Voting for the worst judges in the nation recently began at CourthouseForum.com for the 2008 election year. This annual feature allows visitors to anonymously vote from a directory of over 27,000 judges. The website's Judge Directory (http://www.courthouseforum.com/forums/directory.phptype=judges) lists judges by each federal and state jurisdiction and venue, and also displays website activity for each judge. "We are the only website on the Internet that lists virtually all of the nation's courts and judges," said Roy Bray, president of Government Forums, Inc.
In addition to voting, the website also has interactive judicial performance evaluation surveys for each judge, allowing visitors to rate judges based upon criteria suggested by the
American Bar Association's Black Letter Guidelines for the Evaluation of Judicial Performance (February 2005), as well as other criteria. Voting and survey results are totaled and
displayed instantly on the website. Survey results are also displayed for each judge with detailed charts and graphs.
Since the site's launch over two years ago, attorneys, jurors, litigants, and others have been visiting Courthouse Forum to rate and discuss America's judges. "We've had a significant
increase in visitors who are filling out judicial evaluation surveys during this election year, when many of the nation's judges are up for re-election or retention," said Bray. To better
serve its visitors, the website recently added a Judge Journal (http://courthouseforum.com/forums/JudgeJournal.php) that
displays survey comments and forum posts about judges in a newspaper style format.
Courthouse Forum is now using Google Maps to plot the locations of all of the federal (http://courthouseforum.com/forums/mapFederal.php) and immigration (http://courthouseforum.com/forums/mapImmigration.php) courts. The courts are displayed for the entire U.S., as well as by
individual states. The maps display each court's address and phone number, links to each court's website and local rules, and links to the lists of judges in CourthouseForum.com. "We are
also in the process of displaying the locations of all of the state courts, as well the nation's law libraries and law schools."
CourthouseForum.com (http://www.courthouseforum.com/index.php) is a free website that is owned and operated by Government Forums,
Inc.