Over the Moon

When Judge Norman K. Moon ’62 was nominated to the federal bench in 1997, a Justice Department questionnaire asked him what type of judge he would model himself after.

The Triple Hoo, who by that time had served as a Virginia state judge in Lynchburg for 22 years, didn’t cite a luminary on the federal judiciary. Rather, when thinking about who embodied the values he admired, it was Earl Wingo ’39 who came to mind.

“I flabbergasted the Department of Justice, probably, when I said he was a juvenile domestic relations judge in Lynchburg who was so reliable in applying the law that you could tell a client, with assurance, if what you say are the facts, then you don’t need a lawyer to go to court for you,” Moon recalled saying. “You didn’t need a lawyer in that court because he was so consistent that you could be sure you’d be treated fairly, and it would be the right result.”

In October, nearly 50 former judicial clerks — many of them fellow alumni of UVA Law — gathered in Lynchburg to celebrate and honor the 88-year-old Moon’s 50th year as a judge, mentor and role model. That’s more than 18,000 days (and counting) that have been marked by difficult questions of fairness, good humor, famed punctuality and the comfort of routines.

In fact, Moon is so well-known for his adherence to routine that his former clerks scheduled a group breakfast for the morning after the reunion at his regular breakfast spot in Lynchburg, Country Cooking By Irene.

Attending the breakfast was optional; being on time was not.

“We all remember that if he said we’re meeting at the Charlottesville courthouse at 8, that meant 7:55,” said Professor Cale Jaffe ’01, who clerked for Moon after graduation. “If you showed up at 8, he would have already left for Lynchburg without you.”

Allegedly, at least one of Moon’s clerks has had to chase after the judge’s car, despite being technically on time, Jaffe said.

“I think the judge was so punctual because he thought it was important that we not keep people waiting on justice,” Jaffe said. “If someone’s waiting to find out what their sentence will be, you don’t keep them waiting any longer than they already have been.”

Moon joined the federal judiciary after serving 12 years on the Court of Appeals of Virginia and 10 years on the Lynchburg Circuit Court before that. He was chief judge of each of those state courts and, when President Bill Clinton nominated him for the District Court in 1997, he was president-elect of the National Council of Chief Judges.

A Lynchburg native, Moon picked up three degrees from the University of Virginia, including an LL.M. in judicial process in 1988, and taught trial advocacy at the Law School from 1975 to 1998.

In November, Judge Moon, who took senior status in 2010, sat for a retrospective interview in one of the cramped jury rooms of the Charlottesville outpost of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia — the same courthouse where he was called upon to exercise Solomonic judgment in cases stemming from the Unite the Right rally that rocked Charlottesville in August 2017.

Among them were lawsuits filed against law enforcement by both white nationalist protesters and counterprotesters. Moon dismissed the cases, and his decisions were upheld by the Fourth Circuit.

“Did you know you have no constitutional right to have the police intervene in your fight and protect you unless they themselves caused the danger?” Moon said. “Until these cases, I didn’t know that. I would have thought they should break it up.”

Moon caught a bit of public criticism in 2022 when he reduced a jury’s $25 million punitive damages award against the rally’s organizers to $350,000, in keeping with the punitive damages cap imposed by a 1987 Virginia law. This past July, the Fourth Circuit restored more than $2 million of that award on appeal, holding that the cap applied to each plaintiff, rather than to the total verdict.

Moon has a reputation for handling that sort of setback with aplomb and humility.

“I tell people that since my wife died, other than the Fourth Circuit, I’m my own worst critic,” he said. Moon’s wife, Barbara, passed away in 2014. “If I don’t do what I think is right, it just haunts me. If I’m unfair to someone, I know it will be on my conscience, and I’ll be very unhappy with myself.”

Jaffe — who went on to clerk at the Fourth Circuit — and others say they have been impressed and inspired by the judge’s self-effacing nature and willingness to admit error.

During his Moon clerkship, Jaffe, who teaches environmental law and professional responsibility at the Law School, worked on a high-profile sexual harassment case that was before the judge. In the first iteration of the trial, Moon excluded some evidence that he thought was overly prejudicial and not probative of the defendant’s mindset.

After the plaintiff lost the jury trial, she filed a motion to reconsider whether that evidence should have been admitted. Moon granted it, and the defendant settled before the new trial could take place.

“I just think it took a lot of humility to overrule himself,” Jaffe said. “Being open to the idea that ‘I might have gotten this wrong at first look, so let’s redo it and not be afraid to do it right’ — that is pretty rare.”

Robert DeRise ’09 also clerked for Moon and the Fourth Circuit before working as an associate at Arnold & Porter in Washington, D.C., for six years. When DeRise was looking for a more manageable lifestyle for his young family, he ended up spending five years in Moon’s chambers in Lynchburg as his career clerk.

The judge’s mentorship and courtroom demeanor reoriented DeRise’s relationship to the profession, exposing him to new areas of law and the joy of lawyering in a smaller — and perhaps less hectic — market.

“I recall instances where a lawyer was going on and on, and I would ask the judge if he wanted to get them to wrap it up, and he always said, ‘No, there’s no strict time limit, let’s hear them out,’” DeRise said. “He did the same thing with pro se litigants, knowing it’s tough for them to get up in front of a judge and make their case without legal training. He would always give them the time they needed to tell their story.”

Now practicing at the Lynchburg firm Woods Rogers, DeRise still has regular meals with Judge Moon — at Irene’s, of course.

Among the more than 50 judicial clerks Moon has produced, he can claim protégés who have gone on to manage law firms, teach law and become leading lawyers in their fields. Nearly all of his former clerks came to the Lynchburg reunion, some from as far away as California and Texas.

“It was evident in everybody’s toasts just how much of an impact he had had on their lives and on their professional work,” DeRise said. “You could tell working for him was a formative experience for all of them.” (DeRise organized the event with Catherine Ward ’22, another former Moon clerk who went on to clerk for the Third Circuit.)

When he took senior status at the court in 2010, Moon could determine his caseload and set his own schedule. Despite that flexibility, he still chooses to carry a full caseload, even though the pay would be the same whether he worked or not.

Moon said the work, his “good genes” for longevity and his ritualized routines continue to sustain him, keeping him sharp and healthy as he approaches the end of his ninth decade. (His mother lived to nearly 100, while his father made it to 91, he said.)

He also keeps a full social life: His son and grandson live nearby in Lynchburg, he has a group of people he eats breakfast with each day, he lunches with his clerks “and a few other friends,” and he has a group of friends he has dinner with a couple nights each week.

“There are some days I would like not to have anything to do, but on balance, I know I’m better off working pretty much full-time than I would be just loafing,” Moon said. “I’m enjoying my life, and I’d rather do what I know how to do than volunteering to do something else.

“I’d pay to do this job.”