The Illinois judiciary is going corporate-at least in the way it is beginning to evaluate and trying to improve the courtroom performance of some of its trial judges.
A pilot program, announced last week by the Illinois Supreme Court, is underway in Cook County. It uses the professional skills of a sociologist, an industrial psychologist and a personnel manager to try to identify and improve areas of weakness by individual judges.
The program, which has been under development more than a year, will try to evaluate the courtroom behavior of 20 judges in Cook County in such areas as punctuality, judicial manner, courtroom mangement, independence and the legal soundness of their decisions.
The 20 judges have not yet been chosen, and the success of the program will depend, in part, on the judges` cooperation-an ingredient not necessarily guaranteed.
”I really do think the judges will like it,” said Cook County Circuit Court Judge Harold Sullivan, who presides over the 2d Municipal District in Skokie and is chairman of a special committee established by the Supreme Court to develop and oversee the program.
”The better judges will like it. There are some personalities on the bench who won`t. I know some judges who can`t wait to be evaluated, and there are others who say it`s going to open up a can of worms.”
There are about 377 trial court judges in Cook County and about 305 trial court judges in the rest of the state. If the Supreme Court approves of the project at the end of the pilot program, plans call for it to be extended gradually to these judges as well.
A key feature of the program is to keep the findings confidential between the evaluators and the judge under evaluation.
”The progam must be conducted candidly and in strict confidence for the areas of improvement to be determined fairly,” the Supreme Court said in recently outlining a special rule of confidentiality covering the procedures. The results will not be used to punish or promote particular judges, Sullivan said.
Criminal information that might be uncovered may be provided to law-enforcment authorities if they request the information in writing, but none of the information may be used as evidence in a legal proceeding, according to the Supreme Court confidentiality rule.
The program is patterned after guidelines approved by the American Bar Association. In addition to Illinois, only Alaska, Delaware, Colorado, Puerto Rico, Utah and Washington are considering similar programs, according to Judith White McBride, staff director of the ABA judicial evaluation project in Washington, D.C.
John Madigan, a spokesman for the court, said the entire cost of the program so far has been about $59,000, which includes resources contributed by Loyola University. The program is being administered under a contract with Richard Block, a sociologist at Loyola, who helped develop the program`s testing procedure and methodology, which already has been used on four volunteer judges, Madigan said.
Also helping the special committee is an industrial psychologist and a personnel manager for a bank whose duties include evaluations for the bank`s executives, Sullivan said.
Lawyers, clerks, deputies, police officers, witnesses and court-watchers will be among sources asked to fill out questionnaires evaluating the judges, according to Sullivan.
A team of judges, who have not yet been selected, will present the evaluation results to the individual judges and work in follow-up sessions on improving the judge`s behavior where necessary.
Chief Justice Thomas Moran said the purpose of the program was ”self-improvement” by judges for both their own and the public`s interest.
A grant of $10,000 by the Bauer Foundation was used as seed money for the project, which last year won a $50,000 appropriation from the legislature, according to Sullivan.
”If it improves our judiciary, it will be money well spent,” Sullivan said.
