I debated long and hard about whether to report on this.
And, for reasons I shall explain, I am not here revealing the name of the Alliance bar group in question.
But this is the third time it's happened---that an Alliance bar group sends an urgent solicitation for anyone willing to spend around three hours or so---with the minimal time committment broken down as follows: Reviewing candidate materials (15-20 minutes), participating via Zoom in the evaluation meeting (c. two hours), and drafting and uploading the evaluation (approximately 30 minutes).
What other qualifications will any volunteers be required to satisfy before they get a direct, and perhaps decisive, say in whether a man or woman gets a chance at judicial service? Aside from a willingness to burn three hours of time?
Apparently... no other qualifications at all. No specific courtroom experience is required. No training. No screening to determine if Volunteer A is the best bosom buddy of Candidate B, or perhaps her sworn adversary, ever since that playground incident in first grade. No screening to determine if Volunteer A hates and loathes all judges, or persons wishing to serve as judges, or whether Volunteer A expects all judges to profess, or at least reliably parrot, whatever political slogans that Volunteer A finds appropriate. Just be sure to log in 15 minutes early so as not to get locked out of the process.
Did I mention that these evaluators, hailed in off the streets like the wedding guests in the Gospel of Matthew, will hold in their hands the fate of whatever unfortunate candidates are brought before the camera for an interview this coming Wednesday night? Because the failure to secure the unanimous approval of each and every one of the 13 members of the Alliance of Bar Associations for Judicial Screening issuing evaluations will be fatal to a candidate's associate judge prospects. Or chances of being slated by the Democratic Party. Or endorsed by the Tribune (if the Tribune has not already been dismembered by March 2022).
And I know I have mentioned this already, but this is the Internet, and repitition is often necessary: This is the third time this has happened.
That I know about.
From this one group.
And now we get to why I will not name the group: There may be other bar groups in the same predicament. This one, at least, is being candid and forthright about its critical shortage of evaluators.
There will be those who decry my publishing this post. Don't I realize that I am undermining confidence in the peer evaluation process by so doing?
Yes, yes, I do. And I am very unhappy about it.
I have nothing better to offer than peer review. No real alternative. And this post will give aid and comfort to those who insist that peer review is only a popularity contest, or a scam, or a cynical way to perfume a partisan political process. Or to those who would "just run" and avoid peer evaluation no matter what. I profoundly dislike giving the naysayers this ammunition.
If anyone were to ask me---which you may be assured no one has---I would suggest that any group who finds itself short of trained, experienced evaluators for any given candidate session simply abstain from participation. For this session. Perhaps for the entire AJ process, or for the upcoming primary. Work instead to build up numbers, and give the new recruits some training and some appropriate criteria by which to judge the men and women who want to serve on the bench.
So what if Candidate A is screened by only six or seven of the 13 Alliance members, while Candidate B, evaluated on a different date, gets ratings from 10? Just as long as the evaluations are meaningful and thoughtful and based on something other than the White Sox having played a day game Wednesday so the night is free for someone to take a stab at playing evaluator!
I suspect that a lot of bar groups are hurting right now because of the COVID-19 closures. Not only were many lawyers denied the opportunity to make a living, those that were making a living weren't necessarily---weren't probably---making it where they ordinarily did. And, even without commuting time, seemingly everything has taken longer to do in the last 15 months than it ever did. A lot of extracurriculars have suffered. (Recall, if you will, that the CBA scaled back its evaluation reports for the 2020 retention election because of Covid. Even the biggest groups had numbers problems.)
It's OK, I believe, to acknowledge that, thanks to the coronavirus, bar groups are not operating at heretofore accustomed strentgths. We always knew some groups had more evaluators than other -- long before Covid there were occasional documented instances of persons at Alliance hearings covering for more than one Alliance group. I think fair-minded people can agree that this is a weakness in the system which can only be addressed through recruitment and training. But pretending that a group can still function as an evaluating group when it has to dragoon evaluators in with 11th hour emails does more harm to the process than good.
Because you know, if I know about something, others know about it, too. Even if I chose to sit on the story.
Which I no longer can.
Jack,
ReplyDeleteThe system is, and has been for quite some time, a joke. It's not a lack of volunteers. Small "p" politics has influenced the process. I won't be going to get ratings this time and I certainly intend to win. Not just win, mind you, but to thoroughly and totally decimate any would-be contenders.
Bar ratings? Please.
Bar ratings didn't stop D. Renee Jackson or Rhonda Crawford or Tiesha Smith or Mauricio Aurujo (his original race, not the post me-too retention debacle) or Shannon O'Malley (or whatever the hell his real name is -- Spiwak?) a whole lot of other winners from ascending to the bench.
Just run already. Or "you can just run," or whatever the hell you want to call this move. Just do it. Make all of the Bar Associations and Evans' Committee or the Supremes' Committee irrelevant.
Sincerely,
Making The Brave New World Even Better
It's not just one bar association from what I am hearing. They are all under the gun because Evans has alerted them that he plans to move faster than usual on the short list. Apparently that General Assembly bill that will strip Evans of those 11 (are there more now?) AJ vacancies is a real thing and he knows it and doesn't want to give up those prizes to Don Harmon and company. At least not more than they can get once they pass the bill.
ReplyDeleteI don't know when to expect that short list announcement, but I bet it will be right around the same time that all of the judges will be expected to be returning to their COURTHOUSE duty stations fairly soon.
