David Broder's editorial in today's Washington Post, demonstrates the difference between the elite bar's definition of well-qualified appellate judges, and the definition of most of the rest of the world. Comparing Edward Prado, whose nomination to the 5th Circuit sailed through the judiciary committee, to Miguel Estrada, who is still being held up in the Senate without a vote, Broder says that

Given [the] background [of the Estrada fight], I was expecting to see Prado, 55, put to the test at his Judiciary Committee hearing. His credentials are impressive: a graduate of the University of Texas and its law school, four years each as a prosecutor and a public defender, a short stint as a state judge, U.S. attorney for three years and, since 1984, a federal district judge.

To a lawyer from the "elite" bar, however, Prado's resume would seem significantly inferior to Estrada's Supreme Court quality resume. On the elite bar's prestig-o-meter, Estrada is off the charts: he graduated magna cum laude from Harvard, clerked for Justice Kennedy, practiced with Wachtell, Lipton and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, and served in the Solicitor General's office. Other than his service as a District Court Judge, Prado's resume barely makes the prestig-o-meter's needle twitch.

Whether the prestig-o-meter is a good selector of judges is a different, and complex question. I tend to think that intellectual excellence and hard work, which the prestig-o-meter is a rough proxy for, are critical for judges. On the other hand, at least one judge I know thinks the prestig-o-meter is responsible for the law's descent from common sense into over-intellectualized incoherence.
- posted by Tom Sawyer @ 9:33 AM