiday shapes. Oh, okay. Those are my favorite, and so I'll stockpile those throughout the year because after Easter, between Easter and Halloween, there's no special holiday shapes, so I'll stockpile them.
SPEAKER 02 :
So your season's coming up.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah. Halloween. Halloween. It is. It is. My kids know not to touch them, although they steal them sometimes.
SPEAKER 02 :
What's your pet peeve?
SPEAKER 01 :
Oh.
SPEAKER 02 :
What's going to drive you crazy quicker than anything?
SPEAKER 01 :
Oh, my kids leaving their shoes out, not putting them away in their cubbies. And my husband, too. They all just kick them off at the door, and it just drives me crazy. Just pick them up and put them in your drawer.
SPEAKER 02 :
Do you like to cook? Do you like to do things when you're at home? What do you like to cook?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yep, I love to cook. I try to make, you know, different things every night for my kids, although they love pasta the most. But I have this food blog that I go to all the time, Half-Baked Harvest, it's called. I make a lot of her recipes. But we, you know, we like to eat Mexican, Chinese food. Yeah, a lot of different things.
SPEAKER 02 :
So which one won't you go to? What food don't you eat?
SPEAKER 01 :
I...
SPEAKER 02 :
eat almost anything really honestly you don't have anything on the nut that you don't want to you know my mom loves my mom loves liver and onions i would not eat that but i don't mind liver and onions but you gotta let you gotta you gotta put up with the smell right yeah i think that gets a lot of people there you said you do a lot of jogging things like that you'll go running what's your jam do you listen to things while you're running
SPEAKER 01 :
I listen to podcasts.
SPEAKER 02 :
Do you?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yep. Yep. I listen to, you'd think that I wouldn't just given my line of work, but I listen to a lot of murder podcasts, you know, cold cases, things like that.
SPEAKER 02 :
They were kind of the original ones that just exploded the whole format.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah. Yep. Yep. So yeah, I love podcasts. I love reading, running, biking, you know, all of that stuff, going to my kids' games, watching them play soccer. I still wouldn't say after all these years that I really know what's going on with soccer.
SPEAKER 02 :
Nobody does. Nobody does. I don't care if they say they do or not. So have you gone on RAGBRAI? You said you're a biker.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes. We went last year when it came through Carroll, not the full week. We just did Carol to Ames. And then my husband and one of his friends did Ames to Des Moines, right? Was that the next stop? Yeah. Yep.
SPEAKER 02 :
How'd you like it?
SPEAKER 01 :
It was great. Although I will say that bikers are not quite as nice and encouraging as runners are. We got yelled at a few times, probably because we didn't know the protocol of, you know, Biker on, biker off.
SPEAKER 02 :
See, we bike all the time, I guess. So yeah, we always think that bikers are the nicest people out there. Well, we got work to do, guys, as bikers out there. So what relaxes you? I mean, you talk about reading a lot. Do you like Sudoku, crosswords, Wordle?
SPEAKER 01 :
I do Wordle.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, I would pick that one for you.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yep, I do Wordle. My kids make fun of me. They say I take way too long to get it done. But I don't want to be wrong. I don't want to miss it.
SPEAKER 02 :
Accuracy counts here on this one.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 02 :
Pancakes or waffles?
SPEAKER 01 :
Pancakes.
SPEAKER 02 :
What story does your family always tell about you? One that you just thought they would just as soon have them retire.
SPEAKER 01 :
Oh, man. Gosh, I don't know if they have a good one that they always tell, but I have no sense of direction at all. So they like to test me on that, you know, which way is north. I used to think it was whichever way I was facing forward. I know that's not true now, but I really have no idea.
SPEAKER 02 :
What's an unpopular opinion that you have? Like maybe like pumpkin spice lattes or something like that. I don't know. Is there something that you like that a lot of other people don't like?
SPEAKER 01 :
um oh gosh I don't know um that's a tough one you know I like I like blue cheese and olives together but I don't think that's that crazy that's weird that's a little out there that's a I would not do it you wouldn't no I wouldn't do that one but what's a bucket list thing on what's the next thing on your bucket list You know, I want to go back to Europe sometime. I was really fortunate being able to go to Europe when I was in law school and spend about a month there. And then my husband and I kind of backpacked around and traveled around. And I haven't been back since. So that's on my bucket list anywhere over there.
SPEAKER 02 :
Ultimate vacation. Where's the best vacation you guys have taken?
SPEAKER 01 :
Oh, we've taken some really great ones. I think the most recent great one was Montana. We went skiing with the kids at Big Sky and that was really, really fun.
SPEAKER 02 :
So are you more of a beach or a mountain person then?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, I like them both. So one... Not going to turn down either one of them. Right. But as I get older, I was never a good skier. As I get older, I'm even worse. So probably the beach because I can just lay there and read a book and tan.
SPEAKER 02 :
What's your favorite smell?
SPEAKER 01 :
Vanilla.
SPEAKER 02 :
And the best movie you've ever seen?
SPEAKER 01 :
Oh, probably Godfather.
SPEAKER 02 :
Part two?
SPEAKER 01 :
Part one.
SPEAKER 02 :
Part one.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay. Yeah. I love the Godfather. I always turn it on whenever it's there. So you're done. All right. Your podcast is in the books here. Thank you so much. Your honor. I'll say that because it's been great talking to you. I mean, it's been great. I didn't know you before this.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 02 :
I had never met you before. I had emailed you. So it's been great getting to know you. And I can tell you that you love what you're doing and you're passionate about it.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, thank you so much for asking me to be a part of this. It's an honor, for sure.
SPEAKER 02 :
Gina Badding, once again, appeals court judge, our latest guest here on Must Know People.
