This post-conference report discusses the various approaches currently in place for evaluating appellate judges and justices, and identifies themes, recommendations, and areas for future work in appellate judicial performance evaluation.

There are two common methods for selecting judges: elections and merit selection. We have only to look at this past election season to understand how these methods support or undermine the ideal of an impartial American judiciary.

JPE is a time-tested method of evaluating judicial performance along apolitical measures, such as freedom from bias, temperament on the bench, and communication skills. Now in use in nineteen states and under consideration in several more, a well-designed JPE program has the benefit of informing both the public and the courts about the strengths and weaknesses of individual judges, and educating the public about the role of judges generally. And perhaps of more immediacy, JPE has the potential to help dissipate attacks on judicial impartiality and independence by focusing the public on process-oriented judicial skills and away from specific case outcomes.

This article summarizes the results of a recent comprehensive study of an existing but underutilized approach to process-oriented judicial accountability: judicial performance evaluation (JPE). The IAALS study concluded that, if properly designed and executed, JPE can be an effective means of building appropriate, shared expectations about the proper role of the judiciary, and may be implemented in every American jurisdiction.

IAALS' first publication offers an overview of JPE standards and programs nationwide. It is one of our most requested and accessed publications.