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Judges in Florida should take advice from the country music song and “find out who your friends are.” According to the Law Blog of the Wall Street Journal, Sunshine State jurists have been advised by the Florida Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee (FJEAC) to avoid becoming Facebook “friends” with lawyers who may appear before them in court.

Facebook is a social networking website that allows its 350 million + users to “friend” other users. By creating a network of Facebook friends, users are then able to share personal information, stories, articles, pictures, videos, and a host of applications with people on their network. While the website began as a social tool for college students, it has since expanded to become an all-purpose utility for businesses, charities, organizations, and individuals to share their products, causes, and messages across the world wide web (Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts has a Facebook page, located at http://www.facebook.com/CourtReform).  Users can become “fans” of the myriad organizations with pages on the website and thereby stay informed through updates.

Political candidates, including judges in states that still elect judges in popular elections, often create Facebook pages as a means of developing support and distributing information to those interested. And though many working folks prefer to use websites devoted to the career-minded (such as LinkedIn) for their online professional networking, Facebook is becoming an increasingly popular destination for such vocational contact-exchanges.

According to the Law Blog, “while [Facebook] ‘friending’ connotes a level of intimacy greater than, say, an exchange of business cards, it falls well short of establishing or confirming true friendship.” The FJEAC, however, considers the social component of Facebook to great a threat to the independence of judges, and issued this advisory opinion. The opinion poses a series of questions and brief answers, followed by this explanation:

The Committee believes that listing lawyers who may appear before the judge as “friends” on a judge’s social networking page reasonably conveys to others the impression that these lawyer “friends” are in a special position to influence the judge. This is not to say, of course, that simply because a lawyer is listed as a “friend” on a social networking site or because a lawyer is a friend of the judge, as the term friend is used in its traditional sense, means that this lawyer is, in fact, in a special position to influence the judge. The issue, however, is not whether the lawyer actually is in a position to influence the judge, but instead whether the proposed conduct, the identification of the lawyer as a “friend” on the social networking site, conveys the impression that the lawyer is in a position to influence the judge. The Committee concludes that such identification in a public forum of a lawyer who may appear before the judge does convey this impression and therefore is not permitted.

The St. Petersburg Times noted that the ethics ruling requires that judges not only refrain from friending lawyers that may appear before them, but actually “unfriend” any whom they have already friended. The paper points out that “Judges are not bound by the ruling but tend to follow the committee’s advice.” That didn’t stop one Circuit Judge, Pat Siracusa, from dropping 82 friends. Another, Judge Rex Barbas, had a more practical question: “How do you unfriend somebody?” he asked. “And do I get in trouble if I can’t figure it out?

Whether or not this is a trend that other states will follow has yet to be seen. In Pennsylvania, there is currently no such requirement. In fact, there is not even a requirement that a judge recuse his or herself from a case involving a party or attorney who has contributed money to the judge’s election campaign. And, as the St. Petersburg Times article indicates, this leads to some less-than -kosher relationships in the courtroom:

In close-knit courthouse circles, the lines between attorneys and judges are hardly black and white. Lawyers contribute to judicial campaigns. Judges hear cases argued by lawyers they once practiced alongside or have known for years. Judges disclose the connections in open court and sometimes remove themselves from a case if they are too close to the players.

“Sometimes” remove themselves, but not always. The problem of money in judicial selection seems to us a bigger problem than the “friending” issue, but the underlying concern is the same: how do we maintain public confidence that judges are impartial and unbiased? We believe that requires more than rules about social networking — it requires judicial selection reform.

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Gordon L. Doerfer, president of the American Judicature Society (AJS), has issued a statement in response to the Wall Street Journal’s most recent attack on Merit Selection. In this statement, AJS sets the record straight about the composition of judicial nominating commissions and the history of success of state Merit Selection systems.

AJS points out that the Journal’s recent characterization of the Florida and Missouri nominating commissions as dominated by plaintiffs’ trial lawyers is wrong. In fact, lawyers of all types are involved in selecting or suggesting lawyer members of these commissions. AJS goes on to explain that a recent survey of corporate attorneys revealed that they rank state courts selected through Merit Selection uniformly higher than state courts selected by partisan elections. It is a myth that judicial nominating commissions are dominated by a particular constituency or segment of the bar.  In fact, most nominating commissions include several seats for nonlawyers.

The cornerstone of Merit Selection is the use of a nominating commission to screen and evaluate candidates. This is the special element lacking in both elective and purely appointive systems.

A blanket condemnation of judicial nominating commissions is irresponsible and misleading. It also demeans the work of the dedicated commissioners, all of whom serve without compensation, and calls into questions the judgment of the many governors of all political parties who rely upon them to nominate the best qualified judges.

Thanks, AJS, for setting the record straight about judicial nominating commissions.

An article in Wednesday’s St. Petersburg Times describes two judicial races where the campaign rhetoric is getting partisan – and personal – fast. While these races are supposed to be nonpartisan, personal attacks and statements about political leanings are raising eyebrows, as well as questions about how far candidates in these races can go when trying to sour voters’ opinions of their opponents.

When judges have to conduct (or endure) negative campaigns, politics becomes the focus. It discourages otherwise qualified candidates from running if they don’t have the connections and funds to run a strong political campaign. The message is clear. To be a judge, you also have to be a skilled politician.

Merit Selection relieves judicial candidates from the burden of campaigning. It lets judges be judges, by shifting the focus  back to each candidate’s abilities and qualifications. No plan for judicial selection can eliminate politics from the process, but we can prevent it from being a job requirement for a seat on the appellate bench in Pennsylvania.

Critics of Merit Selection like to conjure up visions of a shadowy cabal of lawyers, meeting in a smoke-filled room to decide who has the right political leanings to be a judge. In reality, the people who serve on judicial nominating commissions are usually thoughtful men and women, lawyers and nonlawyers, who view the task of recommending qualified judicial candidates as an important civic duty.

Florida’s Judicial Nominating Commission is preparing this week to interview 49 candidates for two vacancies on that state’s supreme court. In an article about the work involved, members of the commission talk about how much time and effort they invest in the process.

Commission Chair Bob Hackleman calls the job “a grave responsibility,” and stresses the “need to be thorough.” Commission member Arturo Alvarez gives this perspective:

I really believe in the merit-selection process. It’s much like sitting on a jury. We actually say to ourselves, ‘My God, this is an important thing.’ Me, as a trial lawyer, I know the power a single judge can have over things.

We’re glad that the members of the Florida Judicial Nominating Commission take their responsibilities so seriously. We hope their work goes smoothly, and we hope that critics of Merit Selection will think of them before being impugning the motives of men and women serving their states with pride.