The Value of Hard Work

Many years ago, before John Weimer became a lawyer or a judge, he worked at his father’s gas station on Plantation Road in Thibodaux.

A friend of his father’s was Randy Parro, a man who would later serve as a trial court judge in Lafourche Parish and later as an appeals court judge. When the two men spoke, the young Weimer did not enter the conversation. Parro was one of the most erudite people young Weimer had ever met. He felt intimidated.

At a dinner both men attended several years ago, Parro spoke of the day young Weimer broke his silence, by asking him what one needed to do in order to get into law school.

Weimer recalls Parro’s telling of what happened next.

“I look at this filthy, dirty, nasty, skinny, long-haired, greasy kid who crawled out from under my car and I thought here is a guy who is going to need a lawyer,” Weimer quoted Parro as saying. “He’s not going to be one.”

Years after the encounter, when Parro got appointed to the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, he proudly submitted the name of John Weimer, who attended LSU School of Law and became an attorney, for consideration by the Louisiana Supreme Court as the person who would serve in his place as a Lafourche Parish district judge.

Weimer, a graduate of Louisiana State University Law School who was in private practice at the time, ended up accepting the invitation.

It was a long trip to the state’s highest court. Prior to his time as a district court judge, Weimer had attended Nicholls State University as an undergrad, went on to LSU School of Law, entered his practice and returned to Nicholls to teach law, which he continued doing even after his 1995 appointment to the bench.

In 1998 he became a First Circuit Court of Appeal judge, and in 2001 took a seat on the Louisiana Supreme Court. He is one of its six justices, who hear appeals from the lower courts and also supervise, through the Judicial Council, the conduct of attorneys and judges throughout the state.

The time spent at his father’s gas station taught some very important lessons to Weimer, several of which relate directly to the work he has done on the bench in all judicial assignments, whether as a trial judge in Thibodaux or one of the six Louisiana Supremes sitting in New Orleans.

“To treat everyone regardless of their station in life with dignity and respect, to be fair and impartial,” are among the tasks he came away from the gas station knowing he had to follow. As he gained experience, Weimer learned and believes to this day, that to be just his decisions must be based strictly on the law, as it is written by the legislature, “not as I suggest it should be or how I would like it to be.”

Is that hard, he was asked.

“It is sometimes,” was the reply. “I have resigned myself to not having a personal opinion about things, because it gets in the way. And I would prefer to be guided in my judicial decisions by knowing what the law dictates. The law is not perfectly fair in every situation. We are given a little wiggle room as judges.”

He notes a provision in Louisiana’s civil code, which states in Article 9, “when a law is clear and unambiguous, and its application does not lead to absurd consequences, the law shall be applied as written and no further interpretation may be made in search of the intent of the legislature.”

Good words, Weimer maintains, for a judge to use for guidance. Having a background that works most clearly toward the good, he maintains, helps.

“I do perceive that judges have a role in society to be the best person they can be,” he said. “I am human and fall short on occasion, but I certainly try to achieve that.”

Three elements of his life, Weimer maintains, have helped him become a better person. His family — wife and children — are the first. That he taught ethics at Nicholls, Weimer maintains, is next. Finally, that he is a judge has benefitted him likewise. The most important values generally, Weimer said, came from those years at the gas station.

“My father was an impeccably honest mechanic,” Weimer said. “It taught me the value of hard work, and how rewarding it can be to be of service. Servicing peoples’ vehicles, pumping the gas, wiping the windshield, whatever work you do there are lessons to be learned. I have also learned that hard work, dedication and persistence and time on task, along with tenacity, can make up for lack of intellect.” •