A year after he was defeated in the 1963 Democratic primary to retain his part-time office as delegate, Gouldman was elected a judge of the first Juvenile and Domestic Relations court in Virginia, and served until 1977.
A colorful trial lawyer and active in the local Democratic party, Gouldman served on the Fredericksburg City Council beginning in 1942, and was elected its president as top vote-getter in 1950.
He proposed a law to declare Brown v. Board of Education "null and void" in the Commonwealth, and in 1958 was appointed to a committee chaired by delegate John B. Boatwright which sought to bring legal ethics charges against the NAACP.
Although some ascribed Gouldman's defeat in the Democratic primary in 1963 to support for a costly dam in far-away Salem, the U.S. Supreme Court a few months previously had decided in favor of the NAACP in NAACP v. Button, thus striking down the statutes on which that committee had proceeded.
He advocated building separate juvenile detention facilities, and kept his family courtroom formal, as well as insisted on prompt payment of child support.