Module 2

The judge’s work and week: kinds of court, case management, reading and deciding

People picture a judge on the bench, and the bench is the smaller part of the job. A judge’s week is made of reading, managing, deciding, writing and a great deal of ordinary administration, much of it done alone. Hearings are where the work is visible, but the quality of a hearing is usually settled before it begins, in how the case was managed and how well the judge prepared. This module describes the different kinds of judicial work, the stages of a case from the judge’s side, the shape of a real week and the pressures of workload and delay. It sets up the next four modules, which take the main tasks one at a time: finding facts, applying law and giving reasons, running the hearing and keeping standards.

General education on the work of a judge across legal systems, using invented people, courts and cases. It is not legal or career advice. Judicial procedure, codes of conduct, standards of proof and routes to the bench differ between countries and change: check the rules that apply to you with the judicial authority and the profession.