Bar groups seek evaluators, candidates to evaluate

Lawyers interested in evaluating judicial candidates are needed -- right now -- for both the Chicago Bar Association and the various members of the Alliance of Bar Associations for Judicial Screening.

CBA members are encouraged to join the CBA's Judicial Evaluation Committee by completing and returning an application (available at the linked page) and returning it to Therese Kurth at tkurth@chicagobar.org by October 11.

Applicants for the CBA JEC are not automatically accepted; applicants will be contacted by a CBA JEC member after October 11. JEC members are pledged to strict confidentiality and terms are limited. Rigorous demands for attendance and strict confidentiality are enforced.

The Puerto Rican Bar Association is also soliciting PRBA members to join its JEC. Interested PRBA members are asked to email Christian Luciano or Marcos A. Resendiz for more information.

Members of other Alliance groups who are interested in service on their organization's JECs should email Alliance Administrator Joyce Williams at jwilliams@isba.org.

One does have to be a member of an Alliance group in order to serve on that group's JEC; ISBA JEC members must be ISBA members as well, for example.

The Alliance has been conducting candidate interviews for awhile now; many interview sessions are scheduled in the coming weeks. So... interested readers should volunteer sooner rather than later.

This should be obvious, but let's say it anyway: Candidates running in the 2020 primary are not eligible to serve on any JEC.

But persons interested in serving on the bench someday -- two or three cycles down the road, perhaps -- might find participation very helpful.

Seasoned practitioners looking for ways to 'give back' to the profession may also find JEC service rewarding.

And, of course, the public benefits most when attorney-evaluators from diverse backgrounds work together on judicial evaluations.

Meanwhile, 2020 judicial candidates who have not publicly announced their intentions, especially those who have not previously been evaluated, or those who are eligible for updated evaluations, are strongly encouraged to reach out to both the CBA and Alliance and get that process started.

The CBA judicial candidate questionnaire and all other required forms (and there are a bunch) can be accessed at this page of the CBA website. To get the Alliance process going, email Alliance Administrator Joyce Williams at jwilliams@isba.org. (There are a bunch of required forms here, as well.)

In every election cycle, candidate evaluation results are delayed because bar groups are forced to scramble to complete their investigations of late-announcing candidates. And, though (speaking as someone covering this beat) I would greatly prefer that the CBA and Alliance release their judicial candidate ratings on a rolling basis, these groups believe that they achieve the maximum impact with the voting public by releasing everything at once.

So they wait to make the grand reveal until they are done, or nearly so, and, sometimes, early voting is already underway.

Judge wannabes, I ask you: Don't you hate it when the judge makes you wait in court for his or her arrival? Well, don't make the public wait; get your evaluation process started ASAP.

And, of course, remember: No one is required to submit to screening -- but persons who refuse to participate are automatically rated "Not Recommended."