How hard can it be to bring a judge up to speed on applicable law in any particular case?
Incredibly hard. Good lord. Probably the top requirements in a good judge are knowledge of the law and temperment.
There's the evidence rules, on which a judge often rules in seconds flat. There's conflicting case law, and both sides will try to make their case look better by skewing the interpretation of the past cases. A good judge knows how to read other judges' opinions, and has already done so on key areas of the law. A lazy judge relies on the parties in the courtroom.
The cost to most of us in bad law, uncertainly, and appeals is incredible in the latter case.
Know of any sites that do the same thing for McHenry County?
You can probably call the McHenry Bar Assoc.. Everything else is a political recommendation. I really don't like the idea of trial judges being selected on the basis of the politics of their decisions. I'd like them selected on the sound legal basis of their decisions. The choice is living in a competitive political war, or under the rule of law.
I too am queasy about a site that gives an automatic "Not Recommended" rating if they refuse to be evaluated. Why does this site feel they cannot publish information on these judges anyway? Does first amendment not apply to text about judges? I'm sure I'm missing something here.
1) You are missing: the evaluations, given by attorneys and judges, are kept and maintained anonymously to avoid retribution. As a social scientist who deals with sensitive data, I can tell you plainly that it is impossible to fully anonymize detailed personal evaluation data. No responsible researcher publishes the data in full because those discussed can almost always (really or in their belief) figure out who said what, and take it out on them. Thus, unless the participants KNOW the data won't be published, you get bad data. You then use standard stats methods to cull the extreme datapoints from the analysis.
2) Again: if a medical doctor refused to be evaluated by his peers and patients in an AMA study, would YOU recommend him?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Re: Biased; Useful in Context
Date: 2004-11-01 09:06 am (UTC)Incredibly hard. Good lord. Probably the top requirements in a good judge are knowledge of the law and temperment.
There's the evidence rules, on which a judge often rules in seconds flat. There's conflicting case law, and both sides will try to make their case look better by skewing the interpretation of the past cases. A good judge knows how to read other judges' opinions, and has already done so on key areas of the law. A lazy judge relies on the parties in the courtroom.
The cost to most of us in bad law, uncertainly, and appeals is incredible in the latter case.
Know of any sites that do the same thing for McHenry County?
You can probably call the McHenry Bar Assoc.. Everything else is a political recommendation. I really don't like the idea of trial judges being selected on the basis of the politics of their decisions. I'd like them selected on the sound legal basis of their decisions. The choice is living in a competitive political war, or under the rule of law.
I too am queasy about a site that gives an automatic "Not Recommended" rating if they refuse to be evaluated. Why does this site feel they cannot publish information on these judges anyway? Does first amendment not apply to text about judges? I'm sure I'm missing something here.
1) You are missing: the evaluations, given by attorneys and judges, are kept and maintained anonymously to avoid retribution. As a social scientist who deals with sensitive data, I can tell you plainly that it is impossible to fully anonymize detailed personal evaluation data. No responsible researcher publishes the data in full because those discussed can almost always (really or in their belief) figure out who said what, and take it out on them. Thus, unless the participants KNOW the data won't be published, you get bad data. You then use standard stats methods to cull the extreme datapoints from the analysis.
2) Again: if a medical doctor refused to be evaluated by his peers and patients in an AMA study, would YOU recommend him?