The Pressure Points of Professional Identity for Judges in the Modern Era

The duties core to the professional identity of a judge are encapsulated in an ethical directive at the literal forefront of the Model Code of Judicial Conduct, some variation of which all state and federal judiciaries have adopted. Rule 1.2 provides that “[a] judge shall act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the independence, integrity, and impartiality of the judiciary[.]” This directive implicates three challenges, or pressure points, relevant to a judge’s identity: 1) insofar as judges begin their legal careers as practicing lawyers, when they ascend the bench their professional identities must transition from partial advocates to impartial adjudicators; 2) judges must, to an uncertain extent, sublimate their personal identities to the needs of their professional identities by acting “at all times”—on and off the bench—in a manner consistent with their professional obligations; and 3) the duty to preserve public confidence in their impartiality, independence, and integrity signals a need for judges to resist external encroachments and influences upon their decision-making that could compromise their real and perceived professional identities as forthright, impartial arbiters of facts and law.