So you want to be a judge....

In a comment to the post below, Anonymous Law Student asks "What's the typical path to becoming a judge? In school, it seems that we are only drilled for becoming associates somewhere on the horizon."

Before I get any farther into answering ALS' question, I should pause for a disclaimer that no matter the court and no matter the state, the process of becoming a judge is inherently political, at least to some extent. In most states, becoming a judge is simply a matter of winning an election so your political skills are at least as important as your legal ability. I don't intend to sound sarcastic when I say that because professional competence (or lack of it) is always a campaign issue but these days elections are won or lost on sound bites as much as anything else.

In states where judges are appointed by either the governor or the legislature, factors such as ethnic and gender diversity, geography and political affiliation are still important criteria in selection, even when political activism is not. Some states have set up judicial nomination commissions that screen candidates to insure that everyone in the pool from which a judge is ultimately selected by a governor or legislature is professionally competent but even when every candidate is qualified, those factors mentioned above are still considerations.

With that disclaimer out of the way, the short answer is that I don't think that there is a typical "career path" as such to being a judge.

The longer answer is that there are different "career paths" depending on what type of judge you are talking about. For example, you can pretty much forget about being a bankruptcy judge if you haven't focused your practice on bankruptcy law or becoming a family court or juvenile court judge if you know little or nothing about family law or domestic relations. Beyond that, I think that I can safely generalize as follows (although I am sure that there are exceptions out there that help prove these points):

If you are interested in sitting on a trial court bench, you will likely not receive serious consideration unless you have a significant amount of experience as a trial lawyer. By "trial lawyer" in this context I mean someone who knows their way around a courtroom where a jury is sitting in the box and who knows the rules of evidence as well as civil and criminal procedure pretty well. That usually means someone with criminal experience as a prosecutor, public defender or criminal defense attorney and/or someone with civil trial experience as a plaintiff's lawyer, legal aid lawyer or a member of a "litigation" section in a law firm. Because state and local bar associations also often have some measure of influence over the selection or vetting process, being well regarded by your peers doesn't hurt either.

If your goal is to sit on an appellate bench, your "career path" has a few more options. Law professors and lawyers who basically had an "office practice" and rarely set foot inside a courtroom are far more likely to be seriously considered for a seat on an appellate court than they would be for one on a trial court. The judges on most state and federal appellate courts that I am most familiar with, have a mix of backgrounds and my court is probably typical in that respect. Although the majority of the members of my court were trial judges and trial lawyers before that, we also have some former trial lawyers who did not previously serve as trial judges, a couple of former law professors and a couple of "office" lawyers with virtually no trial experience before joining my court. I personally think this sort of a mix is a good thing because of the different perspectives represented in each panel.

If you think you look good in black and want some advice, the best that I can give is to urge you to be the best professional you can be, both with respect to your clients and also with respect to your colleagues and the community. As a judge, you will be held to higher standards and if you demonstrate that you already hold yourself to those standards, you will stand out from the crowd when the opportunity comes along. Then it is just a matter of being in the right place at the right time, in other words, the political lightning has to strike you.

I hope this helps. Good luck.