In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

No. 00-2203

Maureen Kevin and Kevin and Associates,

Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v.

Perry R. Thompson,

Defendant-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 99 C 7882--Suzanne B. Conlon, Judge.

Argued December 5, 2000--Decided December 20, 2000

 Before Posner, Easterbrook, and Evans, Circuit Judges.

 Easterbrook, Circuit Judge. The State of Illinois

has issued social worker Maureen Kevin a license

that entitles her to practice as a "DUI

evaluator"--that is, to assess the prospects of

recidivism by persons who have been convicted of

driving under the influence of alcohol or other

drugs. Courts maintain lists of approved "DUI

evaluators" who may be appointed by judges to

provide advice about the appropriate disposition

of DUI cases. Except for a brief period, however,

Perry Thompson, the Presiding Judge of the

Misdemeanor and Traffic Division of the 18th

Judicial Circuit Court in DuPage County, has

excluded Kevin from its list of DUI evaluators.

Kevin contends in this suit under 42 U.S.C.

sec.1983 that Judge Thompson’s decision violates

the due process and equal protection clauses of

the fourteenth amendment. The district court

dismissed the complaint under Fed. R. Civ. P.

12(b)(6). 2000 U.S. Dist. Lexis 5985 (N.D. Ill.

Apr. 24, 2000).

 Kevin’s due process argument is that the

court’s decision effectively stripped her of her

license (or her right to practice her occupation)

without notice or an opportunity for a hearing.

The argument makes no sense. A license to engage

in an occupation does not imply a right to be

hired. Is a lawyer stripped of his law license if

one court declines to appoint him to represent
criminal defendants? Must every social worker be

hired to write presentence reports in criminal

cases? Physicians do not lose their right to

practice medicine, or their medical licenses, if

a single hospital refuses to extend staff

privileges. Illinois Psychological Association v.

Falk, 818 F.2d 1337 (7th Cir. 1987). Just so with

social workers who want courts to hire some of

their time to make sentencing recommendations

about drunk drivers. Kevin has not been deprived

of any legitimate claim of entitlement, has not

lost liberty or property, and thus is not

entitled to a hearing. See O’Bannon v. Town Court

Nursing Center, 447 U.S. 773, 788 n.21 (1980);

Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 577

(1972); Upadhya v. Langenberg, 834 F.2d 661, 665

(7th Cir. 1987).

 As for equal protection: again Kevin’s position

is based on a legal confusion, this time between

the government’s role as a regulator and its role

as a purchaser in the market. Absence from the

list means only that the court has decided not to

engage her services as a DUI evaluator, making the

decision as an institution rather than judge-byjudge or case-by-case. Kevin supposes that every

agency of state government must hire her services

unless it can prove to a federal court’s

satisfaction that her work is inferior to that of

the DUI evaluators the court does engage, or that

there is some other rational basis for omitting

her from the list. She believes that, having

filed suit, she is entitled to conduct a

deposition of Judge Thompson and grill him about

his criteria for designating the court’s DUI

evaluators. But why would that be so? Courts

regularly obtain goods and services--furniture,

computers, court reporters, lawyers to represent

indigent defendants, and so on--without the need

to set up elaborate or even articulable methods

for choosing among those who are willing to

supply what is needed.

 Like all other units of government, courts must

refrain from discriminating on improper grounds,

such as race or speech. Beyond that, however,

governmental bodies are free to participate in

markets just as other buyers do, which includes

a right to pick and choose among would-be

sellers. See O’Hare Truck Service, Inc. v.

Northlake, 518 U.S. 712, 724-25 (1996). Cf.

Waters v. Churchill, 511 U.S. 661, 672-75 (1994);

Building & Construction Trades Council v.

Associated Builders & Contractors, 507 U.S. 218

(1993); Kelley v. Johnson, 425 U.S. 238 (1976).

When appointing lawyers to represent indigent

defendants (or for that matter when hiring law

clerks), judges consider many factors that cannot

be reduced to a neat, unidimensional index of

merit. So long as opportunities in private life
are unencumbered--both lawyers and social workers

have many private-sector opportunities, not to

mention openings at courts and agencies other

than the 18th Judicial Circuit--a public actor’s

hiring or appointment decisions are no more in

need of justification than a private actor’s. The

equal-protection clause should not be confused

with a civil-service system, or the federal

judiciary with the Merit Systems Protection

Board. This makes it unnecessary to consider

Kevin’s argument that Hilton v. Wheeling, 209

F.3d 1005 (7th Cir. 2000), misunderstands

Willowbrook v. Olech, 528 U.S. 562 (2000), when

holding that proof of malicious animus is

essential to an equal protection claim arising

from the government’s decision to single a person

out for adverse action. The 18th Judicial Circuit

Court has not heaped disabilities on Kevin or

regulated her in any way; it has simply decided

that the court will not buy her services in a

competitive market. Kevin does not contend that

any fact that public actors are not permitted to

consider was held against her, so her complaint

was properly dismissed.

Affirmed