Following a call for nominations of judges who demonstrated legal wisdom in their decision-making and over 250 nominations being received, 11 judges who were nominated multiple times were interviewed about the ways the development of legal wisdom is supported and hindered within educational and professional systems. A grounded theory analysis was conducted. Findings emphasized that wisdom is promoted by avoiding exclusively adversarial learning models, engaging in training via lived experience in clinics, mentoring, and self-and cultural-reflection to develop contextualized thinking. Judges described challenges related to isolation, being in underresourced systems, and being in elected positions. This study sheds light upon how judges learn to consider multiple sets of values when forming wise decisions.There has been surprisingly little research on wisdom in either the psychological or legal literatures. Although this characteristic has been associated with the process of passing judgment since the time of Solomon, questions about the development of wisdom remain largely unexplored. This study focuses on and investigates the question of how wisdom in judges' decision-making can best be fostered within the process of education and professionalization, as described by judges who were nominated for their own judicial wisdom by their peers.
UNDERSTANDINGS OF PROFESSIONAL WISDOMAlthough a thorough review of models of wisdom is not possible in this empirical article, it is important to note that a variety of definitions of wisdom have been put forward-although they typically have not been developed in relation to a legal context. Baltes and his colleagues have generated the most extensive body of empirical work related to wisdom to date. They defined wisdom as ''judgment about the essence of the human condition and the ways and means of planning, managing, and understanding a good life'' (Baltes & Staudinger, 2000, p. 124), and thought it was comprised of five major domains: factual knowledge, procedural knowledge, contextualism, value relativism, and the tolerance of uncertainty. Implicit in wisdom were qualities of compassion, tolerance, competence, good intentions, and virtue of character (Gluck & Baltes Correspondence should be addressed to Heidi M. Levitt,