Elevating Your Legal Writing: Essential Skills for Judicial Clerks and New Lawyers
The Traffic Case: A Course for Nonlawyer Judges
Judicial Academy – A Course for Aspiring Judges
Civil Mediation
Advanced Evidence (JS 617) – Online
Dividing the Waters Annual Conference
Lecture AppellateElevating Your Legal Writing: Essential Skills for Judicial Clerks and New Lawyers
2025 Appellate Judges Education Institute Summit
Advanced Skills for Appellate Judges
Advanced Skills for Appellate Judges
2024 Appellate Judges Education Institute Summit
Best Practices in Handling Cases with Self-Represented Litigants
Ethics, Fairness, and Security in Your Courtroom and Community
Mindfulness for Judges
water International Symposium Traffic 60th Web CourseElevating Your Legal Writing: Essential Skills for Judicial Clerks and New Lawyers
Judicial Writing (JS 615) – ONLINE
Financial Statements in the Courtroom – October ONLINE
Leadership WebinarElevating Your Legal Writing: Essential Skills for Judicial Clerks and New Lawyers
Screening & Assessment, and Motivational Interviewing: Applying Treatment Court Principles in Your Non-Treatment-Court Docket
Dealing with Sovereign Citizens (and maybe a few other difficult litigants)
Legal Writing: Striving for Clarity
Understanding and Navigating Tech-Enabled Trauma
Coaching for Judicial Excellence: Balancing Law, Ethics, and Humanity
Emerging Issues in Digital Safety
The Evolving Landscape of Image-Based Sexual Abuse
Impaired Driving 2024: What’s New?
TribalWebinar Web Self-StudyElevating Your Legal Writing: Essential Skills for Judicial Clerks and New Lawyers
Search & Seizure in Impaired Driving Adjudication: A Self-Study
Strengthening the Foundation of a Tribal Court: A Self-Study Course for Court Administrators
The Examination of a Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) Violation from Roadside to Docket
Effectively Communicating with Families That Have Missing or Abducted Children Self-Study Course
A Thoughtful Approach to Racially Impartial, Research-Based Sentencing
DWI Court Enhancement: A Self-Study Web Course
Probate Matters: A Self-Study Online Course
Free Lightning CourseElevating Your Legal Writing: Essential Skills for Judicial Clerks and New Lawyers
Judge-Led Education: Curriculum Development for Subject Matter Experts – A Lightning Course
Crafting Effective Learning Objectives – A Lightning Course
Are Per Se Standards for Enforcing Marijuana-Impaired Driving Scientifically Legitimate? A Lightning Course
An Overview of Afrocentric Facial Feature and Skin Tone Bias in Criminal Law – A Lightning Course
Evidence-Based Practices: A Judge’s Guide to Pretrial Detention for Non-Violent Offenders – A Lightning Course
Tribal Online Self-Study Across the CountryElevating Your Legal Writing: Essential Skills for Judicial Clerks and New Lawyers
Advanced Bench Skills: Self-Represented Litigants
The Antiracist Courtroom
Advanced Criminal Law
Restorative Justice
The Antiracist Courtroom & Reducing Disparity Through Nontraditional Diversion
Animal Law General JurisdictionElevating Your Legal Writing: Essential Skills for Judicial Clerks and New Lawyers
Taking the Bench: An Interactive, Online Course for New Judges – Fall
General Jurisdiction (JS 610) – Fall
Special Considerations for the Rural Court Judge: Web-Based
The Traffic Case: A Course for Nonlawyer Judges
Mindfulness for Judges
Judicial Writing (JS 615)
Taking the Bench: An Interactive, Online Course for New Judges – Spring
Designing and Presenting: A Faculty Development Workshop
Impaired Driving Case Essentials
General Jurisdiction (JS 610) – Fall
Fourth Amendment: Comprehensive Search and Seizure (JS 645) – ONLINE
Designing and Presenting: A Faculty Development Workshop
Civil Mediation: An Online 40-Hour Workshop
Decision Making (JS 618)
General Jurisdiction (JS 610) – Spring
Drugged Driving Essentials
Selected Criminal Evidence Issues: Web-Based JS 602
Drugs in America Today: What Every Judge Needs to Know
Advanced Trial Skills for Judges: Managing the Jury Trial
Taking the Bench: An Interactive, Online Course for New Judges – Fall
Ethics and Judging: Reaching Higher Ground (JS 601): Web-Based
When Justice Fails: Threats to the Independence of the Judiciary (JS 644)
Judicial Ethics and Social Media: A Lightning Course
Handling Inquiries from the Media: A Primer for Judges
An Ethical Approach to the Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1986
When Science Comes to Court: Self-Study Course on Forensic Evidence
Judicial Academy TribalElevating Your Legal Writing: Essential Skills for Judicial Clerks and New Lawyers
Special Court Jurisdiction: Advanced (JS 611)
Fundamentals of Evidence: Web-Based – Fall
Administrative Law: Fair Hearing (JS 612)
Human Trafficking in Indian Country
Selected Criminal Evidence Issues: Web-Based JS 602
Court Management for Tribal Judges and Personnel
Special Court Jurisdiction
Civil Mediation
Evidence in a Courtroom Setting (JS 633)
Special Court Jurisdiction: Advanced (JS 611)
Essential Skills for Tribal Court Judges
Strengthening the Foundation of a Tribal Court: A Self-Study Course for Court Clerks
Mini-Course Administrative LawElevating Your Legal Writing: Essential Skills for Judicial Clerks and New Lawyers
Evidence Challenges for Administrative Law Judges: Web-Based – Fall
Artificial Intelligence (AI) for all Judges and Lawyers: A Comprehensive Course
Ethical and Procedural Challenges for Administrative Law Judges: Handling Complex Issues and Cases
Taking the Bench: An Interactive, Online Course for New Administrative Law Judges
Fundamentals of Evidence: Web-Based – Spring
Evidence Challenges for Administrative Law Judges: Web-Based
Ethical Issues in the Law: A Novel Approach (JS 619)
Evidence Challenges for Administrative Law Judges: Web-Based
Administrative Law: Advanced (JS 649)
New MilitaryElevating Your Legal Writing: Essential Skills for Judicial Clerks and New Lawyers
Operation Safe Arrival: Impaired Driving Interventions for Service Members and their Families
Advanced Evidence (JS 617)
Conversations on Racial JusticeThe Traffic Case: A Course for Nonlawyer Judges
Judicial Academy – A Course for Aspiring Judges
Civil Mediation
Advanced Evidence (JS 617) - Online
Dividing the Waters Annual Conference
Judicial Academy – A Course for Aspiring Judges
The NJC is presenting this 4.5-day program to 40 selected participants who want to be trial judges. The NJC will endeavor to select a diverse participant class (age, race, color, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, and national or ethnic origin.) to help in the national effort to ensure a diverse judiciary.
