The Enigmatic Microsoft Judge

U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, 62, the jurist presiding over the Microsoft trial, is a complex character.

One the one hand, he is very competitive, according to attorney Nicholas McConnell who was quoted by The Washington Post as saying, "He is angry any time he loses a point on anything. He hates to lose."

Yet the Post also describes him as a joke-telling, "avuncular, well-fed judge who looks like the guy in Miracle on 34th Street, who gives leash to lawyers and allows them to argue their cases."

In November The New York Times profiled the jurist, saying he "seems a natural as a judge," adding that "He's a big man, white haired, avuncular. But he did not seem a clear natural for the Microsoft trial."

"Judge Jackson is hardly a technophile; he has been known to write opinions longhand. And while the fast moving world of technology demanded an equally fast-paced trial, Judge Jackson got in trouble once for allowing a trial to go on too long - so long, in fact, that an appellate court ordered him to rule," The Times wrote.

The Times went on to say, though, that lawyers say "he has administered the Microsoft trial brilliantly" in a case that may be the biggest in his career.

Years ago, a profile in the Washingtonian Magazine was not so kind. The 1996 piece called him "one of the least respected judges on the federal bench." He was strongly defended in the next issue of the magazine, however, in a letter signed by 26 law clerks who had worked with him.

Jackson is a former Navy officer and now a weekend sailor with a 33-foot sloop he owns with two others. He resides in Georgetown and sometimes walks the 20 blocks to the courthouse. The Republican was appointed in 1982 by President Ronald Reagan.

He's been a major player in the case against Microsoft since 1995, when he approved the settlement in the first government lawsuit against the company. An important ruling Jackson made against the software giant in December 1997 was overturned by an appeals court, which said he had overstepped his authority.

According to the Times, he once told a group of reporters who shared a cab with him, that "he tried hard to sit Sphinx-like on the bench so no one could read anything into his expressions. But at that one thing, at least, he failed."

During trial testimony, Jackson was not shy about interrupting lawyers to ask questions of witnesses, but chastised reporters for reading too much into his comments.

Occasionally lost his temper toward witnesses and lawyers, openly laughed at videotape of Bill Gates' deposition.

According to the Washington Post, the quick-witted Jackson sometimes has a short temper. "He can be impatient with people who don't bring the same naked ability to the law that he does," said attorney McConnell. "That's a lot of people. It's a frustration. He wa always five steps ahead of me and curious why I couldn't catch up."

Sometimes appeared to struggle to stay awake. Since he doesn't particularly understand the latest computer technology, he relied upon a lengthy explanation about how to download and install software from the Internet.

Jackson is not a big fan of the press, although he regularly read trial coverage and one of his two grown daughters is a news service reporter.

He was quoted in the Federal Lawyer as saying the press, "like all infectious diseases, is a predator. It will feed on whatever it can find, including the host, if its appetite is not sated."