Law
The direct route almost everywhereOutside North America, law is studied as a first degree and is effectively mandatory for the bench; the civil-law judicial exams in France, Germany, Japan and Korea all presuppose a full legal education.
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Quick answers
Do you have to be a lawyer before becoming a judge?
In common-law countries, yes: British, Indian, American and Australian judges are appointed from experienced lawyers, usually after fifteen or more years of practice. In most civil-law countries, no practice is required — France, Japan and South Korea select judges young, straight from law studies, through a competitive examination and a state judicial school. England also uses roughly 12,000 lay magistrates with no law degree at all for minor cases.
How long does it take to become a judge?
In career judiciaries the route is fast: a French law graduate who passes the École nationale de la magistrature entrance exam can be sitting as a judge around age 27, nine years after leaving school. In common-law systems the bench comes late — a law degree, bar qualification and typically fifteen to twenty-five years of practice first, so most judges are appointed in their forties or fifties.
Are judges appointed or elected?
Mostly appointed — by independent commissions in the UK, by the executive with legislative confirmation for US federal judges, by judicial councils in much of Europe, by the collegium of senior judges in India. The great exception is the American states: 39 of the 50 use elections for at least some judgeships, a practice most other democracies deliberately avoid for fear of campaign money influencing rulings.
How much do judges earn?
Well, but usually less than the top lawyers who appear before them. A US federal district judge earned $243,300 in 2024; a UK High Court judge about £232,000; an Australian Federal Court judge roughly A$490,000; a German judge starts near €60,000. In India a Supreme Court justice's base salary is about ₹30 lakh a year plus housing — many senior advocates earn that in a week.
What is the difference between a judge and a magistrate?
It depends entirely on the country. In England and Wales, magistrates are unpaid volunteers without law degrees who decide over 90 percent of criminal cases. In the United States, magistrate judges are salaried lawyers handling preliminary federal matters. In France, magistrat covers both judges and prosecutors, trained together at the same school. The words do not translate cleanly between systems — a frequent source of confusion.
Can a judge be fired?
Deliberately, only with great difficulty — that is the point of judicial independence. Since England's Act of Settlement of 1701, judges in most democracies hold office during good behaviour and can be removed only for serious misconduct through a special process. In the United States, only eight federal judges have ever been removed, each by Senate conviction after impeachment. An unpopular ruling is never lawful grounds.
The world trains its judges in two fundamentally different ways. Civil-law countries — France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, most of Latin America — treat judging as a career service entered young: a punishing national examination after law studies, a state judicial school, then a first appointment before thirty and a lifetime of postings and promotions. Common-law countries — Britain, the US, India, Australia — treat the bench as the summit of a legal career, appointing proven lawyers in mid-life.
Both routes converge on the same gates: a law degree, at least one ferociously selective examination, and a formal appointment process — commission, confirmation, concours or collegium — deliberately designed so that no single politician can hand out the office. The steps below follow the composite route; where systems diverge, the stage says how.
The route in
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1
Law degree
3–5 yrsAlmost everywhere outside North America, law is an undergraduate degree (LLB or national equivalent) entered straight from secondary school; the US and Canada require a bachelor's degree first, then a three-year Juris Doctor.
The filterUniversity admission — national entrance exams such as India's CLAT or Japan's university examinations, or the LSAT plus grades for a US JD.
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2
Professional qualification
1–3 yrsGraduates must qualify into the legal profession: bar examinations in the US and India, the two state examinations with practical training (Referendariat) in Germany, or Japan's bar exam followed by the Supreme Court's own training institute.
The filterThe qualifying exam itself — Japan's shihō shiken long passed under 5% of takers; Germany's second state exam grade largely determines who may even apply to be a judge.
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3
The fork: judicial school or law practice
0–3 yrsHere the two worlds separate. Civil-law candidates sit a dedicated recruitment concours — France's École nationale de la magistrature takes a few hundred a year from thousands — then train as salaried trainee judges. Common-law candidates simply begin practising law.
The filterThe judicial-school entrance examination (France, Spain, South Korea's former route), or securing a foothold in litigation practice for the common-law track.
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4
Years of practice or junior judgeship
5–20 yrsCommon-law lawyers build the courtroom record — trials argued, specialisms developed — that appointment bodies later scrutinize. Civil-law juniors sit as assistant or probationary judges: Japan's assistant judges serve ten years before full appointment; German judges are on probation for three to five.
The filterFor juniors, formal evaluation and confirmation at the end of probation; for practitioners, the reputation and case record that make an application credible.
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5
Selection and appointment
<1–2 yrsEngland and Wales recruit through the independent Judicial Appointments Commission with application forms, references and interviews; US federal judges are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate; India's higher judiciary is chosen by a collegium of senior judges; 39 US states elect at least some judges.
