Legal Village

Smith chatter will put off talented future judges

Posted 3/09/2007 by Simon Davis

There has been a great deal of noise made about the unfortunate Mr Justice Smith. It would be unfortunate indeed if this deflected talented judges from seeking private employment after they decide to leave the bench.

There is sometimes a naive assumption that anyone worth their salt should want to be a judge. Indeed, an applicant now has to fill in a questionnaire and be grilled at an interview.

The reality is that it is a difficult, often solitary, demanding and low-paid job, in comparison with what the individual concerned was previously earning. The icing on the cake is then to be told they can't even go into private practice at the end of their career.

Subject to there being proper safeguards in place, if we want to encourage talent to go on to the bench, we should not be discouraging them from pursuing afterwards a further career of their choosing.