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Sunday, May 24, 1998
Judicial survey results are reliable
Honest reviews examine the big picture, not just one case
To the editor:
The May 10 letter to the editor by Al DiCicco ("One-sided survey") caught my eye and merits a rebuttal on several grounds.
First, the author, the self-styled "director" of the "Coalition for Family Court Reform" has an obvious ax to grind against one judge (Steven Jones). He compared the entire county Bar to the waiters at a restaurant, implying that the judicial survey results are unreliable because they were supplied by lawyers who work in "the system."
That is poppycock, of course. As the quite varied results from judge to judge make clear, what the survey supplies is honest reviews of performance -- not in one case, but in the thousands of cases that the judges have decided in the view of the attorneys rating them. Just because the results do not jibe with the narrow view Mr. DiCicco pre-conceived is not a reason to doubt the survey. Rather, it is cause for him to seriously rethink whether his vantage point might be too limited to be useful.
I served on the original committee that produced the first survey in 1992, and chaired the committee that ran the survey in 1996. Additionally, I am the last prior chair of the Family Law Section of the State Bar of Nevada. From these experiences, I know that the survey itself is run with impeccable honesty, and its results are widely perceived by level-headed members of the bench, Bar, press and public to be pretty reliable indicators of judicial performance.
The thrust of Mr. DiCicco's remarks is that the lawyers of Las Vegas must not have given an honest opinion because the survey results do not agree with his personal opinion of Judge Jones. And Mr. DiCicco purports to speak for "the litigants."
When the original committee put together the judicial survey, a large part of our purpose was to provide the public with rational and informed observations by the people who best know what really goes on every day in our courts. It was also designed for the purpose of giving judges accurate information so they could improve their performance on the bench. Large efforts were made to make the survey as objective and reliable as possible.
In part, we wanted to prevent the kind of "smear campaign" that can be created by personally motivated, disgruntled individuals when the public does not have unbiased information such as that presented by the survey.
On a personal basis, I have known Steven Jones as a law clerk, as a practicing attorney, as a domestic referee, and as a judge. I have received hundreds of reviews of his performance by "the litigants" -- my clients. From this observation, the people of this county are very fortunate to have a judge of his intelligence, compassion and careful attention to detail on the bench. It is often said that there are no winners in divorce law, only survivors. It is only the ability of and care taken by Judge Jones, and many of his colleagues of the bench, that has allowed so many parties on both sides of these cases, and their children, to endure the process with as little damage as they have suffered.
The judicial survey was intended to help the voters keep on the bench judges who are dedicated and able to serve the parties before them fairly and impartially. Since the results are frustrating to self-appointed spokesmen for the people -- with their own agendas to push -- it appears that we have succeeded.
MARSHAL S. WILLICK
Las Vegas
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