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As the site was created for lawyers, I asked Kaizer if he was surprised how many  people use the site to share their experience in front of judges.

“I suppose we should not have been surprised that non-lawyers have found it to be a useful forum to discuss issues relating to the legal system, particularly since there were few other outlets available to them. When we started out there were a handful of sites that tried to do what we are doing, but we have grown. We like to think this is because we have a very user-friendly design, continuously update our database and are free and open to all.”

This silence around discussing our judicial standards has our system crippled.

And in the meantime, people and families suffer.

“Your kids are growing up, right?” White told me, “Six months I wait, and I just missed six months of their life. My oldest is 14 and a half and I’ve barely seen him in five years.”

Moving Forward..

While I’ve been focused here on judges that need help, there are so many doing a great job. Maybe a better question is how do we have more of them? Kaizer offers the following:

“We both believe the judiciary, for the most part, are hardworking and dedicated public servants looking to faithfully administer justice and doing a difficult job for far less than they could make in the private sector. But there are also many exceptions, where judges are either not sufficiently informed, or exhibit bias that unfairly skews the system against certain groups. Our goal is to recognize excellence but also to call out the bad actors. Hence our motto: “Where judges are judged.For the most part justice is evenhanded. But it is naïve to think the rich, powerful and connected don’t often have the upper hand and that criminal defendants are often not afforded the rights to which they are entitled.”

When I worked for a national retail chain in college we were constantly aware that we could have secret shoppers report on our service. Nowadays with Tripadvisor and similar sites, everything from restaurants and hotels to washer repair service and tailors get reviews. Uber drivers get reviews and passengers too, and it has an effect. You don’t accept a driver with low ratings and don’t book that restaurant with crappy food and service reviews. This makes those businesses and workers improve, an immediate affect. (We are ignoring malicious posters here folks.)

So how come our most important arbiters of justice have no overview - that is based on both the law and behavior - in an accessible way to the public? That is based on not just the opinion of judges and lawyers but also the people who are before them?