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I do not think it is obvious that all judges should be lawyers. To the contrary, it may be right that no lawyers should be judges. In many civil law countries judges are trained and educated separately from lawyers. Perhaps that is a better model.
Moreover, the idea that only lawyers should be judges is of relatively recent vintage in the United States. In the 18th, 19th, and early 20th century many judges and justices of the peace were not lawyers (and many current justices of the peace are still non-lawyers). Predictably, bar associations were at the forefront of the (largely successful) effort to eliminate lay judges. These efforts occurred simultaneously to the bar's overall professionalization movement that included the push for a bar examination, required legal education, and the unified bar. Given the potential benefits to the profession, and the key role that the judiciary played in the success of the professionalization movement, bar associations clearly made a wise choice.
So lawyers have benefited from the elimination of lay judges. But what about the rest of us? Barton is not so sure:
Aside from history and international precedents, Adrian Vermeule has recently argued that there should be at least one non-lawyer Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and possibly more. Non-lawyer judges can also be defended on populist or egalitarian grounds. It is beyond the scope of this article to build a complete defense or indictment of the primacy of lawyer judges. Instead, I will note that it does add another wrinkle to a larger ongoing debate about the structure and nature of our judiciary.
Nevertheless, the lawyer-judge hypothesis established herein proves that lawyers have enjoyed preferential treatment. The severity of the problem and what should be done about it, if anything, are ultimately issues for further contemplation and study.
