Tinder joins the big leagues with seat on 7th Circuit

All in the preparation

Since then, Tinder said, he has been tending to dozens of pending civil and criminal cases that were near completion on his district court docket, while “trying to ease my way into the appellate environment.”

By the end of January, Tinder had already heard arguments on three panels of the court of appeals.

“I’m, of course, a bit awestruck to be sitting here with these judges who have been grading my papers now for 20 years or so, and for whom I have great respect,” Tinder said. “To be sitting kind of on par with them is a little intimidating. It’s something I’ll be getting used to.”

A main change for the new federal appellate judge is in his preparation for arguments.

“It’s kind of a different preparation than for a trial,” Tinder said. “In a trial, you’re preparing to observe and participate in the development of the facts and instructing the jury on the law. Here, all of that’s already been done, and you’re analyzing how the procedure went, looking deeper into the legal issues to see how those are supposed to play out. It’s an entirely different type of preparation for me.”

But preparation is far from unfamiliar territory for Tinder, according to many practitioners who’ve appeared before him in district court.

“Whenever he is on the bench, I’ve found that he’s already about three steps ahead of both lawyers, and knows exactly where the case is going to end up,” said Kevin W. Betz of Betz & Associates in Indianapolis. “I think most lawyers will find themselves hard-pressed to outwork Judge Tinder. You’re really going to get your money’s worth; it’s not going to be a slap and a dash by any means. You can rest assured that he will be enormously prepared in, potentially, ways you never imagined.”

Betz, who represents plaintiffs in individual rights and employment law cases and has appeared before Tinder on numerous occasions, said the judge has “absolutely all the model qualities you’re looking for in a judge, whether it be trial or appellate.”

“What you get from Judge Tinder is an enormously diligent individual, an enormously intelligent individual, and an enormously even-tempered individual,” Betz said.

A lifelong resident of Indianapolis, Tinder has experience as a practitioner in both the civil and criminal arenas, the private and public sector and on both sides of the aisle, including a stint as a public defender in Marion County, Ind., and three years in the mid-1980s as the top federal prosecutor in the Southern District of Indiana.

“He has the ability to see questions and issues from a variety of viewpoints. Not necessarily solely academic. Not solely prosecution- or defense-oriented. Just a well-balanced view of the world,” said William H. Dazey, an attorney with the Indiana Federal Community Defender’s office.

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