The irony, Evans can't act faster than the end of June. Or can he? If he does, how does he explain how he can act so fast to make political appointments, but formulate a plan for the re-opening of criminal and jury trials in the wake of COVID? He had no plan and everyone knows it.
Don't be too shocked if there are a lot of spouses, children and paramours of existing Circuit Judges who miraculously end up on the short list.
Sincerely,
Just Asking For a Friend
The General Assembly is out with the new map for the Supreme Court districts. No news yet on Cook County subcircuits, from what I can tell.
ReplyDeleteNews You Can Use
I have been singing this song for years but my comments are always dumped. Now that
ReplyDeleteJack agrees with me, maybe someone else will get to read this. The Alliance is a fraud. My request is have every one of those Bar groups tell how many members they actually have, how many are on the evaluation committee , how they evaluate, require them to give reasons for decisions and explain their appeal process if they even have one. This should be followed especially when someone receives a negative rating.
As Jack pointed out, one bad rating and out goes chance at AJ.
Yep, i talk about this a bit in my exhaustive piece about the bar ratings process.... which I am posting here for those who haven't read it... They never change because they think they are doing everything right: https://www.chicagonow.com/mom-think-poignant/2018/03/i-lost-my-faith-in-the-bar-association-ratings-of-cook-county-judicial-candidates-a-long-time-ago-and-you-should-too/
ReplyDeleteSpeaking for only one bar group, the primary thrust of this post reflects a lack of understanding of the entire process (for us) regardless who attends the interview. Im not disparaging any other bar but I am disappointed we all got lumped together this way without full knowledge of the facts. To put it simply we have checks and balances against what you complain of, as Im confident our colleagues do.
ReplyDelete@Anon 5/26 2:29 p.m.. -- I don't agree with you that the Alliance is a fraud. But I sympathize with your demand for more transparency regarding the total membership of each Alliance member, how many members actively serve on each member's JEC, and the criteria by which each Alliance member's JEC evaluates judicial hopefuls. Read on.
ReplyDelete@Bonnie McGrath -- Always good to hear from you. Since you are bringing up an old post, let me cite two of mine, The forthcoming Associate Judge selection and the limitations of judicial evaluations and Looking more at the limitations of judicial evaluations (both of these from April 2018 -- the second of these, as you may recall, discussing the post you linked, above).
@Anon 5/27 7:45 a.m. -- Welcome to the discussion and thank you for your comment.
I do not mean to disparage your group (which you did not identify). In fact, I do not mean to disparage any group, even the group that was pleading for evaluators at the 11th hour, providing no criteria for evaluation, or training for evaluators. That's why I did not identify the group publicly and I did not respond to requests to identify the group privately.
You say that your group, whichever one it is, has "checks and balances" against what I wrote about. Wonderful! What are those checks and balances?
You also say you are confident your colleagues (presumably in other Alliance groups) also have checks and balances. This confidence is certainly misplaced in the case of at least one group -- the one I wrote about -- and probably others as well.
Peer review cannot work without the assurance of strict confidentiality for each individual evaluated person. But that does not mean we can, or should, blind ourselves to flaws in the peer review process, or assume confidence where none is merited. Nor is the principle of confidentiality sacrificed by disclosure, by each group, of its evaluation process.
Email me at jackleyhane@yahoo.com. Let us collaborate on disclosure of your group's process, and please join me in asking other Alliance groups to come in with us on this project. You can help make a positive difference in the peer review process -- and in the public perception of that process. (Anon 5/27 at 7:45 a.m., meet Anon 5/26 at 2:29 p.m. and my friend, Bonnie McGrath. They accurately express that public perception you want to change.)
FWIW -- I'm still waiting (and hoping) to hear from @Anon 5/27 7:45 a.m. Nothing to report so far, however.
ReplyDeleteGood afternoon. This is @Anon 5/27 7:45 a.m. I suppose you have some way to confirm that. I, personally, would be very happy to speak to you for a variety of reasons. But I am not authorized to speak on behalf of my bar association and I will not betray my pledge of confidentiality. If, however, I receive authorization I will be glad to have the opportunity to continue this discussion more broadly and substantively in this forum, where the discussion may actually have an impact. There is much more to be said.
ReplyDelete@Anon 5/27 7:45 a.m. --
ReplyDeleteThank you for getting back to me. Let me address your response, line by line.
I suppose you have some way to confirm that I, personally, would be very happy to speak to you for a variety of reasons. -- I don't have any way to determine who you are or confirm, even, that you are the same person that left the first comment that we're talking about. That's why everyone here (nearly everyone) leaves anonymous comments. But I am willing to accept your representation and I am glad you are willing to carry the discussion further, at least potentially.
I am not authorized to speak on behalf of my bar association and I will not betray my pledge of confidentiality. If, however, I receive authorization I will be glad to have the opportunity to continue this discussion more broadly and substantively in this forum, where the discussion may actually have an impact. -- I am glad you are willing to seek authorization. I hope you get it. I hope, in fact, that you can encourage others within your group and perhaps others outside your group to collaborate with us. I reiterate that I respect and support the need to keep particular investigations strictly confidential, but I believe we can discuss the process employed by your group -- including the checks and balances to which you alluded initially -- without violating that fundamental principle.
There is much more to be said. -- Amen.
Jack, your queries about process should start with the respective rules for judicial evaluation promulgated by the Alliance, and those issued by individual Alliance organizations. Chicago Council of Lawyers has had its own rules for many years, some others do as well, and all are required to follow Alliance rules.
ReplyDelete