Introducing &Quot;You Be The Judge&Quot;&Mdash; A New Bimonthly Series, 1117 COBJ, Vol. 46, No. 10 Pg. 29

AuthorKAREN HESTER, J.

46 Colo.Law. 29

Introducing "You Be the Judge"— A New Bimonthly Series

Vol. 46, No. 10 [Page 29]

The Colorado Lawyer

November, 2017

YOU BE THE JUDGE

KAREN HESTER, J.

This new series will explore what it means to he a judge or justice at various levels of the state court system. Authors will share their personal journey to the bench and help others navigate their way to a judgeship.

Over the next year, Colorado Lawyer will bring you a bimonthly series of articles written by various members of the Colorado judiciary, from a municipal court judge to a Colorado Supreme Court justice. These judges will share their personal journeys to the bench, including how they successfully navigated the judicial application process, and summarize what their day-to-day work entails. I'm happy to note that the authors of the series will be as diverse as the judicial offices they will describe.

Regardless of whether your professional life puts you in court, you may be interested to learn more about how and why some choose this path. This series will allow you to become better informed. However, while I certainly hope their stories will resonate with the entire Colorado legal community, the underlying objective of the series is to encourage people from underrepresented communities to become judges. I hope the articles will inspire diverse students and lawyers to seek a career donning one of the most potent symbols of the promise of equality: the black robe. To paraphrase Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, the robe symbolizes a shared judicial responsibility to uphold the Constitution and the rule of law.[1]

Some may wonder why we should worry about increasing the number of diverse judicial applicants. My answer is twofold. First, consider the disparity between the demographics of our state (table 12 ) and our state's bench (table 23). The pie charts at the end of the article further break down this data.4

You may wonder how these numbers compare with similar statistics in other states. In 2010, roughly 26% of state court judges nationwide were female,5 and roughly 8% of state court judges were people of color.6 So, we're doing better than the national average, but not as well as many would hope.

Second, these demographic disparities matter. Having a judiciary that reflects the community it serves is critical because:

■ a diverse and inclusive judiciary...

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