Confidential judicial evaluation to make online debut Program will allow lawyers to post evaluations of a judge’s performance October 1, 2007 Regular News Gary Blankenship Senior Editor The confidential judicial evaluation program to let Florida’s judges know how they are doing will soon go online.The Judicial Administration and Evaluation Committee reviewed the details for the unveiling this fall of the program, which will allow Bar members with a password for the Bar’s Web site to post an evaluation of a judge’s performance.Committee Chair John Kest, a Ninth Circuit judge, said the change should encourage broader participation in the evaluation program. It is expected to be fully up and running in November, following some testing in October.Under the current system, judges send evaluation forms every few months to lawyers who have appeared before them. The lawyers can fill out and return the forms to the Bar, which makes sure any identifying information about the lawyer is removed and then forwards them to the judge. Participation by judges and lawyers is strictly voluntary, and all results are confidential.“If the judges don’t send the evaluations out, it fails right there,” Kest said. “A lot of judges didn’t know about it and a lot of judges were afraid if they did send them out [the media] would get it and it would be published.“Our effort is to make this more available, make it as anonymous as possible, and make sure the judges were aware of it and would use it.”According to Doris Maffei, who oversees the evaluation program for the Bar, lawyers with Bar passwords will be able to access a special section on the Bar’s Web site where they can leave an evaluation of the judge.The program is set up so those leaving evaluations cannot be traced, and the information is encrypted and can be viewed only by the affected judge, she said.Kest noted while going online should encourage more lawyers to participate in the evaluations, there still is no requirement for a judge to ever check his or her feedback.He said he didn’t know about the evaluation program until he became a judge, noting he used to ask lawyers to tell him how he was doing, and they either offered compliments or didn’t reply. “My judicial assistant said, ‘What did you expect? They would tell you you’re screwing up?’”When he discovered the evaluation program, he began sending the forms out.“It provides wonderful information to a judge on how he or she is doing,” Kest said. “I’ve expanded mine to include: how is your judicial assistant doing, how are your court deputies doing, and how is your trial court doing.“The idea of putting it on the computer was number one to make it accessible without the judges having to send it out — not because judges wouldn’t send it out, but it’s expensive because you have to mail it and it’s a pain and you forget it sometimes — and to make it more immediate. Judicial assistants are busy and they don’t have to send it out now,” he added.“The corollary to doing it by computer is more people are computer literate. The idea is with younger attorneys and everyone being more computer literate it makes it much more accessible. They can send it out and the judge can look at it when he or she wants to.“These input forms will make a good judge better and they’ll make an average judge a good judge,” Kest said. “If you happen to have a bad judge — and I don’t think there are many of those — maybe it will allow them to be aware of the problems and correct them. That’s the ideal situation.”For the moment, the Bar will keep the paper evaluations along with the online assessments, although Kest said paper evaluations eventually may be phased out.Lawyers and judges on the committee began testing the evaluation system in September. Members of the Trial Lawyers and Appellate Practice sections were scheduled for the second round of testing beginning in September through the middle of this month.The results of those practice runs will be evaluated and any changes, if needed, will be made. The system will formally open for all Bar members on November 1 and will be announced with an e-mail to Bar members on that date. Confidential judicial evaluation to make online debut read more