Jne May Have to Change Its Ways

• Jurisdiction: California,United States
• Citation: Vol. 06 No. 2010 Pg. 03
• Publication year: 2010
• Pages: 03
• Year: 2010

California Bar Journal 2010.

CBJ - June 2010 #03. JNE may have to change its ways

The California Lawyer
June 2010

JNE may have to change its ways

After coming under fire last year for the leak of a judicial candidate's rating, the panel that evaluates nominees for the bench may have to change some of its ways. A committee of the State Bar Board of Governors recommended last month that a "not qualified" rating of a judicial candidate be made public if that person is named to the bench despite the rating. Such disclosure currently is discretionary.

"The change was recommended in the interests of full transparency," wrote public board member Richard Rubin, who chaired a committee appointed by President Howard Miller to evaluate the policies and procedures followed by the Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation. Rubin's committee made two other recommendations that were submitted to the board but not acted on.

Miller appointed the panel following the disclosure of JNE's "not qualified" rating for former state Sen. Charles "Chuck" Poochigian, who now sits on the Fifth District Court of Appeal. The rating was decided, according to then-JNE chair Jonathan Wolff, because Poochigian had...