Code of Judicial Administration – Comment Period Closed March 17, 2018

CJA03-0111  Performance evaluation of senior judges and court commissioners.  Amend.  1) Clarifies when court commissioners’ annual evaluations will be completed, by whom, and what the evaluation process will entail; 2) establishes when the presiding judge will prepare a performance plan versus a corrective action plan for a court commissioner; 3) moves the Judicial Council’s certification process from August to July; and 4) replaces the active senior judge performance evaluation process in paragraph (1) with a new process in paragraph (3)(B). Amended (3)(B) provides that the surveys the Judicial Council collects from the trial court executives, the Court of Appeals Clerk of Court, the Justice Court Administrator, and the presiding judges on an active senior judge’s performance will be informed by anonymous questionnaires completed each time the senior judge completes an assignment. In the trial courts, court staff and jurors will complete the questionnaires, and in the Court of Appeals, the other judges on the panel to which the senior judge is assigned and the law clerks with whom the senior judge works will complete the questionnaires. This is the second request for comment due to the addition of the fourth category of amendments.