New selection method for federal judiciary
US Medieval Italy Crowned Republic Era:
Discuss with maps.
Skill and Chance:
Having a state/federal judicial service obligation to be a member of the bar in good standing isn't a terrible idea. Particularly if they rotated in and out- say every 10th year of a legal career beginning with year 10 must be spent adjudicating cases or you have left the profession. Would have to be very careful not to create a revolving door of conflicts of interest, though.
Stranger in a strange land:
Quote from: Skill and Chance on February 07, 2024, 09:21:44 AM
Having a state/federal judicial service obligation to be a member of the bar in good standing isn't a terrible idea. Particularly if they rotated in and out- say every 10th year of a legal career beginning with year 10 must be spent adjudicating cases or you have left the profession. Would have to be very careful not to create a revolving door of conflicts of interest, though.
I'm not a lawyer, but I know many, and many (if not most!) lawyers don't become judges or even aspire to: lawyers often make much more money in private practice than they would on the bench, the skill sets required to be a good lawyer and be a good judge are often different, and of course there's also the issue of conflicts of interest, which you mention, especially if they're constantly going back and forth between practicing law and being in the judiciary.
Dereich:
Quote from: Taylor Swift Boat Veterans for Truth on February 07, 2024, 10:24:34 AM
Quote from: Skill and Chance on February 07, 2024, 09:21:44 AM
Having a state/federal judicial service obligation to be a member of the bar in good standing isn't a terrible idea. Particularly if they rotated in and out- say every 10th year of a legal career beginning with year 10 must be spent adjudicating cases or you have left the profession. Would have to be very careful not to create a revolving door of conflicts of interest, though.
The amount of sheer terror this would create in the middle-aged trusts & estates lawyer who gets conscripted to run the felony docket — entering the courthouse for the first time since he swore in to the bar, thinking about the rules of evidence for the first time since 1L — is enough to make this the best idea I've ever heard. Unfortunately this would create a lot more work for the appellate courts so I must oppose it.
Absolutely. The judge I currently mostly practice in front of had only ever done business litigation and mediation cases before being dropped into a felony criminal courtroom. He admitted he hadn't thought about probable cause since law school and suddenly was having to make rulings very very quickly on the subject. At least he had the benefit of having the rest of the local criminal bench to advise and provide examples/templates on how to conduct a criminal courtroom and to handle more common issues. In a system without that existing support network? Absolute chaos. And that's something that neither state or defence wants in criminal matters.
🌴:
Funny idea. I've heard the random-lawyer idea before. It's very Athenian.
My methodology is to have only the lowest-tier courts be appointed by the President, then the appellate court judges are selected by the judges on lower-tier courts that comprise them from among their own members, and the Supreme Court justices are selected by the judges on the appellate courts from among their own members, each with a set (not lifetime - maybe 10 years to start on the lowest-tier courts, resetting to the beginning of another 10-year term if you get selected for a higher court) but staggered tenure. Given how many lower-tier court judges there are, the staggering of terms and that the judges themselves would be less political than actually elected officials (even among Trump appointees, only a few are very aggressively partisan), practically speaking it wouldn't be possible to heavily rig the court system as a whole and particularly not the Supreme Court.
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