The filterThe appointment gate itself — commission selection, Senate confirmation hearing, collegium recommendation or election night, depending on the system.
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6
The bench, and staying on it
OngoingNew judges everywhere now attend induction and continuing training — England's Judicial College, France's ENM continuing programs, national judicial academies across Asia. Promotion to appellate and supreme courts follows its own selection rounds; conduct is policed by councils with removal as the last resort.
The filterJudicial conduct bodies and appellate scrutiny — the gate that never closes, since a judge's rulings are reviewed in public for the rest of their career.
Cost of entry
$0 – $200k+
In France, Germany, Japan and most civil-law countries, public law faculties charge little and trainee judges draw a state salary — the ENM pays its auditeurs throughout training — so the cost is mainly years of forgone earnings. The common-law route is costlier: American JD graduates carry average law-school debt around $130,000 (ABA data, early 2020s), English students pay £9,250 a year plus bar-course fees, and the decades of practice before appointment are the real price of a common-law judgeship.
What to study
Political science / government
The classic US pre-law majorThe most common undergraduate background among American law students, giving future judges early grounding in constitutions, legislatures and the institutions their rulings will constrain.
Philosophy
Argument as a disciplinePhilosophy majors consistently rank near the top of law-school admission test performance; the subject's core work — dissecting arguments, testing principles against hard cases — is close to a description of appellate judging.
History
Precedent is applied historyCommon-law judging reasons from centuries of decided cases, and constitutional interpretation turns on what texts meant when written; historians' source-criticism habits transfer directly.
Economics
For the commercial benchCompetition, securities, tax and insolvency dockets reward judges who read balance sheets as fluently as briefs, and the law-and-economics movement has made the discipline part of judicial vocabulary since the 1970s.
Where it is taught best
École nationale de la magistrature
FranceThe state school in Bordeaux that trains virtually every French judge and prosecutor; entry by concours of a few hundred places a year, trainees salaried for 31 months.
Harvard Law School
United StatesHas educated more US Supreme Court justices than any other school; its JD and LLM programs are a global common-law credential.
University of Oxford, Faculty of Law
United KingdomWith Cambridge, the traditional nursery of England's senior bench; its BCL graduate degree is the common-law world's most storied advanced law qualification.
University of Tokyo, Faculty of Law
JapanThe dominant feeder of Japan's judiciary and elite ministries; graduates proceed through the bar exam to the Supreme Court's Legal Training and Research Institute.
National Law School of India University
IndiaBangalore's NLSIU, founded 1987, tops India's law-school rankings; admission is through CLAT, taken by tens of thousands for a few hundred seats.
Heidelberg University, Faculty of Law
GermanyGermany's oldest university and one of its most respected law faculties, preparing students for the state examinations that gate the German bench.
Leiden Law School
NetherlandsA center of international and European law an hour from The Hague's tribunals; a common credential among international-court judges and staff.
Seoul National University School of Law
South KoreaKorea's most selective law school since the 2009 shift to US-style graduate legal education; the historical training ground of the country's senior judiciary.
Licences and exams
Judicial Appointments Commission selection
England & WalesSince the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, judges are chosen by an independent commission through open competition — application, qualifying tests, references and panel interviews — ending three centuries of appointment by the Lord Chancellor's private soundings.
Article III nomination and Senate confirmation
United States (federal)Federal judges are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate to lifetime appointments. There is no exam and no formal qualification beyond the politics of confirmation — unique among major systems, and the reason US confirmation hearings are televised battles.
Concours and diploma of the ENM
FranceEntry to the French magistrature runs through the École nationale de la magistrature's competitive examinations, followed by 31 months of salaried training and a ranked graduation that determines the first posting. Judges and prosecutors qualify together as magistrats.
Bar examination and the Legal Training and Research Institute
JapanWould-be judges pass the national bar examination, complete the Supreme Court's own institute in Wako, and are then selected as assistant judges — a ten-year apprenticeship on the bench before full judgeship, inside one of the world's most centrally managed judiciaries.
The other way in
The lay magistracy
England and Wales entrust over 90 percent of criminal cases to roughly 12,000 magistrates — unpaid volunteers with no law degree, sitting in threes with a legally trained adviser. Recruited by open application from every walk of life, it is the largest non-lawyer judging system in the democratic world and a centuries-old rebuke to the idea that judging requires a law degree.
Election to the bench
Thirty-nine US states choose at least some judges at the ballot box, a Jacksonian-era experiment no other major democracy has copied. Candidates campaign, raise money and appear on party tickets in some states — a route onto the bench that runs through electoral politics rather than professional appointment, and a standing controversy in American law.
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