People of the Courts

Lesson Plan - Get It!

Audio:

Every work situation requires a team of one kind or another to make sure the job is getting done.

The people who work in our court system have a big responsibility: to make sure the law is applied evenly and fairly to everyone who uses our courts.

• Who are these people?
• What are their responsibilities?
• How are they trained to do what they do?

Let's find out more. Using your own research, locate and gather as much information as you can about:

• judges
• lawyers
• law clerks
• other court-related positions you find

You can use the resources provided below, or other resources you locate using your own research:

• About Federal Judges, courtesy of United States Courts
• Prelaw – What Do Lawyers Do?, courtesy of the National Association for Law Placement, Inc.
• How to Become a Law Clerk, retrieved from ParalegalEdu.org

Reflect and fill in this People of the Courts Chart:

Then, review your findings:

• How does each of these people contribute to the effectiveness of the court system?
• How does each support or check the other?
• If you had to choose one of these as a career path, which one would you choose? Why?

Imagine if the court system were only made up of judges — the decisions would be mostly up to the whims and opinions of the individual judge. If there were no law clerks, the lawyers or the judges would have to spend impossible hours digging through volume upon volume of case law.

Let's play with some of the information you uncovered about each role in this section and find out a little more in the Got It? section.