Judges
Judges in the USA initially come to the bench from other lines of legal work and after a substantial number of years of professional experience. American judges differ from judges of the common-law countries and civil-law systems in other parts of the world. Many judges have been legislators, but some have been office lawyers or counsel to organizations such as corporations or private associations. Numerous judges have been lawyers in government service as prosecuting attorneys or counsel to government agencies, either state or federal. Some judges are former law professors, but their number is small. Persons can enter the judicial system at any level. A lawyer can initially become a judge on the highest court, the lowest court, or any court between. In other words, a lawyer who has never been a judge can become a judge on a court of last resort or an intermediate appellate court or a trial court, in either a state or the federal system. Lawyers who come on the bench at the trial or intermediate appellate levels have no real promise of moving to a higher court.
Federal magistrate judges perform two kinds of functions. First, they hold hearings on variety of motions, such as motions seeking to control lawyers conduct of discovery in civil cases, and make recommendations to the district judge as to the disposition. Assistance of this sort enables district judges to dispose of these matters without having to sit to conduct hearings themselves; they can simply accept the magistrates recommendations. Magistrate judges also hold evidentiary hearing on prisoners petitions challenging the legality of their convictions, and they recommend factual findings to the judge. Second, magistrate judges are authorized to conduct trials in civil cases and in criminal misdemeanor cases if the parties consent. In other words, the parties can choose to go to trial before a magistrate judge instead of a district judge. If the parties exercise this opinion, the magistrate judge is empowered to decide the case and enter final judgment in the name of the district court.
The Attorney General
The federal system is the best known example of executive nomination with legislative confirmation. The Attorney General of the United States and the Department of Justice, which he heads, are key executive branch participants in the selection process, along with the White House staff. In selecting Supreme Court nominees, the President has even more leeway, but he still must take into account sentiment in the Senate, as that body has in effect a veto over the nomination.
Law Clerks
In the common-law tradition and in American practice prior to the twentieth century, judges functioned without assistance in judicial decision making. There has always been a clerk of the court, a court employee who handles the papers and maintains case files. Judges also have long had secretarial help for typing and other clerical chores.
A law clerk is usually a recent law school graduate. Most clerks have strong academic records in law school. Many appellate judges require experience on a student-edited law school journal. Typically a clerk serves one year, although some serve two. There are few career clerks. The law clerks, sometimes called elbow clerks, is a personal assistant to the judge. In general clerks do legal research, prepare memoranda on the cases, summarizing facts and issues and giving the clerks analysis, edit drafts of opinions written by the judge, and serve as a sounding board and discussion partner for the judge. Work as a clerk is considered an excellent professional experience for a new law school graduate, a year long transition from the academic to the real world, with an opportunity to see the workings of the judicial process from the inside.
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The work of law clerks in trial courts differ somewhat from that of law clerks in appellate courts. Appellate clerks spend much time in editing, and sometimes drafting, opinions that their judges are assigned to prepare for the court. Trial clerks also draft some memoranda and short opinions, but in addition they assist the judge with motions of all sorts and in pretrial conferences and hearings. They often deal with parties lawyers to assist the judge in managing his docket. To a considerable extent these different duties reflect the difference between the work of a trial court and that of appellate court.
Staff attorneys
The distinction between staff attorneys and law clerks in that the latter work for an individual judge in that judges chambers; the relationship is direct and personal, with the clerk responsible to no one except that judge. Central staff attorneys, on the other hand, work for the court as a whole. Central staff in appellate courts writes memoranda on cases for the use of the judges to whom those cases are assigned. In some courts they also draft proposed dispositions, usually short opinions in cases with issues that are not especially difficult or novel. Central staff attorneys often do the screening, a process of identifying those appeals that can appropriately be decided through truncated processes, usually involving the elimination of oral argument.
Adjuncts
In many state trail courts there are adjuncts variously entitled commissioners, referees, and part-time judges. In some state appellate courts there are commissioners who assist the court much as staff attorneys do.
Clerks of the court
Every court, whether trial or appellate, state or federal, has a clerk of the court who has a staff. The clerks office is the place where lawyers and litigants file pleadings, motions, and other papers in the cases brought in the court. The clerks office keeps a file on each case and maintains the docket book and the official record of the courts actions in all of its cases. All matters that come before the judges flow first through the clerks office.
There is a type of judicial adjunct much older than law clerks and central staff attorneys. This is the master or special master. This quasi-judicial position has long been used in various ways by American trial courts, state and federal. A master's position is typically part time, filled by court appointment on an ad hoc basis for a specific purpose. For example, in a civil action involving an elaborate financial accounting the trial judge might designate a lawyer as a master to conduct the accounting and report the result to the court. In cases requiring the testimony of numerous widely scattered witnesses, the court could appoint a master to preside over the taking of the testimony and transmit that testimony to the court with recommendations for factual findings. Courts have also used masters in some complex cases; in public law litigation they assist in supervising implementations of decrees. Their actions are in the form of recommendations to the judges, who exercise the final decision-making authority.
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Every state has a state court administrator. This is the top administrative official in the statewide system, usually responsible directly to the chief justice of the state. The administrator assists the chief justice in a wide array of matters such as developing the annual budget for the state's court system, supervising non-judicial personnel, maintaining statistics on the state's judicial business, overseeing court buildings, and supplying equipment for the courts.
In addition, each of the federal judicial circuits has a circuit executive who serves as an administrative assistant to the chief judge of the circuit in managing the circuit's business. Secretaries to judges are essential for the handling of the paper in the judges' chambers.
Judicial educator
The newest type of administrative official, now found in every state judicial system, is the state judicial educator. This officer, who usually works under the direction of the state chief justice or a judicial council of some sort, is responsible for planning and carrying out programs of continuing education for the states judges and other court personnel. In most states such educational undertakings are offered for judges at all levels, most commonly for trail judges of the general and limited jurisdiction courts.
