Resources
The Value of a Mentor for New Judges
by Josephine Deyo, with contribution by Maureen E. Conner, PhD, and Catharine M. White

Closing a law practice, handling hearings, hiring an assistant – a multitude of new issues await the new judge as he steps into the judicial role.  The new judge will likely have more questions than rulings when he or she first takes the bench. 

How can judicial educators help those new judges quickly, when they most need help?  In many states, mentor programs meet that need. 

Although most states have educational programs for new judges, a new judge may have to wait several months before a scheduled program.  A mentor can help a new judge find his or her way around the courthouse in the meantime. 

“Every new judge has different issues,” the Honorable Lisa Davidson, Director of the Florida Mentor Program, said.  The new judges have questions about how to interact with attorneys, litigants and the community, questions about ethical constraints, and day-to-day questions about their work in the courthouse. 

A mentor can be a counselor, an educator and an advocate, and the mentor’s responsibilities can be somewhat intense in the first few weeks after a new judge is appointed or elected.

In Florida, a mentor is generally assigned to a new judge within 48 hours of a new judge’s appointment or election.  The mentor program tries to match the new judge with a mentor in the same geographic region and in the same tier and division of court.

The mentor should become involved with the new judge as quickly as possible, Judge Davidson said.  As Cal Goodlett, a senior attorney with the Office of the State Courts Administrator in Florida, explained, the mentor should meet frequently with the new judge during the first 30 days after the new judge is appointed or elected. 

And this high level of dedication continues.  The mentor’s job is to be available for the new judge anytime, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, Judge Davidson said.  The new judge knows that he or she should interrupt the mentor whenever the new judge has a question. 

A good mentor can easily establish rapport with the new judge and can gain credibility and the trust of the new judges, Fred Inderlied, a retired judge in Ohio who was Director of Ohio’s Mentor Program, said.  But, he added, a mentor should also be willing to go looking for answers to a new judge’s questions. 

In addition, mentors are expected to take action and not just react to questions, Judge Davidson said.  The mentors should not only help the new judge learn how to handle a hearing or rule on an issue, but should also warn new judges about pitfalls to avoid. 

Florida’s mentors also act as advocates for their new judges.  For example, the mentor can try to make sure that the new judge doesn’t get the worst office in the courthouse, or assignment to an inappropriate docket, Judge Davidson said.  The mentor should assist the new judge with such administrative or personnel matters.

Guidance during the social and personal transition may be as important as training on substantive or administrative subjects.  A mentor can help a new judge with the social adjustment, Goodlett said.  Furthermore, the friendships that develop between a mentor and a new judge can mitigate the isolation that a new judge may feel, Judge Davidson said. 

This multi-dimensional aspect of the mentoring process is especially beneficial because informal education can be more productive than formal education, Judge Inderlied said.  Since the mentor relationship involves less pressure than a class, he said, it can permit the new judge to be more comfortable and open about concerns. 

The mentor relationship in Florida is a confidential relationship, as Judge Davidson pointed out, so that a new judge can be comfortable in both asking questions and resolving problems. This is especially important because a Florida mentor also must be the bearer of bad news; he or she should talk to the new judge about any problems that arise. 

This valuable relationship can be a lasting one. Judge Inderlied said that some of his new judge mentees from 10 years ago still call him, and some of his mentees eventually became mentors. 

And this mentor relationship is valuable for the mentor as well as the new judge. 

“When you’re trying to lead your peers,” Judge Inderlied said, “you have a tendency to want to be on the top of your game.”  The mentors also receive the personal satisfaction of being part of something that improves the judicial system, Goodlett noted. 

“Mentoring, for me,” Judge Inderlied said, “was always an opportunity to improve the overall quality of the sitting judiciary, and it was always rewarding when I had occasion to provide assistance to a mentee.”

Mentoring training itself is also valuable.  In Florida, mentors must attend a 4-hour initial training in local areas, and advanced mentor training is offered occasionally as well.  The remainder of this article is a summary of mentor programs, as compiled by the JERRITT Project. 

Programming Topic: Mentoring

Thirty-three (33) programs pertaining to judicial mentoring have been reported to the JERITT Project since 2000. Table 4.0 highlights the distribution of mentoring programming by year:

The number of mentoring programs reported to the JERITT Project decreased by half from 2000 (14 reported programs) to 2003 (7 reported programs).

