THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, February 7, 1995 TAG: 9502070006
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 55 lines
The business-world mantra of the '90s is ``Please the Customer.''
The idea is simple and hard at the same time: Discover what customers want and give it to them.
Now a step is being taken in Norfolk to help judges please their customers - the lawyers.
As described by staff writer Marc Davis, lawyers will judge the state judges. Theoretically, at least, the 19 Norfolk state judges will use the lawyers' ratings of them to improve themselves. Judges, then, will better ``please their customers.''
Most likely the legislators who determine whether to reappoint judges will have the lawyers' ratings as guides. Thus judges will have an additional reason for self-improvement: self-preservation.
In Virginia, state judges are appointed by legislators without public elections or merit-selection panels. Once appointed, a judge is not evaluated until his or her reappointment every six or eight years, and then by only a small group of legislators.
For three years, the Fairfax Bar Association has been running the only Virginia program in which lawyers evaluate sitting judges. Fairfax County lawyers fill out evaluation forms for new judges after one year, then every other year, and just before reappointment.
In Fairfax the judges are rated for judicial temperament, judicial propriety, judicial management skills, legal ability and overall performance. Among other things, lawyers rate, on a scale of 1 to 4, whether a judge ``is attentive during proceedings.'' Presumably judges who doze off get low marks on that one. Lawyers also rate whether a judge ``shows bias against any participant according to: race, sex, national origin, religion.'' Presumably a judge might discover from his ratings some unconscious bias.
Open-ended comments may be made about judges, but they are sent only to those judges. No results are released to the public.
In some cities, judges have opposed being judged. To their considerable credit, Norfolk judges are not fighting the idea. ``The consensus was we ought to do it. . . ,'' said Norfolk Circuit Judge Charles E. Poston, a member of a Bar study committee. ``It's just a question of how to do it.''
Lawyers are naturally reluctant to criticize a judge face to face, given that the judge determines the guilt or innocence of the lawyers' clients.
But Judge Poston said, ``It would be helpful to me to know what lawyers who practice before me thought were my strengths and weaknesses.''
So many proposals are loose in the world that some of them are bound to make sense. Judging the judges is one of them. Other cities should follow Norfolk. by CNB