According to your front-page article on 24 January, solicitors still struggle 'to become judges' (see [Gazette] 2008, 24 January, 1). It then becomes apparent that the writers mean 'senior judges' as opposed to 'district judges' who are 'relatively low in the judicial hierarchy'. While that observation is true, your headline is not. District judges are 'judges'; most of our number are solicitors and many will be as fed up as I am by the continuing failure of our professional body's journal to acknowledge the fact. There can only be a 'glass ceiling' where there is an expectation of or desire for promotion. The judiciary does not work like that. Being a district judge is an end in itself, a satisfying and challenging judicial career. While many solicitor district judges sit as recorders, they do not necessarily aspire to the circuit bench. That said, we all know and sit in courts with former colleagues or solicitor circuit judges.


If a judge's worth is to be evaluated by status, then we district judges are the poor relations: no chauffeur or clerk, no elaborate ceremonial get-up and little pomp or circumstance. In fact, processing in church before the recorders and QCs, but after our circuit judge colleagues, is as good as that gets. However, if our worth is related to the work we do, the picture is different. Some 90% of all civil and family cases are heard by district judges. We deal daily with child cases which, five years ago, would routinely have been heard by High Court judges. In monetary terms, the value of the claims we try is steadily increasing. The work is wide-ranging and directly impacts on the lives of the public in a way that High Court commercial litigation is rarely likely to do. By reason of our jurisdiction, we are effectively the public face of the judiciary, with a concurrent duty to safeguard the rights of the poor, the dispossessed and the ill. We are aided in our work by some 700 deputy judges, most of whom are solicitors and exercise most of our extensive jurisdiction and powers on their sitting days. District judges sit on every important judicial committee and rule-making body. They enjoy the respect of their seniors, are widely consulted on law reforms and contribute as editors and authors to most major textbooks and journals, including your own.



The composition of the bench is changing as the proportion of barrister district judges increases, but we remain a largely solicitor bench of which the Gazette and the Law Society should be proud.



District judge Peter Glover, Dartford