Determinants of judges’ career choices and productivity: a Polish case study

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to identify factors which affect judges’ productivity and career choice motives with the view of increasing judicial efficiency. Specifically, the investigation focuses on such aspects as judges’ remuneration, promotion, threat of judgment revocation, service/mission, periodic assessment, the threat of a complaint about protracted proceedings or of disciplinary proceedings, the threat of destabilization of the employment relationship, status/prestige of the profession, power/authority, social recognition, leisure, as well as administrative supervision and self-monitoring. To this end, a survey was conducted among judges of three of the largest Polish regional courts and subordinate district courts. The descriptive and statistical analyses show that judges’ care for the number of cases resolved, proxying for their productivity, is significantly correlated with self-monitoring of their adjudication activity. The stability of employment, the status/prestige of the profession and a relatively high remuneration are the most important factors in terms of judges’ career choices. In their care for the number of cases resolved remuneration is, albeit, no longer a relevant factor. Judges monitor their productivity due to reasons other than remuneration, possibly the sense of service/mission and the threat of various adverse consequences, the evidence for which is, however, also rather weak.

Relationship between gamer profiles, gaming behavior, sociodemographic characteristics, and big five personality traits among French law students

“…These tendencies may explain, at least in part, why there is a predominance of Masterminds among undergraduate law students who are studying to become lawyers, judges, legal advisers, etc. As part of their work, lawyers, judges, and legal advisers must find solutions to their clients' problems, devise strategies to defend their clients, or, as judges, try to understand the strategies presented by lawyers or legal advisers [31,32]. Regarding the overrepresentation of Seekers, one of the characteristics of this profile is that they like to make discoveries and to be the only ones to know certain things [4,7]; here again, this tendency may well fit individuals who might be studying to become some sorts of "detectives" searching for "hidden truths", unveiling unlawful behaviors and criminal activities [33].…”

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