Lawyers get surveys to evaluate county, high court jurists

Lawyers who practice in Clark County have been asked to rate local judges and Nevada Supreme Court justices in the 2008 Judicial Performance Evaluation.

Rating highlights will be published in the Review-Journal later this year, well before the elections in which several judges face challengers, and complete results will be published on the newspaper's Web site.

Passwords and pin numbers, required to access the temporary Web site where the online survey is conducted, were mailed to qualified attorneys on Friday. Because the survey is conducted for the Las Vegas Review-Journal largely to provide information to its own readers, only jurists for whom most readers can vote -- judges in the Las Vegas area and Nevada Supreme Court justices -- are rated. Only lawyers who presumably practice in the courts of Clark County -- some 4,200 who listed Clark County business addresses to the Nevada State Bar -- are asked to rate the jurists.

Chief Justice Mark Gibbons of the Nevada Supreme Court urged attorneys to "give their honest observations," adding, "As the judiciary we invite constructive comment as a way to help us improve our court system."

He said, "We appreciate that feedback, and I urge all attorneys who have appeared before the courts during the past two years to take a few minutes and complete the survey about our performance during that time period."

To assure that a lawyer's frank response does not create resentment toward him on the part of the judge, the Review-Journal outsources the survey work to professionals, who keep confidential the names of attorneys who rate judges or provide statements about the judges' performance. Statistician Nancy Downey of Downey Research Associates is responsible for organizing and analyzing results.

Review-Journal Editor Thomas Mitchell, who founded the biennial survey in 1992, pointed out that the judiciary performs one of government's most vital functions yet must be elected by voters who rarely set foot inside a courtroom. Those voters, he said, "need honest information from the professionals inside the system to make judicial elections something more than a bidding war or a beauty contest."

Critics sometimes charge that the survey represents a chance for lawyers who have lost a case to get back at the presiding judge. Mitchell acknowledged that fact, but pointed out that court business is inherently adversarial, so any other participants who express opinions about judges are equally subject to a winner's or loser's bias. Attorneys at least have the knowledge of law to competently evaluate a judge's performance on such questions as whether "the judge properly applies the law, rules of procedure, and rules of evidence," Mitchell noted.

Gibbons noted, "These types of surveys have been used to great advantage nationally." Some of the surveys in other cities, in fact, were modeled partly on the Review-Journal's. The 12 questions through which judges are rated were originally composed by a joint committee of local judges, bar members, Review-Journal personnel, and Downey.

Contact A.D. Hopkins at ahopkins@reviewjournal.com or (702) 383-0270.