Judges
May 21st, 2007 at 18:38Two interesting thoughts on judges have found their way to me lately. First, “do judges systematically favor the interests of the legal profession?” That’s what this article (spotlighted on this fabulous blog) asks. Its answer? Yes. After a sweeping analysis of major cases in the areas of lawyer regulation, attorney-client privilege, lawyer advertising and solicitation, IOLTAs, right to counsel, noncompete agreements, and legal malpractice, author Benjamin Barton declares that “the law is noticeably more favorable to lawyers than other professions” and that “judges treat lawyers differently and better” than other litigants. How could this be? Barton says it just might be for the obvious reason that judges are also lawyers, themselves. And the legal profession has fought any initiative to allow non-lawyer regulation of its monopoly.
Second, what in the hell with this “we need more money” thing that judges are clamoring about lately? E.g., Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia famously fretting that you just “can’t raise a family” on a $165,000 federal judge’s salary. Bellingham, Washington, lawyer Thomas Goetzl wrote in to the ABA Journal with some good comments on this issue. “Is ‘the erosion in pay discouraging the best private lawyers from entering the judiciary’?,” he asks. “Only if one equates ‘best’ with highest-paid,” he says. “There are tens of thousands of excellent lawyers who labor on behalf of their clients’ interests with competence in private offices, at public interest firms or in government positions. Happily, not all who practice choose their career path by following the money.” Goetzl goes on and wonders:
Perhaps more judges should be selected who have represented clients other than the most powerful. Lawyers who have walked the other side of the street, who have earned relatively modest livings representing small businesses, consumers or the poor, might bring different sensitivities to their deliberations. A judge’s awareness of the real world that ordinary people inhabit inevitably impacts that judge’s interpretation of the law.
What are the percentages on where judges practiced before “ascending” to the bench? I know this data is out there. I will track it down and post it here.
May 21st, 2007 at 19:31
I typically deal with one of two judges in my practice. One cut her teeth primarily as a prosecutor. The other cut his teeth primarily as a public defense attorney and representing indigent clients in civil commitment actions. Anecdotal evidence, of course. And somewhat atypical, in that these judges sit in a court of limited jurisdiction, and in a relatively undesirable county to boot. But it is not my experience that trial court judges are hoity toity individuals.
May 25th, 2007 at 20:31
Thanks for the comment, and I suspect that you’re right, at least with trial judges in state courts. I have found the data—but only the raw stuff. I’m still hunting down someplace that has tallied and issued some percentages.
May 26th, 2007 at 9:55
[…] I’ve been surprised how hard it’s been to find some at-a-glance figures on where judges practiced before they became judges. I still haven’t found what I’m looking for, and I’m going to quit trying for the moment. These ABA stats on diversity in state courts are curious though: while the percentage of non-white judges (10%) is about the same as the percentage of non-white lawyers (11%), the way those non-white judges are making it on the bench is overwhelmingly by popular election. Of the non-white judges, more than two-thirds—69%—were elected by the public. Only 2.2% were appointed by their governor, and state supreme courts with appointment responsibilities selected a mere 0.4% of non-white state court judges in America (that is, literally, just four of them). Posted in n.b. | Leave a Reply […]