doc_strange (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
doc_strange) wrote2004-10-31 11:17 am
doc_strange) wrote2004-10-31 11:17 am
Judges and Illinois ballots 2004
Planning to vote in Illinois this election? (Please do if you're a resident.)
Expecting to be lost when you hit the mammoth judicial retention/selection portion? Who can know 74 judges and a fistfull of new candidates all that well? Well, there's hope.
The Chicago Bar Association puts out its member-driven Judicial Evaluation Committee Findings each year. They're online. They're not just "recommend" or not. They give solid reasons based on the feedback of the people who've dealt with these individuals in their professional capacities. While most are deemed quite professional in their conduct and capability, some few are not. Worth a read before going to the polls. A bad judge can make an expensive mess of the legal system, and can be your caricature-bad-litigator's wet dream, allowing a case that should be tossed to make it into the pipeline, the news, and the political gristmills. Have a good look.
Edit: Note the big top list is just the judicial RETENTIONS. Be sure to also look at the evaluations for new CANDIDATES, towards the bottom.
Expecting to be lost when you hit the mammoth judicial retention/selection portion? Who can know 74 judges and a fistfull of new candidates all that well? Well, there's hope.
The Chicago Bar Association puts out its member-driven Judicial Evaluation Committee Findings each year. They're online. They're not just "recommend" or not. They give solid reasons based on the feedback of the people who've dealt with these individuals in their professional capacities. While most are deemed quite professional in their conduct and capability, some few are not. Worth a read before going to the polls. A bad judge can make an expensive mess of the legal system, and can be your caricature-bad-litigator's wet dream, allowing a case that should be tossed to make it into the pipeline, the news, and the political gristmills. Have a good look.
Edit: Note the big top list is just the judicial RETENTIONS. Be sure to also look at the evaluations for new CANDIDATES, towards the bottom.
Re: Biased; Useful in Context
My knowledge of the AMA would render any evaluation by that organization as something to be reviewed extremely critically. They really are an elite priesthood that looks down on anyone that might have a disagreement with their One True Way. A doctor refusing such an evaluation would be akin to a Catholic priest refusing a spiritual evaluation given by Scientologists.
I have less knowledge of how much the legal profession is akin to an elite priesthood, but health care isn't the only place that attitude exists. I have contacts that have confirmed that attitude is rampant among many biology and physics Ph.D.s.
Such priesthoods exist everywhere, in a wide spectrum of fields. Our current cultural-political system pretty much demands that people specialize themselves and become experts in one thing and refer to experts for everything else. Don't question the experts (in other fields); they know what's best. Be a good cog in the machine! The machine doesn't like cogs that ask the wrong questions.
You have a J.D. if I recall correctly, so I do expect you would know more about the landscape in the legal field.