Solicitors make first-rate judges. That is a bold statement, but it is one that Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) chair Christopher Stephens (pictured) stands by. He is ‘passionate’, he tells the Gazette, about seeing more solicitors securing a judicial role.

The opportunities for solicitors are certainly there. Over the coming months, the JAC will be recruiting more than 100 deputy district judges, five Chancery High Court judges and 24 circuit judges. All of these positions are open to solicitors and they are urged to apply.

Stephens, a non-lawyer and former HR director, has been in the post since February and succeeded Baroness Prashar. He says his brief is deceptively simple: to make the process of selecting judges transparent and fair, so that the very best person is appointed to the job. That person could be a solicitor or barrister, man or woman, black or white. The days of the ‘tap on the shoulder’ are over; appointments are made on ‘merit’, not on who you know.

Stephens believes that solicitors wrongly perceive certain inherent obstacles to becoming judges. ‘There is the perception, for instance, that you must be an advocate to become a judge,’ he says. ‘That is simply not true. Much of a judge’s work involves reviewing papers and examining case law - rather like the day-to-day work of a solicitor, in fact.’

Another, more deeply rooted barrier is the attitude of the candidate’s firm. He adds: ‘Once it becomes known that individuals have applied for the judiciary, their careers can stall, even if they were unsuccessful, because firms reason that there is no point investing in the future of someone who is not in it for the long term.’

But Stephens stresses that this is short-sighted thinking: ‘A part-time position on the bench is like a subsidised form of management development for one of your firm’s senior solicitors. They will spend maybe 30 days a year away from the firm, gaining experience in a new environment and seeing the law from a different perspective. There is also the prestige of having a member of the judiciary as part of your legal team.’

Some candidates, unconvinced by this argument, are simply too embarrassed to attend the interview in case they are spotted and word gets back to their firms. Stephens says: ‘We are addressing this problem by introducing online testing for candidates to sit from the privacy of their homes.’

The JAC is to pilot online testing this autumn for appointments to the Mental Health Review Tribunal and, if the pilot is successful, will then roll it out to the other courts.

Stephens is evangelical about solicitors opting to pursue a career in the judiciary. The hours are long, he admits, but ‘that’s a relative term when compared with the hours of a City solicitor’. He adds: ‘The judiciary is family friendly too, with plenty of part-time roles and long judicial vacations. You even get a pension.’

Is he anticipating dozens more solicitors sitting on the bench? ‘We can only select from the people who present as candidates,’ he says. ‘If a proper proportion of solicitors apply, then some will be appointed. The profession is diverse and we would expect to see solicitor candidates of both genders and all ethnicities applying. This is only right as the judiciary should reflect the diversity of the society it serves.’

Can it really be that easy? Stephens shakes his head. ‘We advertised 30 deputy district judge vacancies last year and had 800 applications’, he says. ‘The competition is hot.’ He explains that the credit crunch and redundancies, along with dwindling legal aid provision, have prompted large numbers of solicitors and barristers to compete for these ‘precious jobs’. But that should be no barrier to applying, he says. The secret is ‘preparation, preparation, preparation’.

Upcoming vacancies

  • Circuit judges: around 24 vacancies, three or four circuits, launching early October.

  • Chancery High Court judges: five vacancies, launching 20 October.

  • Deputy district judge (magistrates’ court): 30 vacancies, expected to launch early November.

  • Deputy district judge (civil): around 76 vacancies, expected to launch February 2012.

    See the JAC website.

How does the selection process work? The first stage is completing an application form that can be found on the JAC website. This is a standard document requiring details of professional qualifications and experience, name and address, and so on. The form also details the qualities that a successful candidate is likely to possess and invites the candidate to explain how they fit the bill. The candidate submits this form, online if they wish, and waits to see if they have cleared the first hurdle.

If they do so, they will be sent some paperwork relevant to the position for which they are applying and allowed several weeks to read around it and generally familiarise themselves with it. They then sit a written test, at the JAC, to see how well they can apply the law to a given situation.

If they clear this second hurdle, the going becomes significantly tougher. They return to the JAC and are tested by a role play, where they play the judge and actors play the claimant or defendant, or whatever other role is appropriate. The actors are briefed not to pull any punches and candidates are often left traumatised by the experience.

Stephens is unapologetic: ‘We are very, very comfortable with role plays. They are designed by people who are doing the job that the candidate aspires to do. They are a genuine dry run, a rich source of data and one of the surest ways of finding out whether a candidate has the right skills to do the job.’

On the same day as the role play, the candidate attends a 45-minute interview and the JAC then takes a long, hard look at their background. They have to give permission for it to do this, of course, as the checks are thorough - even intrusive. For example, are their tax affairs in order? After all, it would be undesirable to have someone with money problems on the bench.

Some months later, the candidate hears whether or not they have been successful.

Stephens concludes: ‘Many candidates are unsuccessful, but they should try again and again. And prepare, prepare, prepare. They should visit the court they want to sit in, talk to people who are already judges and get feedback on why they didn’t make it first time.

‘They should join our online seminars - our webinars - and come along to our seminar in London on 10 October or in Cardiff on 17 October. They should read the JAC annual report, which is on our website, where they will also find case studies of solicitors applying for appointment. Preparation is all.’