IS THE ROBING ROOM A GOOD IDEA? . . . The Robing Room is a website that allows federal judges to be rated anonymously by lawyers or litigants--or anyone pretending to be lawyers or litigants, I suppose, since it's unclear whether the editors of the site actually verify that people rating judges are who they claim to be.

I'm not planning to spend much time there myself, unless I'm in the mood for fiction, fantasy, or gossip. Although the editors reserve the right on their FAQ page to delete comments and ratings which they "believe are. . . not submitted in good faith," they don't explain how they're going to make that determination. It wouldn't be too hard to hide your bad faith in a system that relies on numerical scoring.

Link from Between Lawyers.

Comments

[Richard Levitt]

We just came across the comments on legalunderground.com regarding our web site therobingroom.com. Evan's concern that people can post phony evaluations is justified, since we only require an email address for postings. If we required more we couldn't be assured of candor, let alone sufficient volume to provide meaningful insight. In practice, the number of phony reviews is miniscule and doesn't skew results, particularly as our volume increases. How do we know? First, look at the comments. For the most part they are thoughtful and, often, anecdotal -- not the sort of comments we would expect from phonies. When a posting does seem out of place (either for reasons that would appear obvious to anyone or because certain red flags are triggered that we don't want to publicly identify) we email the reviewer requesting confirmation and, sometimes, follow-up information. If we're not satisfied with the response the review comes off.

All that said, we now have nearly 2,000 evaluations and reviews on our site, and our readership is steadily increasing. The more evaluations we post the better we are able to provide a reliable portrait of each reviewed judge, and the more likely false reviews will stand out like the proverbial sore thumb.

As attorneys with active trial and appellate practices we believe we are providing a service that is useful to our colleagues and to the public at large. The transparency that a site such as therobingroom.com brings to judging is long overdue, and we believe that, on balance, the benefits of a site like ours far outweighs the dangers inherent in not vetting every reviewer. This is, in fact, the view of the dozens of attorneys who have commented to us regarding the site or have reviewed us in their blogs. We recognize, however, that we can always improve, and invite comments, suggestions and criticism.

[NicholasKaizer]

The Robing Room website has come a long way in the past year. We now have a permanent moderator (who monitors the commentary on a daily basis to ensure its relevance, professionalism and relative tact), and we have taken steps to address several security issues that have been pointed out to us by those who visit our site regularly. We have also expanded the site, from its modest beginnings with the Federal judiciary, to include state-specific sections! The New York and Florida state sites have been up and running for some months now, and are proving hugely popular with the legal profession in both locations. A California state site is almost ready to go up, and will be added later this fall. But don't take our word for it -- stop by the new and improved Robing Room site at www.therobingroom.com and see for yourself! There's never been a better time to judge the judges!