Local Elections Matter

A lot of litigants go to court or read about the Judges online before their hearing and want to know if there is a way to “get a new judge” on your case.  The short answer is, probably not.  Judicial elections matter and arguably impact more people’s lives on a personal scale than federal or state elections.  Every year the primary elections take place in the spring.  Before you vote, research each candidate.  

In larger counties, family law cases, like divorces, child custody, child support cases, etc. are heard in a specific court that is designated to hear family law cases.  Larger counties have courts that are only heard by elected judges who have only hear family law cases.  This means that the judge runs for a specific “family law bench.”  In smaller counties, the courts are general jurisdiction and the judge who hears the family law cases may not specialize in family law.  The general jurisdiction court Judges hear all kinds of cases, family law, criminal law, and other civil law matters.  That being said, if you are in a smaller county, your Judge may not have a ton of experience in family law before taking the bench.

Whether your case is in a larger or smaller county, the district judge has to run for election every 4 years.  The only qualifications that a Judge has to have is that he or she (1) has to be a Citizen of the United States; (2) be 25 – 75 years old; (3) must be a resident of the district for 2 years prior to running to be the judge; and (4) be a practicing or lawyer, judge or combined for 8 years.

You probably noticed that there is no requirement for the prospective Judge to be board certified in the area of law of the bench they are running for or any other requirements that makes a judge be “qualified” to serve the public.  Unfortunately, there are lot of varying reasons why an attorney or prior Judges want to run to be a Judge.  A person may want to be a judge because a judge may make more than their current job, have better long term benefits, he or she is suffering from burn out or wants the power kick that comes with a black robe.

This is why local elections matter.  The majority of the judges run uncontested and are automatically re-elected by default.  The majority of the judges who run unopposed aren’t required to defend their decisions or answer for the docket backlog.  There are a couple of different ways you can do your research when voting for judges.

1.  Contact the local attorney bar association and ask for Judge’s survey(s).  Typically, each local lawyer bar association surveys the judges throughout the year and make those results public.  Attorney’s regularly practice and appear in each court and in front of each Judge.  If a Judge has low rankings by attorneys, it most likely means that the attorney’s have difficulty in that court for one reasons or another. 

2.  Read what they stand for and don’t fall for political zingers.  You see a lot of judicial candidates run on different platforms that have nothing to do with their decision making process for a divorce or child custody issue.  Ask yourself, what does that have anything to do with your ability to make decisions about my property or my children?

3.  Look at their campaign finance reports.  Did you know that every candidate has to file a campaign finance report that to the public?  You can find each campaign finance report by a simple Google search.  Who donates to their campaign matters.  What motivates each candidate is sometimes driven by who is financing their campaign.