The work of serving as a judge is often difficult. Judges, who hear and decide matters arising in the administrative setting, as with any judge in the judicial branch, must conduct hearings in a fair and impartial manner. Their decisions must reflect a reasoned application of the law to the evidence and communicate that in an understandable way to the parties.
At the same time, a judge must have the ability to make decisions free of any influence or fear of retribution in order to assure the integrity of the decisional system. Within the tension of these occasionally conflicting goals, states and the federal government have struggled to identify means of evaluating how well a judge is accomplishing his or her responsibilities.
But while the debate is often about whether or how to perform evaluations of judges, the most significant public benefit arises when the effort to secure evaluative information is linked with professional development opportunities, thereby enabling judges to use the information to improve their skills.
(Exerpt from Strengthening the Skills of Administrative Law Judges, by Kenneth Nickolai, Chief ALJ, Minnesota Office of Administrative Hearings, published in the Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judges, Vol. 20-2, Fall 2000).
An office-wide summary of 2006 results
was prepared by the Minnesota Department of Administration. The results are in PDF format. Download the
free viewer from Adobe.
The office-wide summary of 2002 results is also available.
The office-wide summary of 1999 results is also available.
Last Updated - November 29, 2006
