Sixth Circuit Bar Ratings

[UPDATE: Coverage of the Sixth Circuit judge candidate forum from the News-Gazette:

Candidates tout their qualifications
Four of the five people seeking to be circuit judges in the local judicial district spoke to a group of about 60 University of Illinois law students and others Wednesday night about their qualifications.

Democrat Ramona Sullivan and Republican Roger Webber, who will face off this November for the seat formerly held by Judge Arnold Blockman, and Democrat Chad S. Beckett and Republican Randy Rosenbaum, two of the three candidates for the seat formerly held by Judge Harry Clem, took part in a candidates’ forum at the UI College of Law.

A third candidate for the latter judgeship, Republican Sami Anderson, was invited to participate but did not attend.

The two winners will serve as circuit judges in the six-county Sixth Judicial Circuit, which includes Champaign, DeWitt, Douglas, Macon, Moultrie and Piatt counties.]

The Illinois State Bar Association gave its candidate ratings available here (local Sixth Circuit on page 8) with some harsh ratings of "not recommended" in spite of previous higher ratings, bolstering some of the arguments about politics playing a role. From the News-Gazette today:

Local judge candidates not worried by lack of support in state bar poll
Two attorneys who received low marks on a poll of lawyers evaluating their ability to be judges say they are not terribly concerned with the lack of support from colleagues.

"I'm not worried about it," said Sami Anderson, right, a Champaign attorney running in the Republican primary against seated Judge Randy Rosenbaum for the judgeship previously held by the now-retired Harry Clem.

Urbana attorney Chad Beckett had a similar reaction.

"I didn't run to become president of the local bar. I'm running to seek the approval of local citizens," said Beckett, left, a Democrat who has no opposition in the primary. "If the local bar had the final say, then I'd pay more attention. I'm going to focus on the voters.

Beckett will run against either Rosenbaum or Anderson in the November general election.

A poll conducted by the Illinois State Bar Association released Tuesday did not recommend either Anderson or Beckett for office but gave glowing marks to Rosenbaum.

In the other Sixth Circuit race going into the general election:

Roger Webber, left, who was appointed to the vacancy, received even higher marks than Rosenbaum.

About 139 responded on his qualifications, giving him a score of 97.7 percent in the "meets requirements of office" category.

Webber, a lawyer for about 30 years and a judge for four, is running as a Republican.

His challenger in the general election is Ramona Sullivan. The Democratic candidate has been a lawyer for 21 years, all of those in the legal-aid field. She was rated 74.4 percent in the "meets requirements of office" based on the responses of about 92 lawyers.

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