Glad to see the American Bar Association gave an honest assessment of Kavanaugh. Whether you agree with his jurisprudence or not, he is clearly well qualified. Anything short of a unanimous Well Qualified rating would have been a joke.
The qualifications ratings are something that should be entirely divorced from a candidates jurisprudence. Qualification ratings should depend on factors like years of experience, varieties of experience, education achievements, writing skill and interpersonal relationships.
The ABA got it right.
The question of whether you agree or disagree with his jurisprudence is a question that must be entirely divorced from the question of his qualifications and answered entirely separately.
McConnell set the precedent that a President shouldn’t be entitled to hearings for their Supreme Court nominee under certain circumstances. I think that if the President should somehow turn out to be an unindicted co-conspirator to a federal crime, then perhaps that might qualify under the new precedent.
My point is that the state bar associations, martindale hubbel, the ABA. None of them really mean that much. I know guys that can pay money to be in “Super Lawyer”, “Best Lawyer” and others. I don’t put a lot of stock in ratings by the ABA or martindale or most others that rate lawyers and or judges
I always take the ratings with a grain of salt. On the other hand, sometimes even if you disagree with the final rating assigned to a candidate, sometimes things dug up by the evaluation committee can be useful in evaluating a candidate.
In Florida and some other States, candidates for Federal Judgeships go before a Judicial Nominating Commission that was established years ago by Florida’s United States Senators and is bi-partisan. Candidates must submit lengthy applications, writing samples, etc. They are personally interviewed by the Commission. Their co-workers and community peers are questioned. From all that, the top three candidates are selected by the Commission, who then send them to the appropriate Senator, which would currently be Rubio, who, in consultation with Nelson, makes the final selection to send to the White House.
I think a better ABA evaluation method could be developed, but it would mean that the ABA would have to accept as members of the evaluation committees attorney’s who may not necessarily be dues paying members of the ABA. However, balancing these committees would make the ABA’s ratings more credible.
