The Alliance wants you! (And that means pretty much all of you, too)

Yes, that's a clickbait headline on this post, but it's done with the purest of motives: The Alliance of Bar Associations for Judicial Screening is urgently looking for judicial candidates who have not yet submitted to screening.

The Alliance would like to remind prospective candidates that proper screening takes time -- time to contact references -- time to schedule hearings. The concern is, an Alliance spokesperson told FWIW, that someone may file for a vacancy and then reach out. But if too many candidates do that, it would place an inordinate strain on the ability of the Alliance to conduct timely screenings.

The message, the Alliance says, is forget deadlines. Consider the deadline to be today. If you are circulating petitions, or even if you're still thinking about circulating petitions in this cycle, and if you don't have current ratings, or if you've never been screened at all, contact Joyce Williams, the Alliance Administrator, at jwilliams@isba.org and request a candidate questionnaire.

(Williams' counterpart at the Chicago Bar Association is Angie Cruz. If you don't have Alliance ratings, you probably don't have CBA ratings either, do you? While you're emailing Joyce Willias, email acruz@chicagobar.org, too.)

The Alliance is not merely looking for hitherto unknown judicial candidates, however. The headline did not lie: The Alliance is also looking for members of its many constituent bar associations to volunteer for service on judicial evaluation committees. Any member of an Alliance bar association can volunteer to serve on that association's JEC. Email Joyce Williams, the Alliance Administrator, at jwilliams@isba.org, if you are interested. (And CBA members should strongly consider reaching out to Ms. Cruz as well. The more the merrier.)

See, readers? We really did mean pretty much everyone.

One more thing: In this election cycle, the Alliance will be bigger than ever before. A new bar group has been welcomed into the Alliance, namely, the Black Men Lawyers' Association. That's another group to share the burden of candidate investigation and interviews... and one more group to coordinate for scheduling. So, please, act soon.