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By Michael C. Levenson STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE
Michael.Levenson@statehousenews.com
STATE HOUSE, JUNE 2, 2003...The Romney administration is struggling
to attract judicial nominees, especially among women and minorities.
Despite posting openings for 23 vacancies on the Internet March
3 and casting a wide net in the legal community, the administration
has only received 47 applications for judgeships, none from African-Americans,
and fewer than 10 percent from women, said Daniel Winslow, Romney's
chief legal counsel.
Winslow said he was "very disappointed" by the tepid
response from the legal community and would seek to double the
number of applications to the Judicial Nominating Council by the
end of June. He said the Romney administration would work especially
hard to attract applications from women and minorities, "to
encourage a pool of applicants as qualified and as diverse as
possible."
Concerned about the low turnout, he and Ralph Martin II, the
chairman of the JNC, who is black, met with members of the Black
Lawyers Association and the Black Women's Lawyers Association
last month and were "met by some cynicism and some skepticism,"
said William "Mo" Cowan, an attorney at Mintz Levin
Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo in Boston, who is president of the
Black Lawyers Association.
"People had grown weary of applying only to discover that
the playing field may have not been level." Cowan said. "I
have members who have said and said publicly that in years past,
they applied under former administrations and felt they weren't
getting a fair shot because of the patronage and the old boy network
that was in place."
Many black lawyers are "taking a wait and see approach"
to see if "Martin, Winslow and others are going to radically
change the system for the positive or keep business as usual,"
Cowan said.
In February, Romney introduced a new screening process intended
to remove patronage and cronyism from the judicial nominating
system. The new rules, which Romney said would ensure "a
squeaky clean process that has no room for politics and favors,"
ban political donations by judicial nominees, and set minimum
years of experience for applicants.
Renee Lander, associate professor at Suffolk University Law School,
who is to become the first black woman president of the Boston
Bar Association in September, suggested Romney may have more work
to do to inspire confidence among women attorneys.
"It's disturbing that there are so few applicants who are
women because there are so many more women attorneys than there
used to be," she said. "That needs to be communicated,
that [Romney] is serious about appointing women and people of
color to the bench. And at some level, actions will speak. People
will be paying very close attention to the first round of appointees
to find out what kind of credentials and experiences he is going
to value."
- more -
Cowan praised the new rules as a step in the right direction
and predicted they would help restore confidence among black lawyers.
Over the next several months, "more and more members of the
bar who otherwise would not have been inclined to, are going to
throw their hats in the ring because they are going to get their
first fair opportunity," he said.
Part of the problem, Lander and Winslow both said, stems from
the workplace pressures facing all judges and the relatively low
pay judges receive compared with the salaries of associates at
top private law firms.
Whereas a first-year associate at some private firms can earn
upwards of $150,000 a year, trial court judges earn $112,777,
Appeals Court judges, $114,045, and Supreme Judicial Court justices
$126,943, under state law.
"As a former judge, I can say judges have some of the toughest
decisions in society resting on their shoulders, they have few
resources, and relatively low pay scales compared to what they
could be making outside their world," said Winslow, a former
Wrentham District Court judge.
Combined with the "barrage of problems with the court system,"
Lander said, "Why sign up for that kind of trouble if you
don't have to?"
Romney is trying to fill vacancies on five state courts, including
the District Court, the Appeals Court, and the Superior Court.
One of the immediate openings is for the Superior Court judgeship
vacated by Maria Lopez, who resigned last month rather than face
sanctions for judicial misconduct stemming from her handling of
a child molestation case two and a half years ago.
Winslow said the administration is committed to attracting the
most diverse, highest qualified judges as possible to fill those
openings.
"We have over 40,000 lawyers in Massachusetts," Winslow
said. "Many of them may not think of themselves as potential
judges, in large part because of their humility and not because
of their ability. Our task will be to reach to as many of these
lawyers as possible to encourage a pool of applicants as qualified
and as diverse as possible."
*Reprinted courtesy of STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE and author Mike
Levinson
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