Judges are not generalists, and yet the legal system is so antiquated that everyday, it treats them as if they are.
Courts ask judges to decide matters that shape nearly every part of a person’s life. Criminal sentencing. Child custody. Housing stability. Mental health treatment. Business dissolution. Constitutional rights. We treat these decisions as interchangeable simply because they happen inside the same courthouse.
They are not.
In almost every profession where the stakes are this high, specialization is mandatory. Surgeons do not rotate between unrelated disciplines because they passed a general exam. Engineers do not design bridges one week and power grids the next because they understand physics. Yet judges are routinely assigned across radically different legal domains with no required specialization, no field-specific certification, and no publicly visible authorization to decide the cases before them.
That knowledge gap is not theoretical. It produces predictable harm.
So why do so many judges screw up cases? Because they’re not properly trained to handle them.
Judicial Authority is Specialized Power
Judges do not merely apply rules. They interpret facts, assess credibility, weigh discretion, and impose consequences. Each of those tasks functions differently depending on the legal context.
A criminal sentencing decision requires understanding trauma, addiction, neurodevelopment, and incarceration outcomes. A family court decision requires fluency in child development, domestic violence dynamics, and long-term stability planning. Housing cases demand familiarity with poverty economics, disability law, and public benefits systems. Civil and regulatory matters often hinge on technical frameworks that take years to master.
Treating all of this as interchangeable judicial labor does not produce neutrality. It produces error.
Training Must Match the Bench Being Used
Judicial education exists, but it is often broad, optional, or detached from assignment. Judges may receive general ethics instruction while presiding over cases involving forensic science, complex medical testimony, or specialized statutory regimes.
That is not a training model. It is a liability model.
If judges are assigned to specialized dockets, they should be required to complete rigorous, standardized training specific to that field. That training should be continuous. It should be assessed. And it should be tied directly to authorization to hear those cases.
Authorization Should Be Monitored, Not Assumed
Specialization without oversight is, to be kind, incomplete.
There should be an independent board responsible for monitoring which judges are authorized to hear which categories of cases. That board should track training completion, certification status, and scope of assignment. It should also ensure that judges are not presiding over matters outside their authorized areas.
This is not radical. It is not even something new I thought up. It is how credentialed authority works everywhere else.
Hospitals track physician privileges. Licensing boards track scope of practice. Even court-appointed experts are vetted for subject-matter competence. Judges currently operate under an assumption of universal capacity that no other high-stakes profession relies on.
Transparency Is NOT Optional
Oversight only matters if the public can see it.
Judicial authorizations, certifications, and assignment scopes should be publicly accessible. Litigants should be able to determine whether the judge presiding over their case has demonstrated training and authorization in that legal domain. Attorneys should be able to raise assignment concerns before harm occurs. Appellate courts should not be the first checkpoint for competence.
Public trust does not come from secrecy. It comes from systems that can be examined.
Certification Protects Both System and Litigants
Requiring specialization, certification, and monitored authorization does not threaten judicial independence. Independence is freedom from improper influence, not freedom from professional standards.
Certification strengthens legitimacy. It reduces reversals. It narrows discretion to informed discretion. It protects judges from being placed in positions they were never trained to navigate.
Most importantly, it acknowledges reality. Courts today are not resolving simple disputes between equally resourced parties. They are managing power, vulnerability, and state authority at scale.
A judiciary designed without specialization, without authorization tracking, and without public transparency is not neutral. It is structurally unsound.
Justice is not generic. Judicial authority should not be either.
