Please Help Evaluate Judges!
The Supreme Judicial Court's Judicial Performance Evaluation Committee urges all lawyers to respond to the questionnaires used to evaluate the performance of Trial Court judges in Massachusetts. The program began in 2001 and in 2005 completed evaluating all the Trial Court judges. The purpose of the SJC's Judicial Performance Evaluation program is to enhance judicial performance and the quality of the judicial branch. Crucial to this effort is the full participation of the bar.
Judges are now being evaluated for the second time. Judges in District, Juvenile, Housing and Probate and Family courts in Middlesex County will be evaluated starting in mid-November by attorneys, court employees and jurors. If you receive a questionnaire please take the time to complete it, as the more responses received, the more relevant the judicial evaluations will be. The Supreme Judicial Court's evaluation program is the best opportunity for attorneys to voice their opinions of the members of the judiciary. Attorneys who have appeared repeatedly in these courts in the last two years, according to computerized court records, will receive questionnaires. Attorneys will either receive a copy of the questionnaire in the mail, or an email instructing them how to complete the evaluation on-line. As required by statute, the evaluations are confidential and anonymous. The results will be transmitted to the judge, the chief justice of his/her court department, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court, and the Chief Justice of Administration and Management. |
