The criteria for the Council's evaluations are whether the candidate has demonstrated the ability to serve on the relevant court in the following categories:

• fairness, including sensitivity to diversity and bias
• legal knowledge and skills (competence)
• integrity
• experience
• diligence
• punctuality
• impartiality
• judicial temperament
• respect for the rule of law
• independence from political and institutional influences
• professional conduct
• character
• community service

If a candidate has demonstrated the ability to perform the work required of a judge in all of these areas, the Council assigns a rating of "qualified." If a candidate has demonstrated excellence in most of these areas, the Council assigns a rating of "well qualified." If a candidate has demonstrated excellence in all of these areas, the Council assigns a rating of "highly qualified." If a candidate has not demonstrated that he or she meets all of the criteria evaluated by the Council, the Council assigns a rating of "not qualified."

We apply higher standards to candidates for the Supreme Court and the Appellate Court. Because these Courts establish legal precedents that bind the lower courts, their work has a broad impact on the justice system. Moreover, qualities of scholarship and writing ability are more important to the work of the Supreme and Appellate Court justices than they are to satisfactory performance as a trial judge.

The Council does not evaluate candidates based on their substantive views of political or social issues. Nor do we take into account the particular race in which a candidate is running or the candidates against whom a candidate is running. We apply a uniform standard for all countywide and subcircuit elections because judges elected through either method can be assigned to any judicial position in the Circuit Court.

As part of the evaluation process, we require candidates to provide us with detailed information about their backgrounds, including any complaints filed against them with the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission ("ARDC") or, where applicable, the Judicial Inquiry Board ("JIB"). If a candidate does not participate in our evaluation process, we are unable to obtain that information. Therefore, we assign those candidates a rating of "not recommended."

In conducting these evaluations, the Council has participated in a joint investigation and interview process with the Alliance of Bar Associations for Judicial Screening ("Alliance"). The Alliance includes the following bar associations: Asian American Bar Association, Black Women Lawyers Association, Chicago Council of Lawyers, Cook County Bar Association, Decalogue Society, Hispanic Lawyers’ Association of Illinois, Illinois State Bar Association, Puerto Rican Bar Association, and the Women’s Bar Association of Illinois. The Council’s evaluation process includes:

(1) a review of a written informational questionnaire provided to the Alliance by the candidate, including details of the candidate's career and professional development and information on any complaints filed against the candidate with the JIB or the ARDC;

(2) a review of the candidate’s written responses to the Alliance’s supplemental essay questionnaire;

(3) interviews of judges, attorneys, and others with personal knowledge about the candidate, including those who have and those who have not been referred to the Alliance by the candidate, and not restricted to Council members;

(4) a review of the candidate’s professional written work, where available;

(5) an interview of the candidate done jointly with the Alliance;

(6) review of any information concerning the candidate provided by the ARDC;

(7) a review of any other information available from public records, such as the Board of Election Commissioners and prosecutorial agencies;

(8) an evaluation of all the above materials by the Council’s Judicial Evaluation Committee which includes members of the Council’s Executive Committee and the Council’s Board of Governors; and

(9) submission of the proposed evaluation and write-up to the candidate prior to its public release, to provide an opportunity for comment, correction, or reconsideration.

When the candidate is a sitting judge, the Council places special importance on interviews with attorneys who practice before the judge, particularly those who were not referred to the Council by the candidate. Most evaluations are based on information gathered and interviews held during the past few months. In cases where the Alliance evaluated candidates for the March 1998 primary, the Alliance did not investigate or interview candidates again for the March 2000 primary, instead relying on the March 1998 results. In these cases, the Council utilized the judicial evaluation results from our evaluations conducted for the March 1998 primary. We note these evaluations in our judicial evaluation report.

In evaluating candidates, the Council expresses written reasons for its conclusions. Without knowing the reason for a recommendation concerning a candidate, the public cannot use the bar's evaluations intelligently to draw its own conclusions.

It should be noted that a lawyer might be performing well or even very well without being qualified to be a judge. A good lawyer may be unqualified to be a judge, for instance, because of a narrow range of prior experience, limited trial experience, or limited work doing legal research and writing. A lawyer may have the temperament and intelligence to be a judge without yet having worked in a position that would allow the candidate to demonstrate that capacity. Accordingly, it should be recognized and expected that we will rate some good lawyers "not qualified."