Welcome back to the Carolina Cabinet, Cumberland County's smartest hour of talk radio. Peter Pappas and Laura Mussler sit down with Judge Michael Byrne, an administrative law judge at the NC Office of Administrative Hearings and the Republican candidate for the North Carolina Court of Appeals, Seat 1.
Byrne explains how an NC State English major headed for Washington think tanks ended up practicing law for thirty-plus years, and why the best advice he ever got was three words: "Get it right." He walks through what the Office of Administrative Hearings actually does, from certificate-of-need hospital fights to Quick Pass toll appeals, and talks about his record: just over 400 decisions, eleven reviewed by the Court of Appeals, and never reversed.
Peter presses him on experience, on how appeals work (appellate courts review the facts a judge found; they don't find new ones), and on why civility matters in a judicial race. Byrne closes on his career representing state employees and police officers, and on the humility he says he brings to the bench.
Early voting begins Thursday, October 15. Find all of our candidate conversations at thecarolinacabinet.com.
00:00 Intro
00:24 Welcome, Judge Michael Byrne
01:19 From think tanks to law school
03:47 Best advice: "Get it right"
06:06 What the Office of Administrative Hearings does
07:19 Certificate of need, explained
10:11 400 decisions, never reversed
13:24 Judging lawyers by their old clients
15:40 Keeping judicial races clean
19:48 Endorsements and thirty years of courtesy
21:17 When lawyers and judges ate lunch together
25:33 Fighting a state agency
26:20 Appellate courts don't find facts
28:31 Experience on the ballot
33:42 The one takeaway
35:10 Humility on the trail
37:11 Where to find him
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