Intended Outcomes
The program will answer the following questions for judicial candidates:
- How should the candidates prepare themselves and their families for the journey to becoming judges?
- What substantive content knowledge do candidates need to master?
- How should candidates conduct themselves on social media and in public?
- What judicial ethical rules are candidates bound by?
- How will those ethics rules impact their behavior and the behavior of their families?
Course Structure
The Academy will emphasize a “learn by doing” dynamic featuring judges, judicial selection professionals, and other experts who will help the participating lawyers discover ways to seek judicial positions and to build strong foundations for serving in the role. The Academy will also feature a panel of supreme court justices speaking about their experiences.
Participant Qualifications and Future Expectations
Judicial candidates should have the essential qualities to be good judges: integrity; knowledge of the law; intelligence; knowledge of implicit biases; the ability to apply the law fairly; the capacity to make timely decisions; the courage to make difficult decisions; compassion; humility; patience; and the personal skills to preside over a courtroom with appropriate demeanor and courtesy to all participants. Judges must be non-political arbiters of the law. Society expects them to be impartial and, perhaps just as importantly, appear to be impartial.
Society also expects judges to serve as leaders in their communities. The Model Code of Judicial Conduct encourages judges to educate the public about the administration of justice, ways to improve it, and about the legal system in general.
Preparation for the Role
During the program, expert faculty and participating attorneys will engage in discussions about their own judicial philosophies after examining legal and judicial history, theory and philosophy. Participants will learn about the types of pressures judges’ face that differ from their current roles and how those pressures can impact their families. They will receive a behind-the-scenes look at what judges do that most trial lawyers are not aware of. They will also discover resources in all areas of the law that will help them to master their work.
Participants will learn about when they can and cannot engage on social media and whether they should. They will be able to define how to manage difficult persons in their courtrooms. They will engage with the faculty about managing public pressure and making decisions in sometimes difficult situations. They will gain an understanding of how implicit biases can impact their decision-making and recognize that all human beings have biases that require confrontation. The faculty will address how the role of the judge differs from advocacy and effective methods for transitioning. Some court cases are emotionally difficult. The participants will learn strategies for keeping themselves emotionally healthy. During the Chief Justices’ Panel, they will be able to engage with current and former chief justices to learn from leaders in the judiciary. They will examine the ethical rules that judges are bound by, and recognize how the judicial role will change their lives. They will learn from a security expert about methods for keeping themselves and their families safe. Finally, they will assess their own decision-making styles and interpret how their styles differ from their fellow participants.
Intended Outcomes
After participating in the 4.5-day intensive academy, judicial candidates will be able to:
- Outline ways to prepare for, and participate in, judicial selection processes effectively (for states in which judges are appointed);
- Outline ways to run an effective election campaign (for election states);
- Define “dark money” and assess how candidates can avoid this and other ethical traps in judicial elections;
- Summarize what judges can expect regarding judicial compensation (both salary and benefits);
- Describe the political landscape for trial court judges in the United States;
- Identify judicial selection trends across the country;
- Define how they should conduct themselves on social media and in public as they prepare to enter the judiciary;
- Differentiate between the perceptions of the judicial role and reality;
- Describe the responsibilities of judges (e.g., interpreting the law, assessing the evidence presented, controlling hearings and trials, deciding impartially, mediating and settling disputes, leading court improvement projects, sentencing criminal defendants, terminating parental rights, using good temperament);
- Identify the emotional issues that judges confront (e.g., sentencing defendants; terminating parental rights; deciding difficult cases; being in the public eye during controversial cases; security concerns);
- Summarize the impact of the judicial role on their personal and professional lives;
- Outline the benefits and drawbacks of taking the bench;
- Define their roles in court administration and court committees;
- Identify the ethical rules that judges are bound by;
- Apply judicial ethics rules to their circumstances (e.g., restrictions on investments, fundraising, exclusive memberships, professional associations, friendships, bar association activity, family members, gifts, writing recommendation letters, running a campaign, seeking appointment);
- Manage difficult people, including judicial peers, lawyers, self-represented litigants, jurors, court staff;
- Manage public pressure to decide in certain ways;
- Summarize the importance of judicial security and methods for keeping safe in courthouses and in their homes; and
- Serve as trial judges with confidence.