Lawdragon Web site will lift veil on judges (Way Kewl!)

[UpInArms]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060304/bs_nm/column_pluggedin_dc

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The "secret society" of U.S. judges is about to be invaded by a Web site that lets people who have appeared before them rate judges in the first such public forum.

The tooth-comb scrutiny will come from lawdragon.com, run by Katrina Dewey, an attorney and former editor of the Los Angeles Daily Journal, the largest U.S. legal daily newspaper.

Lawdragon set out last summer to become the first Web site to allow legal professionals and clients to evaluate the nation's 1.1 million lawyers and judges.

"I though it was important to ask the tough questions and to say when they did a bad job," Dewey said of her fellow attorneys. "You might want to know that they are lazy or not prepared. These are things that you want to know whether you are a litigator or a juror or a client."

Diane Karpman, a nationally recognized legal ethics expert, praised the site, saying: "The reason that Lawdragon is so good is that it provides the public and profession with education about our judges, which is basically like a secret society."

Next week, http://lawdragon.com begins posting thousands of evaluations of judges and lawyers submitted by colleagues, clients and legal watchdogs -- a sort of Amazon.com of legal professionals.

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