Questions to Ask a Judge
62 questions to ask a judge, for a class or community visit to the courthouse, a scheduled interview, a bar association event, or half an hour in chambers. They are grouped by what you want to learn: how the job and the docket work, how decisions get made, what life on the bench is like, what to ask a federal judge, a supreme court justice or a chief justice about the work only they do, what a visiting group can ask with no legal training, and the questions to ask judges about clerkships, for law students and applicants. The guide covers what a judge is not permitted to discuss, which is worth reading before you choose. These are for talking with a judge about the work. If you are a party in a case, what you can ask a judge in open court without a lawyer is a separate set, and so are the questions put to Supreme Court nominees at a confirmation hearing.
The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
The job
What kinds of cases come before you?
Why ask it
Start here, because almost everything else depends on it. A traffic and misdemeanour docket, a family court, and a federal civil docket are different jobs with different pressures, and most people picture a criminal jury trial regardless of what the judge actually does.
How did you come to the bench?
Why ask it
Appointment, election, and retention are very different routes, and judges who ran for office will describe fundraising and campaigning that sits uneasily with the role. The answer also tells you what they did before, which shapes how they read cases.
What are you doing in the hour before you take the bench?
Why ask it
Concrete and rarely asked. Expect reading files, conferring with a clerk, and working out which of the morning's matters will actually be ready. It gives you the texture of the work in a way that questions about justice never do.
How many matters are on your calendar this week?
Why ask it
The number is usually startling, and it explains a great deal about why courts feel rushed to the people passing through them. Follow with how many of those will settle or be continued, since the answer is often most of them.
How much of the job is trials, and how much is everything else?
Why ask it
Trials are a small fraction of most judges' time. Hearing what fills the rest, motions, scheduling, plea hearings, written rulings, corrects the impression built by television and explains where cases are really decided.
What can you not discuss with me, and why?
Why ask it
Worth asking early rather than blundering into it. Pending cases, private conversations about a matter, and anything approaching legal advice are off limits, and hearing the reasons makes the rest of the conversation easier for both of you.
What happens when someone appears in front of you without a lawyer?
Why ask it
Self-represented parties are common in family, housing, and small claims courts. Judges describe the awkward balance between explaining procedure and remaining neutral, which is one of the hardest practical problems in the job.
Decisions
What do lawyers do that genuinely helps you, and what makes your job harder?
Why ask it
Judges answer this precisely and it is useful to anyone who will ever be in a courtroom. Expect concrete complaints about briefs that bury the issue, and praise for concessions made early. The specifics reveal how much of a case is won on paper.
When you read the filings, what makes an argument persuasive?
Why ask it
You are asking about the craft rather than the outcome, which judges are free to discuss. Answers often prize candour about weaknesses over confident overstatement, which is the opposite of how advocacy is usually imagined.
How much discretion do you actually have in the outcome?
Why ask it
Less than people assume in some areas and more in others. Sentencing ranges, mandatory minimums, and statutory formulas constrain judges in ways the public rarely sees, and this question separates what the judge chose from what the law required.
What are you not allowed to take into account, even when you know it?
Why ask it
Rules of evidence and procedure keep relevant-sounding facts out, which is deeply counterintuitive to non-lawyers. The answer explains why a courtroom result can differ from what everyone in the room believes happened.
How do you decide whether to believe a witness?
Why ask it
Expect a wary answer, and that wariness is the point. Experienced judges tend to distrust demeanour and confidence, and look instead for consistency with documents and with facts not in dispute.
Do you ever change your mind while writing the decision?
Why ask it
Frequently, and judges will admit it if asked plainly. Writing forces the reasoning to hold together, and a conclusion that felt right at the hearing sometimes will not survive it. This is the most honest window into how judging works.
What is it like to be reversed on appeal?
Why ask it
The answer distinguishes judges who treat reversal as information from those who take it personally. It also usefully explains what an appeal actually reviews, which is rarely the facts and often only whether the law was applied correctly.
What do you do when you think the law requires a result you dislike?
Why ask it
One of the genuinely difficult parts of the role, and most judges have an example they can describe in general terms. Watch for whether they distinguish personal disagreement from legal error, which is the distinction the job rests on.
Life on the bench
What surprised you in your first year on the bench?
