Judgepedia and The Robing Room: Good Ideas but Need to Improve
In the last couple of weeks I discovered two web sites that are very interesting, but underdeveloped at this time.
Judgepedia is "an interactive encyclopedia of courts and judges." It looks like wikipedia and is designed to allow users to add content like on wikiepedia. This could be a great site for information on judges if it takes off and the content improves. RIght now there are not many Mississippi judges with pages on the site and at least one of the those (Judge Sul Ozerden) contains errors. The site states that Judge Ozerden served in the U.S. Army. Actually, Judge Ozerden served in the U.S. Navy. The site does appear to make corrections. Last week it stated that Judge Ozerden was recommended by Senator Wicker. This week it correctly identifies Senator Lott. Judgepedia will be a go-to web site for litigators if it continues to develop.
The same can be said for The Robing Room, "where judges are judged." The site allows lawyers to rate judges and displays ratings and comments on judges. It also contains a ranking of the top ten and bottom ten judges. Here is the page for the federal District Court Judges and Magistrates in the 5th Circuit. There are very few ratings at this time for Mississippi federal judges and none for state judges. This would be a great site if there were more ratings and comments for Mississippi judges.
How about the new judge rating website, Gavelbangers.com? It doesn't look as outdated as the Robing Room. It has all federal district judges, though it doesn't yet list all state court judges. The ratings metric (five categories) is also a lot easier to comprehend than the information overload on the Robing Room.