Court Gesture

SAINT NICK: Mayor Street was among those who turned out to laud longtime Family Court Judge Nicholas Cipriani last week.
Photo By: Michael T. Regan

After 36 impressive years on the bench, a judge is honored.

by Doron Taussig

Jennifer Haughton screwed up royally on her first day of work. Fresh out of college, Haughton was thrust into the chambers of a Family Court judge to work as a secretary for a man who spent his days punishing young people. On this first day, the judge sat down and dictated four letters to his new assistant, but Haughton froze up with fear and managed to transcribe just the first sentence of the first memo.

When she broke the news to Judge Nicholas Cipriani, his response was both extreme and unreasonable. He took her hand and said, "You know Jen, I'm not just your boss. I'm your friend. Don't get nervous."

That was 13 years ago, but Haughton remains grateful for Cipriani's magnanimity. And so last Thursday, she was at the Please Touch Museum, where the advocacy group Philadelphia Citizens for Children and Youth was presenting Judge Cipriani with the Wilbur Hobbs "True Friend of Children" Award. Cipriani, who turns 86 in July, served for 36 years in Family Court and still handles about 40 cases a week as a part-time hearing master in truancy court.

"He's like the Energizer Bunny, driven not by batteries, but by an abiding concern for children whose lives are full of pain and turmoil," read a PCCY statement. "Though he could have retired at 70, Cipriani won permission from the Supreme Court to serve as a senior judge. He took a part-time gig … when a new state Supreme Court rule mandated that all judges retire at 80."

PCCY's event was a veritable who's-who of Philadelphia social servants — Health Department Commissioner John Domzalski, DHS Commissioner Cheryl Ransom Garner, Family Court President Judge Kevin M. Dougherty. Even Mayor Street, who used to argue in front of Cipriani as a child advocate, mingled amongst the museum's toys. Everyone shared nice memories of "Cip." One judge likened walking into the honoree's orderly courtroom to "walking into a cathedral." And several people observed that, unlike many judges, Cipriani could always be relied on to give everyone — attorneys, parents and children-- their say.

The attendees described a judge who was neither especially lenient nor strict, just faithful to the law, "the quintessential jurist," as the Defender Association's Doni Shaffer put it. More than that, they described a simple and humble Philadelphian, a man who aspired only to serve his city and be respected for doing so.

Nicholas A. Cipriani was born on July 1, 1919, the day Prohibition became law. He grew up on 12th Street, south of Passyunk, in a tight-knit Italian neighborhood where everyone knew everyone and, consequently, children behaved themselves. Cipriani's father, Giacinto, emigrated from Apuglia, Italy, when he was 16 and inherited a barbershop from his father-in-law. "Gene's" doubled as a community center; Cipriani remembers listening to men talk as he swept the floor and, after turning 14, gave 15-cent shaves (haircuts were a quarter). The two most common topics of conversation were the horse races and gossip about bootleggers.

At 16, Cipriani took a job as a stenographer for lawyer Robert Sebastian, who paid his charge $2 a week plus his tuition at Temple Law School. Three days after graduating, Cipriani was drafted and served as a provost marshal at an Army hospital in Illinois. He still carries his military ID in his wallet. It bears the picture of a handsome young man with a prominent nose. "Proof that I once had hair," the judge explains.

Upon his return to Philly, Cipriani married Catherine Campo, and worked as an attorney while they raised two children. He ran for a seat on the bench in 1969 because he thought it would be an honor. Cipriani is a Republican by blood (his grandfather was a GOP committeeman), an underdog in this town, but he rode to victory on the coattails of Arlen Specter's run for district attorney. He served as administrative judge, running Family Court for eight years and sat on numerous community boards. Through it all, he and his wife remained in South Philly, just seven blocks from where Cipriani's great-grandfather settled. If he hadn't decided to move to a retirement home in 2002, leaving the neighborhood wouldn't have occurred to Cipriani. He liked South Philly: Why should he leave?

Family Court can be an ugly place. In a dependency hearing, you hear the terrible things that have been done to children, and in a delinquency hearing, the terrible things children have done to others.

Cipriani's worst recollection is of a teenager being chained in a basement with a broken leg. But for comfort, he turns to the memory of a young lady who sought him out years after appearing before him and said that, by ignoring her entreaties to let her stay in a broken home, he saved her life. He still works today, both to give himself something to do and because the work is fulfilling.

His advice for young jurists is an analogy that was passed down to him by an older judge: "A case is like a scale. When the plaintiff presents his case, the needle moves over one way, and you'll want to rule in favor of him. But when the other side presents its case the needle will move back. Wait until the needle rests." The gig, he says, is not that complicated. "I'm no great guy, I just wanted to do what was right. Let your conscience be your guide."

The best development Cipriani has seen is the growth of family law — laws against child abuse and neglect, etc. But as the law began protecting children, he says, families ravaged by drugs and teenage parents began to endanger them.

"If only we could find a unit in each family who is interested in caring for the children," he says. "It doesn't have to be a husband and wife. But someone."

In his acceptance speech, Cipriani didn't emphasize his own accomplishments. Rather, he lavished praise on Hobbs, the child advocate after whom his award is named. Then, to close, he declared with the force of several decades' indignation that family law, abandoned by many for more prestigious pursuits, deserves more respect. "Many people think that family law is on the lower rung of the judicial ladder," he said. "How wrong that is."