Why ask it
The administrative load, the pace of a calendar and how solitary a decision feels all tend to come up. Whichever they pick is a part of the job the route to the bench did not prepare them for, so ask how long it took to get used to.
What did you have to unlearn from practising as a lawyer?
Why ask it
Advocacy habits are hard to drop: picking a side early, filling a silence, pressing the stronger point when the weaker one needs weighing. The habit a judge names is usually the one that took longest to lose, which is worth hearing if you want the job one day.
What has changed in your courtroom since you started?
Why ask it
Better than asking about the future of the justice system. Expect specifics: remote hearings, self-represented litigants, caseload growth, changes in the kinds of cases filed. It gives you a picture of institutional change from inside.
How do you keep the day's cases from following you home?
Why ask it
Judges in criminal, family, and juvenile courts see distressing material constantly with little of the support offered to other professions. Answers are practical and sometimes bleak, and it is a more respectful question than asking about the hardest case they ever had.
Is there a decision you still think about?
Why ask it
Ask late, and accept a general answer. Judges will often describe a case where the law and the outcome pulled apart, or a person they wondered about afterwards. This is the question that gets past the institutional voice.
What should someone weigh before aiming at a judicial career?
Why ask it
Pay against private practice, public scrutiny, the limits on life off the bench and the loss of variety all tend to come up. Ask what they gave up to take the job, which gets a more exact answer than asking whether it was worth it.
Federal judges and justices
What makes a case a federal one rather than a state one?
Why ask it
In the United States the answer turns on the kind of law involved and on who the parties are, and a federal judge can explain it with examples from the current docket. Other countries divide their courts differently, so ask how the line is drawn where you are.
What was the confirmation process like from the inside?
Why ask it
A federal judge in the United States is nominated and then confirmed, and the months of questionnaires, background checks and waiting are seldom described in public. Keep to the process and how it felt, because a sitting judge will not discuss the politics around it.
Does holding the job without facing an election change how you do it?
Why ask it
Secure tenure is meant to let a judge make an unpopular ruling without fearing for the post, and hearing whether it feels that way is better than the theory. Not every federal judge is appointed on the same terms, so find out which kind you are talking to before you ask.
How does your court choose which cases to hear?
Why ask it
This one is for a supreme court justice, since a top court usually turns away many more requests than it accepts. The choosing is a large part of the work that the public never sees, and a justice can describe what makes a case worth taking without naming one now before the court.
What happens when the justices meet in private after the argument?
Why ask it
The meeting is confidential, so you are asking about its form and not its content: who speaks first, how a vote is taken, how long it runs. Every court has its own customs here, and a justice is usually glad to describe them.
How is deciding as one of several different from deciding alone?
Why ask it
Many justices sat alone as trial judges first, and the move is from making a ruling to persuading colleagues toward one. Ask how much a draft opinion changes once the other justices have read it.
How do you decide whether to write a dissent?
Why ask it
Writing separately costs time and some goodwill, and justices weigh that cost differently. The reason one gives, whether it is a later court, the losing side or the record, tells you who they think an opinion is written for.
What is it like to know that no higher court will review your decision?
Why ask it
A trial judge can be corrected on appeal, and a justice of a final court, on most questions, cannot. Ask whether that makes them slower to decide or more careful about how broadly they write.
What does a chief justice do that the other justices do not?
Why ask it
The title covers more than presiding. Depending on the court, the chief may also run the administration of the courts, speak for the judiciary and have a hand in who writes an opinion. The duties differ between countries and between states, so let them list their own.
How much of your week goes to running the courts instead of deciding cases?
Why ask it
Budgets, buildings, staffing and the assignment of judges can land on a chief's desk alongside a full share of the cases. The split is news to anyone who pictures the role as simply the first among the judges.
How do you decide who writes the court's opinion?
Why ask it
Where the chief assigns opinions, the choice can shape how narrow or broad a ruling turns out, which makes it one of the quieter powers of the office. Courts differ on this, so ask first whether the assignment is theirs to make.
When the courts are criticised in public, what can a chief justice say in reply?
Why ask it
Judges are expected to stay out of political argument, yet the chief is often the one voice the judiciary has. Where they draw that line shows how they understand the independence of the courts.
Court visit
What do you wish the public understood about what happens in here?
Why ask it
Judges rarely get to answer this and usually have something ready. Common answers involve how much is settled by agreement, how ordinary most cases are, and how little a courtroom resembles its dramatized version.