The agenda topics that are displayed in Table 5.0 are inclusive of the topics reported to the JERITT Project for Mentoring Programs. The agenda topics are arranged under the JERITT Project Subject Matter category headings. This arrangement allows readers to see the topics and/or issues that mentor-judges are exposed to so that they are better prepared to acculturate new judges to the judicial branch and assist them in becoming contributing members of the judiciary earlier in their careers.

Table 6.0 highlights the distribution of the JERITT Project main topic codes, or codes used to qualitatively organize the mentoring agenda topics, by their respective programming year.

Career Stage Education Programming

Judicial branch educational programming occurs along a continuum for various audience types. Twelve or thirty percent of the responding organizations offer pre-bench programming, thirty-eight or ninety-five percent offer a new judge/employee orientation within the first year of service, thirty-six or ninety percent offer an update/hot topic programming that occurs at all career stages, twenty-eight or seventy percent offer mentoring, twenty seven or sixty-eight percent offer early-career programming, and twenty or half offer mid- (three-and-a-half to six years) and advanced- (six years or more) career programming. Twelve or thirty percent offer retreats.

Noteworthy gains have been demonstrated regarding the implementation of programming based on a mentoring philosophy. The 1999 edition of Issues and Trends in Judicial Branch Education noted that sixty-four percent of the responding organizations maintained mentoring programs for judges while currently seventy percent of the responding organizations maintained mentoring programs not only for judges, but for other audience types.

Career Stage Programming by Audience Type

The distribution of organizations offering career stage programming by the sixteen differing audience groups is presented in Table 3h.

Substantial career stage programming was delivered to a judicial audience. Nine of the forty-two responding organizations indicated they offer pre-bench programming, thirty-nine offer new judge/employee orientation within the first year of service, thirty-five offer update/hot topics programming for all career stages, twenty-five offer mentoring, twenty offer early-career programs, seventeen offer mid-career programs, sixteen offer advanced-career programs, and eight offer retreats. Minimal career stage programming is offered to court reporters, guardians ad litem, court interpreters, quasi-judicial personnel, and security/law enforcement personnel.

No career stage programming is offered to public defenders, prosecutors, and trial court administrators. See Appendix 3C for a complete description of organizations and their particular career stage programming offerings.

Of the forty organizations offering career stage programming, twelve or thirty percent maintain budgets in excess of $1 million dollars. These organizations include the Arizona Supreme Court, Administrative Office of the Courts, Education Services Division; the Florida Office of the State Court Administrator, Legal Affairs and Education Division; the Michigan Judicial Institute; the Mississippi Judicial College; the Missouri Office of State Courts Administrator; the New York State Judicial Institute; the Texas Justice Court Training Center; the Texas Municipal Courts Education Center; the California Administrative Office of the Courts; the Institute of Continuing Judicial Education (ICJE) of Georgia; the District of Columbia Courts (Washington DC); and the Wisconsin Office of Judicial Education. The staffing size of these organizations ranges from four to sixty-five. Seventeen or forty-three percent of the responding organizations offering career stage programming maintain budgets that ranging $7,500-$932,000. These organizations include the Alaska Court System; the Delaware Administrative Office of Courts; the State of Hawaii Judiciary; the Idaho Supreme Court; the Indiana Judicial Center; the Iowa State Court Administrator’s Office; the Kansas Supreme Court; the Administrative Office of the Courts Kentucky; the Louisiana Judicial College; the Nebraska Administrative Office of the Courts/Probation; the New Hampshire Supreme Court, Office of General Counsel; the Oregon Judicial Department–Education and Training; the Judicial Academy of Puerto Rico; the Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts; the Utah Administrative Office of the Courts, Utah Judicial Institute; the Vermont Office of the Court Administrator; and the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals. The staffing size of these organizations ranges from one to twelve. Regardless of budget or staffing size, judicial branch education organizations are implementing this new and emerging judicial branch education trend.

Josephine Deyo is a senior attorney with the Court Education Division of the Office of the State Courts Administrator in Florida, and is lead attorney for Phase I of the Florida Judicial College.

Copyright 1999-2012, National Association of State Judicial Educators
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