Most lawyers like to know a little about any judge they are going to appear before in a case. If a judge is new to them, they ask around. What do other lawyers think? Does the judge normally permit aggressive discovery? Are her settlement conferences productive? Does he ask a lot of questions, or does he generally leave that to the other judges on the panel?

So it’s no surprise to me that a blog to discuss judicial performance has arisen in at least one jurisdiction. Kevin O’Keefe at Lexblog links to a Florida blog to which lawyers posted their opinions regarding judicial performance. Now an ethics complaint against a lawyer who posted highly negative comments about a judge is raising issues of professional ethics and freedom of speech. See O’Keefe’s post, and the links therein (to a newspaper article and to the blog itself), for details. Not all of the judges dislike it.

Actually, it seems like a wiki might be much better suited for this purpose. But no less dangerous.