Close Call for Cook County Judges Found Not Qualified by Most Evaluators

Cook County voted to retain all of nearly 60 judges up for retention yesterday. However, the four judges found Not Qualified by a majority of bar associations received around a 63% "yes" vote while most other judges received well over 70%. To be retained, a judge must receive at least a 60% "yes" fr...
November 7, 2012

Voting for Judges

For this election ballot voters are faced with a list of nearly 60 judges seeking retention. Only 60% of the votes cast on any judge need be in favor of retention for a judge to keep her seat —no judge has lost office since 1990.  Voters must think critically about the retention election and should...
November 1, 2012

Best Practices for Judicial Evaluations

Recently, the State Journal-Reporter published an article which briefly examined the Illinois State Bar Association’s voter recommendations for judicial retention in the 7th Judicial Circuit, where the State Journal-Reporter publishes. The brief article raises interesting issues about judicial evalu...
October 29, 2012

Does Race or Gender Influence Professional Judgement?

Cross-posted at Huffington Post. Does race or gender influence decision-making among members of the most respected professions? Several recent, high-profile studies conclude that, yes, even scientists, doctors, and judges are vulnerable to such unconscious bias. In a recent, widely discussed study...
October 29, 2012