This is part of series on Judges and the Judiciary
Post 1 Selecting Judges In America Is A Failure
Post 3 America Replaced Barristers With Law Office Paper Shufflers
Post 4 Every Business and Entrepreneur Needs a Trial Lawyer Eventually
Post 5 Why Appellate Judges Must First Serve as Trial Judges
Americans entrust judges with their liberty, their property, their businesses, their families, and sometimes their lives. Yet politicians nominate them. Judicial screening committees recommend them. Bar associations evaluate them. Governors appoint them and inadequately informed voters elect them. No wonder public confidence in the courts continues to erode.
Americans should insist that every judge first establish a successful record as a trial lawyer.
Most Lawyers Never Learn How to Try Cases
Many lawyers spend their entire careers negotiating contracts, reviewing documents, drafting memoranda, managing transactions, advising corporations, or attending meetings. Those activities may serve important purposes but they do not involve trials in a courtroom.
Trial advocacy requires a distinct set of skills.
Lawyers become trial lawyers by trying cases, examining witnesses, challenging evidence, arguing motions, selecting juries, and persuading judges and juries.
A lawyer who spends twenty years negotiating contracts cannot manage a complex trial in a courtroom.
A lawyer who spends twenty years reviewing documents in a quiet office cannot manage witnesses during a trial in a courtroom.
A lawyer who spends twenty years writing briefs and memoranda cannot manage a complex trial before a judge and jury.
Lawyers do not become trial advocates when they obtain a law license.
The Organized Bar Pretends Any Lawyer Can Be a Trial Lawyer
Lawyers do not possess interchangeable skills.
A real estate lawyer is not trained to select a jury.
A tax lawyer is not trained to cross-examine expert medical witnesses.
A corporate lawyer is not trained to introduce evidence during a trial.
The public understands this distinction instinctively.
Neurosurgeons require years of experience before they perform brain surgery.
Pilots require years of training in the cockpit before they are ready to captain a commercial airliner.
Yet Americans routinely assume that every lawyer possesses the training and experience necessary to become a judge and the organized bar promotes that myth.
Law schools graduate lawyers with widely different skills and experience, yet the organized bar continues to promote the fiction that lawyers who have never mastered the skills of trial advocacy possess the same qualifications as lawyers who have spent years trying cases in courtrooms.
Judicial screening committees do not consider courtroom experience as the primary qualification for judicial office. Large law firms promote lawyers as litigators even when many spend far more time attending meetings, reviewing documents, negotiating settlements, and managing clients than trying cases before judges and juries.
The result is predictable. Americans have been led to believe that any lawyer is qualified to be a judge regardless of whether they have ever been a trial lawyer while the organized bar knows that is not true. Trial advocacy requires years of specialized experience and lawyers who lack that experience are not qualified to preside over trials and administer justice.
Trial Advocacy Requires Years of Courtroom Experience
Courtroom advocacy is a specialized professional discipline that requires years of experience as a trial lawyer trying cases in a courtroom.
Law schools do not teach lawyers how to present evidence and manage a trial.
Law schools do not teach lawyers how to evaluate witness credibility.
Law schools do not teach lawyers how to handle objections during testimony and deal with judicial rulings as the trial moves on.
Trial judgment can only develop through courtroom experience.
No academic degree can substitute for years of practical courtroom experience.
Chief Justice Warren E. Burger recognized the importance of advocacy skills decades ago, but America ignored the warning.
The defects in legal education run much deeper than most lawyers are willing to admit.
A trial judge must evaluate evidence, assess credibility, control proceedings, rule on objections, manage lawyers, and protect the integrity of the trial process. Judges who have never served as trial lawyers are unqualified to preside over trials.
Judges Must Be Trial Lawyers First
Today Americans must insist that judges demonstrate courtroom competence through years of actual trial experience.
The bench should not continue to be a reward for political loyalty, law-firm prestige, academic publication, or professional connections.
The bench should belong to proven advocates.
Courtroom experience must become the essential qualification for becoming a judge.
Trial court judges should be selected only from experienced trial lawyers.
Appellate judges should be selected only from experienced trial judges.
America entrusts judges with the power to decide questions involving liberty, property, reputation, family relationships, and sometimes life itself. Americans should insist that those decisions be made by judges who have been trying cases.
The quality of justice depends upon the quality of judges.
The quality of judges depends upon the experience they bring to the bench.
America can do better.
