Comment #: 33012
Rating:5.0
Comments:
Weak and indecisive. Misses the mark with her rulings. Overly lenient. You feel like you're at a cocktail party in her courtroom, she's super courteous and pleasant to be around I'll give her that. I don't think she's bad, but not great either.

Comment #: 32841
Rating:9.3
Comments:
Outstanding judge, especially in complex cases.

Comment #: 24712
Rating:2.5
Comments:
Unfortunately, I cannot describe in detail the extent to which Judge Pratter mismanaged my clients' case because I have to think it was exceptional, even for her. My biggest criticism is that despite talking a tough game, when push comes to shove she is incredibly weak and indecisive.

Lawyers might justifiably describe her as rude and arrogant. However, I have had plenty of rude and arrogant federal judges who were good Judges and got to the right result. That's all that matters to me. By contrast, Judge Pratter's arrogance is totally misplaced. She seems to think that being one of 2,800 district judges makes her special. However, of the scores of federal judges I have had over the years, the only outstanding thing about her was how badly she mismanaged the case, how lax she was on procedure, and how unwilling she was to bring the hammer down on some of the worst gamesmanship I have ever seen in federal court.

She had numerous "abuse of discretion"-review reasons to correctly decide the case at various stages, but she was weak, indecisive, and apparently unwilling to do the work required to fairly dispose of the case, choosing instead to punt on every decision. At numerous stages I had the impression she knew the case and understood what was going on, but nonetheless she did nothing to bring the law to bear. I guess we can at least thank Senator Leahy she didn't make it onto the 3d Circuit.

If you have the misfortune of having Judge Pratter assigned, try to get a Magistrate Judge instead. Judge Pratter is a real let-down to the federal bench and litigants who think they've invoked the jurisdiction of a serious court.

Comment #: 8988
Rating:3.0
Comments:
She went out of her way to criticize a plaintiff's employment lawyer by name, and was declared completely wrong by the court of appeals.

Comment #: 8031
Rating:9.2
Comments:
Judge Pratter is smart and, in my experience, very different from many of the recent appointments in terms of her intellectual approach to the law. I do not think that she is any kind of conservative ideologue, which in my experience can be a real problem with recent appointees to the federal bench.