J. Machelle Sweeting

Judge Sweeting has become my favorite Judge in the Guardianship part. She is incredibly prepared, efficient, knowledgeable in various aspects of law and genuinely caring of the AIP and the family. I believe there is always something to learn from her every time I appear before her and I truly enjoy it.

A really terrible judge. She stopped all of my contact with my son. Without a hearing! I never had a chance to present testimony, call witnesses. Luckily, I went to the Appellate court. I handled my case pro se. The Appellate Court ruled unanimously in my favor, 5 to 0 in my favor and restored all my contact with my son. When Appellate issued this ruling, Sweeting tried to ignore it. But I proceeded to an entity that deals with judicial conduct, forget the name of the entity now, and they must have told Sweeting that she could not ignore a unanimous ruling of the Appellate Court. All my contact with my son was restored and he and I now have a great relationship, thanks be to God. I think Sweeting might have taken a bribe. To stop my contact with my son without a hearing, that's extreme. Luckily, Appellate fixed it.

I have been practicing law for over 30-years and this is by far one of the best Judges on the bench. She is VERY well prepared and reads EVERY thing prior to argument. She is a professional and a model of court room decorum and preparedness. To my pleasant surprise, she reads every brief, memorandum of law and filing and will refer to the page and even the footnote of your pleadings which is a rare skill and VERY impressive. She refers to every attorney and party by name and makes a dedicated and committed effort to ensuring that everyone's name is spelled and pronounced correctly on the record which is a moment of pride for lawyers like myself who have names that are difficult to both spell and pronounce. She is a pleasure to watch in action and several visitors and members of the public were in court when I was there and like me, there were in awe of her mastery of the law. On the one occasion I appeared before her in criminal court, she was the only Judge to hold the most meaningful preconference that set the tone of the court to the delight of all who appeared before her. This Judge is truly a star model of justice. She should really be on TV.

Useless in the City part- does nothing to advance the case which Corp Counsel loves, goes beyond to duck judicial responsibilities - a ghost as she is never available for conferences - this is why cases linger forever