Oct 2, 2026 · 47 min · 10 segments
In this episode of **PodNumbra**, we sit down with **Samuel Salario** for a conversation about his remarkable legal career and the experiences that have shaped the way he practices law today. Samuel…
And you mentioned that you initially started applying for circuit judge positions, trying to get an appointment to a vacancy in the circuit court.
Ultimately, the feedback came, you're probably better suited, your skill set to be an appellate judge.
But a lot of people, I think, don't know this.
It's not like the minor league system where you have to kind of work your way up to the big leagues.
Like you start in small claims and then you go to county and then circuit civil and and then appellate and then you know on and on you jump right to the second district court of appeal so can you explain why that is something that judges are able to do where you don't necessarily have to be a judge at the trial court level but you can jump right to the appellate level i know for instance justice elena kagan on the u.s supreme court i don't believe she was ever a judge at any lower court uh prior to being appointed to the u.s supreme court i believe she was a uh a procedural law professor, I think at Harvard, if I'm not mistaken.
Yeah, and
One, I do think there is kind of I don't want to call it a bias, but a thinking at the judicial nominating commission level that we'd kind of like to see you progress through the system.
I did get a fair amount of feedback, like you should apply for county court first.
And my thought was, hey, listen, if I get appointed, it's not a guarantee that I'm going to move up in the system.
Rather it be a job that I'm confident I'm going to like and I'm confident that it's the right fit for the county court job.
I think at the governor's office, it's kind of a different ballgame, you know, particularly over the last two administrations, the Scott and DeSantis administration, I think.
What they are looking for are smart, principled people who view the job of judging a different way.
I also think there's just a job of being an appellate judge is a fundamentally different job and different skills being a trial court of appeals.
Right.
Yeah.
The trial court, in addition to being a fact-finding court, they're calling the balls and strikes initially.
And then when it goes up to the appellate court, they're basically looking at those balls and strikes and laying the law on top of those decisions and saying whether or not that should have been a ball or a strike.
And they'll reverse or affirm whether or not it should have been a strike or a ball to boil it down to baseball parlance for those who may not have followed the system.
And also, the other aspect of jumping right to the Second District Court of Appeal is that in law school, which a lot of people may not know, we're basically taught from the case law perspective where we're just essentially reading appeals Most of the time, we don't spend a lot of time in law school reading the trial level briefs and things of that nature.
The case method's all based on appeal.
And then you come out and you're working in the trial court.
And you mentioned that you initially started applying for circuit judge positions, trying to get an appointment to a vacancy in the circuit court.
Ultimately, the feedback came, you're probably better suited, your skill set to be an appellate judge.
But a lot of people, I think, don't know this.
It's not like the minor league system where you have to kind of work your way up to the big leagues.
Like you start in small claims and then you go to county and then circuit civil and and then appellate and then you know on and on you jump right to the second district court of appeal so can you explain why that is something that judges are able to do where you don't necessarily have to be a judge at the trial court level but you can jump right to the appellate level i know for instance justice elena kagan on the u.s supreme court i don't believe she was ever a judge at any lower court uh prior to being appointed to the u.s supreme court i believe she was a uh a procedural law professor, I think at Harvard, if I'm not mistaken.
Yeah, and
One, I do think there is kind of I don't want to call it a bias, but a thinking at the judicial nominating commission level that we'd kind of like to see you progress through the system.
I did get a fair amount of feedback, like you should apply for county court first.
And my thought was, hey, listen, if I get appointed, it's not a guarantee that I'm going to move up in the system.
Rather it be a job that I'm confident I'm going to like and I'm confident that it's the right fit for the county court job.
I think at the governor's office, it's kind of a different ballgame, you know, particularly over the last two administrations, the Scott and DeSantis administration, I think.
What they are looking for are smart, principled people who view the job of judging a different way.
I also think there's just a job of being an appellate judge is a fundamentally different job and different skills being a trial court of appeals.
Right.
Yeah.
The trial court, in addition to being a fact-finding court, they're calling the balls and strikes initially.
And then when it goes up to the appellate court, they're basically looking at those balls and strikes and laying the law on top of those decisions and saying whether or not that should have been a ball or a strike.
And they'll reverse or affirm whether or not it should have been a strike or a ball to boil it down to baseball parlance for those who may not have followed the system.
And also, the other aspect of jumping right to the Second District Court of Appeal is that in law school, which a lot of people may not know, we're basically taught from the case law perspective where we're just essentially reading appeals Most of the time, we don't spend a lot of time in law school reading the trial level briefs and things of that nature.
The case method's all based on appeal.
And then you come out and you're working in the trial court.
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