Frequently Asked Questions on Judges

Q.  How does one become a judge?

A.  Judges serve for six-year terms to which they are, in theory, elected by the people. But the constitution (art. VI, sec. 8) provides that "whenever there is a vacancy in the office of judge the governor shall appoint in the manner provided by law a qualified person to fill the vacancy until a successor is elected and qualified." In practice, most judges are elevated to the bench not by election but by appointment. For example, as of June 2002, out of 61 judges on the Hennepin County bench, only five reached the bench by being elected while 56 were originally appointed. A judge appointed to a vacancy must stand for election "for a six year term at the next general election occurring more than one year after the appointment" (Minnesota Constitution, art. VI, sec. 8).

The Governor fills a vacancy with advice from a statutorily created Commission on Judicial Selection (Minnesota Statutes section 480B.01). For a vacancy on the Hennepin County District Court, the Commission consists of seven at-large members appointed by the Governor, of whom at least two are nonlawyers; two at-large members appointed by the Supreme Court, of whom at least one is a nonlawyer; two members appointed by the Governor from Hennepin County, of whom at least one is a nonlawyer; and two members appointed by the Supreme Court from Hennepin County, of whom at least one is a nonlawyer. The statute (subd. 8) requires that "the commission shall evaluate the extent to which candidates have the following qualifications for judicial office: integrity, maturity, health if job related, judicial temperament, diligence, legal knowledge, ability and experience, and community service. The commission shall give consideration to women and minorities."

The Commission's recommendations do not limit the Governor, but Governors Carlson and Ventura both worked closely with their commissions and won widespread praise for the quality of their judicial appointments.

Q. How much does a judge earn?

A.  Each judge earns an annual salary of $113,359 and the chief judge earns a salary of $116,926. According to the National Center for State Courts, Minnesota trial judges’ salaries rank 30th among the 50 states. (Judicial compensation was long a sore spot because, from 1993 until 1997, the judges’ salaries were stagnant. Meanwhile, starting lawyers’ salaries began skyrocketing as a result of the dot-com boom, to the point that some firms in Silicon Valley and on the East Coast were paying their starting lawyers fresh out of law school more than Minnesota paid its judges.) The Minnesota Compensation Council in 2001-- chaired by John Stanoch, who was Hennepin County’s assistant chief judge -- recommended significant increases in judicial salaries. The Compensation Council's recommendations have now taken effect and each judge’s salary will gradually rise to $118,141 by January 2004.

Q. Is it a requirement to be a judge that one hold a JD or be a member of the MN Bar?

A.  To be eligible for a judgeship, one must be a lawyer admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of Minnesota.

The Minnesota constitution (art. VI, sec. 5) requires that "judges . . . shall be learned in the law." The statute establishing the Hennepin County municipal court (Minnesota Statutes section 488A.021) elaborated on that requirement by providing that "each judge shall be a person learned in the law who is admitted and qualified to practice in the supreme court of this state and is a resident of the county of Hennepin in this state."

The prerequisites for admission to practice include graduation from a law school accredited by the American Bar Association, passing the written bar examination, passing a written ethics examination, and "good character and fitness" as determined by an investigation into a detailed set of standards. The rules for admission to practice are available online on the Board of Law Examiners’ Web site at http://www.ble.state.mn.us/rules.htm.

A lawyer need not join the Minnesota State Bar Association, since the Supreme Court and not the bar association regulates the practice of law in Minnesota (unlike many other states, where the bar association is not a voluntary organization, but rather an arm of the court system).

A. While the requirement that a judge "be learned in the law" does preclude a concerned citizen from walking into a judgeship without graduating from law school and passing the bar exam, it does not "restricts the number of eligible candidates" as dramatically as one might imagine. There are more than twenty thousand lawyers practicing in Minnesota, but only 280 judgeships, including both trial and appellate judges. The Hennepin County District Court consists of over 60 judges. For each available judgeship, there are literally thousands of eligible candidates – more than ten thousand in Hennepin County alone.

A. Accessing the records is easy, but "monitoring" is hard simply because of the sheer volume of information involved. To access the records, one need merely visit the appropriate division (civil, criminal, family, juvenile, or probate) of the Court Administrator’s office in the Hennepin County Government Center at 300 South Sixth Street. The courtroom proceedings are also open to the public in almost all cases, so one can also watch a judge decide cases in real time. But each judge is engaged full-time in presiding over hundreds of cases so that, on any given day, the Hennepin County courts hold literally hundreds of hearings and decide hundreds of motions and sentences.

Some organizations have tried "watching the judges." Probably the best-known local organization is WATCH. WATCH's focus is on monitoring domestic abuse, child abuse and sexual assault cases as they move through the Hennepin County criminal justice system. Their Web site at http://www.watchmn.org explains their work and invites volunteers.

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