Did you always want this job?
Why ask it
Most judges did not, and the honest version of that answer is more useful to a fifteen-year-old than any careers talk. It also usually produces the best story of the visit.
Do you remember your first day sitting up there?
Why ask it
Nervousness in a judge is not something a visiting group expects, and the memory is usually vivid. It is a good question to ask when the formal questions have run out.
How does a case end up in this courtroom rather than another one?
Why ask it
Assignment rules, subject matter and geography decide this, and none of it is obvious from outside. The answer explains why the same argument might be heard in one building and not another.
How much of a case do you read before anyone speaks?
Why ask it
Visitors assume the hearing is where the judge learns the case, when usually it is where the judge tests what has already been read. This reframes everything the group just watched.
Do you decide today, or later?
Why ask it
Some rulings come from the bench in seconds and some take weeks of writing, and which is which is not obvious to a visitor. Ask what makes a decision one that has to be written down.
What do the robe and the raised bench actually mean?
Why ask it
The answer is about the office rather than the person, and judges tend to enjoy explaining it. It also opens the question of why courtrooms are arranged the way they are.
Is it ever hard to keep your face still?
Why ask it
It is a light question that opens a serious one about how a judge is meant to appear to everyone in the room. Ask what happens when someone in court is very upset.
How do you try to be fair to someone you have taken a dislike to?
Why ask it
Judges have real methods for this and rarely get asked about them. The answer is a genuine lesson in how the job works, not a platitude, if you give them room to answer properly.
What happens if someone in the courtroom behaves badly?
Why ask it
Contempt, warnings and removal are the mechanisms, and the practical answer is usually far less dramatic than expected. Ask what a judge tries first.
What do people get wrong about court from watching it on television?
Why ask it
This is the question judges are most willing to answer at length, because the gap is enormous. Expect surprise, objections and dramatic confessions to come up.
If someone has to appear in court for the first time, what should they know?
Why ask it
Practical and generous, and it usually produces advice about arriving early, bringing documents, and answering only what was asked. It is the part of the conversation most worth passing on to somebody else.
What should someone do if a jury summons arrives?
Why ask it
Most of the group will get one eventually, and this is the one piece of practical information a judge is glad to give. Ask what makes jury service go badly for people.
Clerkships
What does a clerk in your chambers actually do, week to week?
Why ask it
Bench memos, research, drafting, cite checking and courtroom time are mixed in very different proportions between trial and appellate chambers. Ask about last week instead of a description of the role.
How many clerks do you have, and how do you divide work between them?
Why ask it
A single clerk sees everything that comes through, a chambers of four tends to specialise, and the two arrangements teach different things. Ask whether cases are assigned by subject, by rotation, or by whoever is free.
How much writing does a clerk do, and how much of it survives into the final opinion?
Why ask it
The range runs from clerks who write first drafts to clerks whose memos the judge writes from. Neither is the wrong answer, but they are different years, and you should know which one you are applying for.
What do you look for when you read a clerkship application?
Why ask it
Judges weigh grades, writing, recommendations and fit very differently from one another, and most will say plainly which matters to them. Ask what they read first, because that is the page your application has to get right.
What makes you stop reading an application partway through?
Why ask it
The filters are usually specific and unglamorous: a typo in the cover letter, a writing sample someone else has clearly edited, a letter that could have gone to any chambers. Ask, then go and check yours.
Whose recommendation letters actually carry weight with you?
Why ask it
A letter from someone who supervised your writing closely usually says more than one from a well-known name who barely taught you, and a judge will tell you which they trust. Ask what a useful letter contains, so you can tell your recommenders.
What do you ask in a clerkship interview, and what are you listening for?
Why ask it
Some judges run a conversation and some work through a case with you, and candidates often prepare for the wrong one. Ask what a bad interview looks like, since that answer tends to be more exact than a description of a good one.
Do you prefer clerks straight out of school or with a few years in practice?
Why ask it
Preferences differ sharply between judges and are rarely written down anywhere. If this judge favours practice experience, that changes when you should apply, not whether.
What do first-year clerks find hardest?
Why ask it
The volume of reading, the move from arguing one side to weighing both, and how solitary the work is are the usual candidates. Which one this judge names tells you what a year in these chambers would ask of you.
What did you have to teach your last clerk that law school had not?
