I may have passed on some misleading information about the Orphans’ Court proposal that failed in the house last week. Del. Pat McDonough reported that he killed a proposed constitutional amendment that would mandate that only attorneys could be Orphan’s Court judges.
But a closer reading of the bill here at The Daily Record shows that it wouldn’t restrict judgeships to lawyers. It would just allow the General Assembly to add new restrictions for Orphans’ Court judges in different jurisdictions.
Now the proposed amendment could potentially be used to restrict those judgeships to attorneys, but there’s nothing that specific in the proposal itself. There was a bill proposed in 2007 that would have required Orphans’ Court judges to have a law degree. Even that bill would not have required the judges to be attorneys, though.
I asked Del. McDonough about this, and he said the bill is “enabling legislation” that will allow lawyers to use their influence to take over the Orphan’s Court. He thinks the system is fine and shouldn’t be changed.
“This is another attempt by lawyers to take control of a part of our government by making it exclusive for them,” McDonough said.
