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"Worst Judges" Methodology and Validity

by About FACE Staff, April 2000

FACE is sure there are many more New Jersey judges who deserve to be on the "Top 10 Worst Judges" list. The results of this survey are heavily skewed toward South Jersey judges. The survey was publicized in this newsletter. The majority of our readers are in South Jersey (telephone area codes 609 and 856), so most of the responses come from that area.

FACE requested a brief statement in support of each nomination, but made no effort to verify any of the supporting information provided.

Although there are other periodic surveys of judges (notably by lawyers’ journals), this is the only survey of litigants we know of. We assured our readers of confidentiality, but many were reluctant to submit nominations because of fear of retaliation by the judges. We believe this to be the major factor effecting the scientific validity of this survey.

If past experience is any indication, we expect our opponents and the legal media to label us "disgruntled ex-litigants" for daring to complain about mistreatment by judges. We strongly disagree. There are many excellent judges in Family Court in New Jersey, but we have learned that whenever we praise a good judge he or she is quickly removed from Family Court.

There are several reasons for this. First, Family Court is the apprenticeship that new judges have to serve before they can move on to a "real" court. The "Peter Principle" theorizes that, in an organization, people rise to their "level of incompetence" -- they continue to be promoted until they are promoted into a position for which they are incompetent. Then, since their performance is mediocre, they receive no more promotions. The very least competent judges are never promoted out of family court.

Second, the best judges -- the ones who were raised in healthy families, respect family values, and have strong families of their own, are disgusted by what they hear in Family Court, and take the first opportunity to get out.

Third, if FACE identifies a judge as fair and just, he or she is branded as "father-friendly," and is asked to transfer out. That leaves only the least qualified judges in Family Court -- the ones from dysfunctional families, the ones who still believe in the "tender years doctrine" and don’t recognize the importance to children of two parents, the men who never changed a diaper, and the women who engineered hefty settlements in their own divorces.

For these reasons FACE will never publicly identify a good Family Court judge. We will continue to build our database of information on Family Court judges, and share our information with our membership.