Executive Director’s Message by Karen A. Gould Judicial Performance Evaluation Program: Why You Should Participate The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Virginia sent an e-mail on January 7, 2016, to all active members of the Virginia State Bar about par-ticipating in the Judicial Performance Evaluation Program. The e-mail is set forth in part below: To: From: Re: All Active Members of the Virginia State Bar Donald W. Lemons, Chief Justice Judicial Performance Evaluation Program tify yourself as a potential survey respondent for one or more of the judges being evaluated in the next six months. Your prompt and accurate response to this survey is very important in order that a suffi cient number of evaluation surveys can be distributed for each evaluated judge. This should only take a few moments of your time. You may expect to receive these links twice per year. The survey is expected to close on …. The eligibility survey is sent to attorneys throughout the state to ensure that the attorneys who may practice in localities distant from their offi ces are included. VCU-SERL uses the eligibility survey responses as well as attorney data obtained from the courts’ case management systems to identify potential respondents for each judge’s evaluation. It is important for attorneys to respond to the eligibility surveys because case management data may not identify all attorneys who appear in court. Even when attorney names are available through the case management systems, they are not necessarily linked to a particular judge. The sources complement each other. If a suffi cient number of attorneys are identifi ed for a particular judge, then VCU-SERL randomly selects the judge’s evaluation survey respondents. Where less than 250 attorneys are identifi ed, all attorneys identifi ed are surveyed. If an attorney is selected as an evaluation survey respondent, he or she will receive a letter mailed by VCU-SERL on behalf of the Chief Justice. The letter is followed about a week later with an e-mail that includes a link to the evaluated judge’s survey. If an attorney has received a survey but has not actually appeared before the evaluated judge, he or she need only fi ll out the fi rst three questions to establish that circumstance. Your survey responses help all judges identify ways they can improve their performance. For judges whose terms are expiring, your evaluation responses are useful to the General Assembly during the re-election pro-cess. Your participation in the JPE Program is critical. The attorneys of the commonwealth have valuable information to share and should want their opinions to be considered. This is one important way to be heard. Please do your part to give the General Assembly and our judges the best feedback possible. The Supreme Court of Virginia has re-established the Judicial Performance Evaluation Program (JPE Program) as provided by Virginia Code § 17.1-100. The purpose of the JPE Program is to provide an internal self-improve-ment mechanism for judges and a source of information for the re-election process. This e-mail is being sent to all active members of the Virginia State Bar by Virginia Commonwealth University’s Survey and Evaluation Research Laboratory, in the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs (VCU-SERL). The link below will allow you to respond to VCU-SERL to iden-10 VIRGINIA LAWYER | February 2016 | Vol. 64 www.vsb.org