Policies

Reviews

Reviews are written by the people who appeared before a judge, about their own experience. ReviewTheBench does not write them. Each review is the opinion of the person who wrote it, not of ReviewTheBench.

How a review is checked

When a review is submitted, an automatic check reads its comment. If the check finds nothing that needs a person’s attention, the review appears on the site right away. If it finds something, such as strong language, a name, a phone number or email address, or a mention of a child or family member, the review waits until a person has read it. A person can take down any review at any time, including one that appeared right away.

What a review may not contain

• The name of, or details that identify, anyone other than the judge: opposing counsel, parties, witnesses, jurors, court staff, and above all children or other minors.
• A phone number, email address or home address belonging to anyone.
• Statements of fact that are not true.
• Abuse, threats, harassment or slurs.
• Anything that is not about this judge, and advertising or other spam. A review should describe your own experience before the judge.
• Information from sealed, juvenile or otherwise confidential court records.

Each account can write one review of each judge. A comment can be up to 2,000 characters. Reviews that break these rules are not published, or are taken down.

How ratings are shown

Ratings on a judge’s page are averages of the published reviews, shown separately for attorneys and for parties, each with the number of reviews behind it. An average is not shown until there are at least three reviews in that group.

Ballot lists and commission findings

Where a judge is named on an official list for an election, the judge’s page says so and links the list. Where Arizona’s Commission on Judicial Performance Review has published a finding on a judge, the page shows it as the commission published it, apart from the reviews. Both come from official sources. ReviewTheBench does not endorse or oppose any judge, does not recommend how to vote, and does not count a commission finding in any average.

Reporting a review or requesting its removal

Every review has a link to report it or to request its removal. You do not need an account to use it. The same process applies to everyone, including the judge a review is about.

The form asks you to choose a reason: the review names a party, witness, child or other private person; it states something as fact that is not true; it is abusive or harassing; it is spam or not about this judge; you wrote it and want it removed; or something else. You can add details. You can also give an email address if you would like a reply. That address is used only to answer your report.

How reports are reviewed

A person reads every report. If the review breaks the rules above, it is taken down. If it does not, it stays up and the report is closed. We aim to look at each report within 7 days. A review is not removed only because it is critical.

While a report is being considered

The review stays visible unless it plainly breaks one of the rules above, for example if it names a private person or a child. In that case it may be hidden first and looked into afterward.

Reviews that name a party, a witness, a child or any other private person are not published.

For a legal notice, or a request to remove something that is not a single review, write to contact@reviewthebench.com.

Privacy

Reading the site needs no account. Writing a review needs one, created by signing in with an email address. That address is never shown on the site: your reviews appear under an anonymous handle.

How your review stays anonymous

• Readers see only your handle and your review. Your handle is a random label, such as “reviewer-1a2b3c4d”, made when your account is created. It is not made from your name or email address.
• Your name and email address are never shown on the site, on your reviews or on your profile page.
• We use your email address only to send you sign-in links and codes and, if you ask, to reply to you. We do not sell it.
• The comment is optional: ratings alone count. If you write one, describe your own experience, not details that could identify the case, such as dates or the name of a motion.

What is kept

• Your sign-in email address. It is used to send you sign-in links and, if you ask, to reply to you. It is held by our sign-in provider, Supabase.
• Your anonymous handle, and the reviews you write: the ratings, your role, the type of case, the year of your appearance, and your comment. Your handle and your published reviews are public, and your profile page lists them. Nothing on them shows your name or email address.
• Any report you send: the reason, your details and, if you gave one, your email address.
• The technical records any website keeps, such as the address and browser a request came from. Our hosting provider, Vercel, and our database provider, Supabase, keep these for security and to run the service.

Signing in stores a few cookies in your browser: the one that keeps you signed in, a one-hour cookie that remembers which page you were heading to, and the check cookies our sign-in provider, Supabase, sets while a sign-in link is pending. The site sets no cookie for tracking.

You can fill in a review before you sign in. When you ask to sign in, the review form keeps what you typed in your own browser, on your own device, for up to 30 minutes, so it is there if you leave the page to sign in (with Google, or by opening the link in your email) and come back. It is not sent to us until you submit the review. It is removed when you return to the form, when your review is sent, or, if you never come back, the next time you open any review form on that device after the 30 minutes are up.

To see which pages are read, the site uses Vercel Web Analytics. It sets no cookie and records no name or email address. It counts page views, the visitor’s country, the kind of device and browser, which link brought the visit, and a few named actions, such as that someone tapped “Write a review”. The counts are not tied to your account or to what you write.

Who can see it

Anyone can see your handle and your published reviews. Your email address, and the email address on a report, can be seen only by the people who run the site and by the providers named above.

How long it is kept, and deleting your account

Your account and your reviews are kept until you ask for your account to be deleted. Reports are kept for as long as is needed to deal with them. To delete your account, or to ask a privacy question, write to contact@reviewthebench.com from the email address you signed in with. Deleting an account also deletes the reviews it wrote.