Zobel is infamous for never allowing lawyers to touch his judge’s bench, but also for decorating it with two vases of fresh flowers at opposite ends every day.

Beyond the bench, Zobel has lent his expertise to the United States Senate Judiciary Committee, testifying and advocating the use of cameras in the courtroom.

“I was experienced, since Massachusetts has been using cameras in its courtrooms since 1980, and from what I can see, TV cameras do not cause any problems,” Zobel says. Just as Zobel has made his mark in the Middlesex courthouse, in the Boston legal community and in the national media, he has crept into the dictionary’s legal definitions.

Under the second entry for the word “sentencing” in the American Heritage Dictionary, Zobel is quoted as saying, “Prosecutors and sentencing judges alike try to deal with individuals on an individual basis, without regard to social status.”

Zobel, who was forced to retire in February 2002 when he reached the mandatory retirement age of 70, says he feels fortunate to have served as a judge and will continue to write about the law by examining the Massachusetts Rules of Civil Procedures and publishing a book on the former Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Despite the high-profile Woodward case and his immortalization on “The Practice,” Zobel says he simply hopes to be remembered as “a judge...who was fair and who did his duty and decided matters without regard to whether or not the decision was popular or unpopular.”

—Staff writer Anat Maytal can be reached at maytal@fas.harvard.edu.