When Lafayette City Court Judge Doug Saloom was just a 10-year-old Webelos Scout, he was given a merit badge assignment titled: “What I like about America.” One thing he wrote? “I hope to be a judge and try to keep people out of trouble so that a better community will add to the greatness of America,” the now 66-year-old Saloom remembers.
This year, after over three decades as a judge and a lifetime spent in city court, Saloom is retiring, leaving his seat to a yet-to-be-elected successor. None of this year’s candidates are Salooms, meaning the court will be without someone from the storied Lebanese-American family for the first time in 70 years, with the exception of a brief gap in the 1990s.
When Doug Saloom ran for city court in 1995, he had big shoes to fill.
His father, the late Judge Kaliste Saloom Jr., became a legendary figure through his sweeping court reforms, national leadership in traffic and highway safety and deep community service serving a total of 40 years on the bench from 1953-1993.
During his tenure, Kaliste Saloom established the Lafayette Juvenile Detention Home, the Acadiana Safety Council, instituted traffic ticket and court administration reforms and developed alternative bail and release systems. He was also the first Lafayette City Court Judge appointed to the judicial council of the Louisiana Supreme Court.
It was never Saloom’s intention to replace his father when he initially took the seat in 1995. “That would have been very difficult politically,” he says because of his courtroom leadership and legacy.
“When you follow somebody like Kaliste Saloom, that’s a pressure, because he raised this court when nobody cared,” says Saloom, adding that his father’s immediate successor inherited a court that was functioning at a much higher standard. “It’s going to be a task of every judge, myself included, that comes after him.”
When the younger Saloom decided to run in 1995, he had already been practicing law for a decade and made the decision after Judge Michael Sullivan was elected to serve at the Louisiana Third Circuit Court of Appeal, leaving a seat open for a potential candidate.
So he met with his father and older brother to decide whether to take the leap, and they concluded that it was the right time. After Saloom was elected to serve alongside Judge Francie Bouillion, who had been elected in 1994, he was determined to maintain the elevated standards his father had introduced.
“After 31 years, I feel very comfortable saying we did,” he says.
Saloom was instrumental in creating and chairing several traffic safety initiatives including “Courage to Live Louisiana,” “Buckle Up Acadiana,” I Click it! Cross My Heart” and “Drive to Survive.”
He also chaired a committee tasked with rewriting Louisiana’s OWI laws and implemented several programs for OWI and traffic offenders, including the Variable Substance Abuse Program (VSAP), a specialized, court-mandated diversion program designed to provide extended substance use education and treatment for repeat OWI and DUI offenders. He especially takes pride in his programs that influenced traffic safety for children and the legacy the court has created, like the time he worked with Louisiana Highway Safety and state police to put together a program for seatbelt safety.
“The court was able to help them, we were able to just make a little difference to them,” says Saloom. “Those are the things you leave behind that you never know, but they know. And that’s what’s important.”
But most notable to Saloom is the work the court did during the COVID-19 pandemic and the CARES Act.
“Many courts struggled to get caught up,” says Saloom. “We were caught up in less than two months after the courts opened, because we had a plan.”
And when it came to making decisions in the court, he made fairness his priority; he wanted to make the people in front of him feel heard and understood, even if they disagreed.
“When you’re blessed to wear the robe and have to make decisions, if you know the law and your decisions are consistent and fair, people recognize that even when they don’t win the case. They know that their client or the individual received a fair and just day in court.”
After issuing his rulings, former court administrator Gloria Wheeler says, Saloom would offer opportunities to “come back and clear it up.”
“People make mistakes, we all do,” is how she recalls his approach.
Wheeler worked with Saloom and his father over the course of her 35 year career at the court. When it came to their approach, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, she remembers.
“They were outspoken, both gave long sermons and handled every case individually, nurturing the person in front of them,” says Wheeler. “He was just like his father on that bench.”
Wheeler began working for the city court in 1978, during Judge Kaliste Saloom’s tenure and witnessed his conduct in court. While his father served, Doug Saloom always sat nearby watching his father work as a child, but Wheeler never imagined she would eventually work with him as a young judge.
“This building has been part of me for all of my life,” Saloom says of the years he’s spent in the building, first as a child, then as a lawyer, and later as a judge himself.
Wheeler saw the effect of the individuals whose cases were decided by Saloom. One day, she spoke to a woman who had gotten into some trouble and went before the judge. After her case was decided, Saloom recommended an education program that allowed her to attend college. She graduated and later became an RN, telling Wheeler that she’d never forget her and the judge.
Moments like that are what he will miss the most about being on bench, Saloom says; genuine conversations and human connection.
“Every person deserves somebody to look them in the eyes and talk to them. Not above them, not below them, but to them,” he says.
He’s ready to pass the title to a young judge, but in his retirement he plans to take on a mentorship role, sharing his knowledge, helping other legal professionals navigate ethical changes and pitfalls and offering support.
“The ability to gain experience is not as easy as it used to be,” says Saloom. “And so lawyers that have been around, judges that have been around, need to stay involved with the bar and the young lawyers because I think we’re an asset to them with experience.”
Lafayette City Court Judge Roya Boustany was one such mentee of Saloom’s while both served on the bench.
Saloom taught her to ponder the long-term ramifications of her decisions, not just in her legal decisions, but down to administrative matters and ways to run the courtroom.
“He’s never been in a rush to get to the answer of anything,” says Boustany. “He’s more about the journey of what it looks like getting you to that answer.”
That kind of mentorship is critical to the future success of young judges and potential lawyers, she explains, because it is easy for lawyers and judges to get caught up in their everyday lives and simply rush to move cases along. His mentorship, she notes, counters this by demonstrating true “individualized justice.”
“He takes his time and he’s diligent, and lawyers who practice in front of him I think appreciate that, and they take from it and they learn from it,” she says.
Boustany began serving on the city court in February 2025, and explained that becoming a judge brought about a unique isolation that was hard to adjust to, but Saloom was always there to offer the support and camaraderie she needed.
“I will miss him tremendously. But the confidence that I do have is that, one, he’s a phone call away, and he’s helped train me for this,” says Boustany.
During his retirement, Saloom plans to remain active in the Louisiana Bar Association to mentor young lawyers and the Louisiana Law Institute, which reviews state laws at the request of the legislature. Outside of that, he plans to focus on the things he values most — his family and his photography.
His work, which depicts Louisiana’s landscapes, wildlife, colorful close-ups, can be seen all around the courthouse, and will remain there after he’s gone.
“ Who loses the most when you’re as active in the community, as I’ve been so blessed to be, is your family,” says Saloom. “One of the first things I will do is make sure I start working on lots of family time.”
That’s how he rediscovered the essay from his time as a Cub Scout, the one about wanting to be a judge. He found it folded up and tucked away in a Scout handbook. He made sure to show it to his grandson.