Why ask it
The answer is usually about writing: a bench memo or an opinion is built differently from a law school paper or a brief. Ask whether there is anything you could practise before you start.
How do you handle it when a clerk thinks you have a case wrong?
Why ask it
The answer tells you whether these chambers are a place where a clerk argues or a place where a clerk drafts, and both exist. Ask about the last time a clerk changed their mind.
What are the confidentiality rules a clerk lives under, in practice?
Why ask it
Confidentiality usually outlasts the clerkship, which surprises people who expect to talk about the work afterwards. The detail differs between courts, so ask what applies in this one and what a former clerk can say about the year a decade on.
What have your former clerks gone on to do?
Why ask it
This is the closest thing a clerkship has to a record of outcomes. Ask whether former clerks stay in touch with chambers and with each other, which tells you whether the network people talk about is a real one.
How does clerking change the way someone practises afterwards?
Why ask it
A judge sees the difference in the lawyers who appear in court, and the answer is usually specific: how a brief is ordered, what an argument leads with, what gets left out. It is also the plainest case for or against spending the year.
What should someone read or work on before a clerkship starts?
Why ask it
Local rules, standards of review and the court's own recent opinions come up most often. Ask whether there is one thing they wish every arriving clerk already knew.
If someone will not clerk, what else gives comparable training?
Why ask it
Staff attorney roles, appellate practice, prosecutors' and public defenders' offices and agency work all come up. A judge reads the writing those routes produce, so ask which of them turn out lawyers who write well.
Talking With a Judge
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
What a judge cannot talk about
Pending and impending cases
Judicial conduct rules bar public comment on matters before them or likely to come before them. This is not evasion, and pressing on it puts them in an awkward position. If a case is what you care about, ask about the procedure it will follow rather than the merits.
Anything resembling legal advice
A judge cannot tell you what to do about your dispute, your landlord, or your custody arrangement, even socially. Asking makes the rest of the conversation guarded. Questions about how a process works are fine, questions about your own situation are not.
One-sided contact about a live matter
If you are a party in a case in front of this judge, do not approach them at all outside court. Contact with one side alone is prohibited and can affect your case. Route everything through your lawyer or the clerk's office.
Preparing for the conversation
- Find out which court and which docket. A district judge, a magistrate, an appellate judge, and a state trial judge do substantially different work.
- Sit in on a public session first if you can. Most courtrooms are open, and an hour of observation generates better questions than any reading.
- Get the form of address right: usually Your Honour in court, and Judge with the surname in conversation.
- Read one recent published decision if they write them. Referring to something specific they reasoned through is the single best way to open.
- Keep politics out of it. Questions about how a judge would rule on a contested public issue will be declined, and rightly.
Follow-ups that open things up
- Can you give me an example without the identifying details. Lets them illustrate a point while staying within the rules.
- What would the lawyers have done differently. Turns a general answer into concrete craft.
- How often does that actually happen. Useful whenever they describe a procedure, since many exist mostly on paper.
- Who else in the building would know about that. Court clerks, court reporters, and probation officers often see parts of the system judges do not.
- What did you think about that before you were a judge. Invites a comparison between the advocate's view and the bench's.
Different settings
A courthouse tour or public event
Time is short and shared. Pick two questions, ask them plainly, and leave room for others. Questions about the building, the docket, and the daily routine work better in a group than anything reflective.
A scheduled interview
Ask at the start whether they want anything treated as background, and whether their office needs to approve quotes. Judges are cautious with the press for good reason, and being clear about ground rules gets you more, not less.
An informal conversation
Judges are asked about their work constantly and about their opinions constantly. Asking about the mechanics instead, how a calendar is built, what a clerk actually does, is usually a relief and gets a longer answer.
A conversation about a clerkship
Find out first whether the judge sits in a trial or an appellate court, because the two clerkships are different jobs. Check that court's application timetable before you meet, so the time is not spent on something already published. Then ask about the chambers and the work, not about your own chances: judges answer the first freely and deflect the second.
Questions for a chief justice or a supreme court justice
Justices mostly meet the public at law school talks, bar events and moderated conversations, where you may get one turn at a microphone. Make it about how the court works: choosing cases, the private conference, writing for a majority, what the chief's office adds. Anything on an issue the court could yet be asked to decide will be turned aside, so ask in a sentence and leave the rulings alone.