Judges Must Be Trial Lawyers First
June 9, 2026 | Judges
This is part of series on Judges and the Judiciary
Post 1 Selecting Judges In America Is A Failure
Post 3 America Replaced Barristers With Law Office Paper Shufflers
Post 4 Every Business and Entrepreneur Needs a Trial Lawyer Eventually
Post 5 Why Appellate Judges Must First Serve as Trial Judges
Americans entrust judges with their liberty, their property, their businesses, their families, and sometimes their lives. Yet politicians nominate them. Judicial screening committees recommend them. Bar associations evaluate them. Governors appoint them and inadequately informed voters elect them. No wonder public confidence in the courts continues to erode.
Americans should insist that every judge first establish a successful record as a trial lawyer.
Most Lawyers Never Learn How to Try Cases
Many lawyers spend their entire careers negotiating contracts, reviewing documents, drafting memoranda, managing transactions, advising corporations, or attending meetings. Those activities may serve important purposes but they do not involve trials in a courtroom.
Trial advocacy requires a distinct set of skills.
Lawyers become trial lawyers by trying cases, examining witnesses, challenging evidence, arguing motions, selecting juries, and persuading judges and juries.
A lawyer who spends twenty years negotiating contracts cannot manage a complex trial in a courtroom.
A lawyer who spends twenty years reviewing documents in a quiet office cannot manage witnesses during a trial in a courtroom.
A lawyer who spends twenty years writing briefs and memoranda cannot manage a complex trial before a judge and jury.
Lawyers do not become trial advocates when they obtain a law license.
The Organized Bar Pretends Any Lawyer Can Be a Trial Lawyer
Lawyers do not possess interchangeable skills.
A real estate lawyer is not trained to select a jury.
A tax lawyer is not trained to cross-examine expert medical witnesses.
A corporate lawyer is not trained to introduce evidence during a trial.
The public understands this distinction instinctively.
Neurosurgeons require years of experience before they perform brain surgery.
Pilots require years of training in the cockpit before they are ready to captain a commercial airliner.
Yet Americans routinely assume that every lawyer possesses the training and experience necessary to become a judge and the organized bar promotes that myth.
Law schools graduate lawyers with widely different skills and experience, yet the organized bar continues to promote the fiction that lawyers who have never mastered the skills of trial advocacy possess the same qualifications as lawyers who have spent years trying cases in courtrooms.
Judicial screening committees do not consider courtroom experience as the primary qualification for judicial office. Large law firms promote lawyers as litigators even when many spend far more time attending meetings, reviewing documents, negotiating settlements, and managing clients than trying cases before judges and juries.
The result is predictable. Americans have been led to believe that any lawyer is qualified to be a judge regardless of whether they have ever been a trial lawyer while the organized bar knows that is not true. Trial advocacy requires years of specialized experience and lawyers who lack that experience are not qualified to preside over trials and administer justice.
Trial Advocacy Requires Years of Courtroom Experience
Courtroom advocacy is a specialized professional discipline that requires years of experience as a trial lawyer trying cases in a courtroom.
Law schools do not teach lawyers how to present evidence and manage a trial.
Law schools do not teach lawyers how to evaluate witness credibility.
Law schools do not teach lawyers how to handle objections during testimony and deal with judicial rulings as the trial moves on.
Trial judgment can only develop through courtroom experience.
No academic degree can substitute for years of practical courtroom experience.
Chief Justice Warren E. Burger recognized the importance of advocacy skills decades ago, but America ignored the warning.
The defects in legal education run much deeper than most lawyers are willing to admit.
A trial judge must evaluate evidence, assess credibility, control proceedings, rule on objections, manage lawyers, and protect the integrity of the trial process. Judges who have never served as trial lawyers are unqualified to preside over trials.
Judges Must Be Trial Lawyers First
Today Americans must insist that judges demonstrate courtroom competence through years of actual trial experience.
The bench should not continue to be a reward for political loyalty, law-firm prestige, academic publication, or professional connections.
The bench should belong to proven advocates.
Courtroom experience must become the essential qualification for becoming a judge.
Trial court judges should be selected only from experienced trial lawyers.
Appellate judges should be selected only from experienced trial judges.
America entrusts judges with the power to decide questions involving liberty, property, reputation, family relationships, and sometimes life itself. Americans should insist that those decisions be made by judges who have been trying cases.
The quality of justice depends upon the quality of judges.
The quality of judges depends upon the experience they bring to the bench.
America can do better.