The documents are equally useful for beat reporters in covering courts and for investigative reporters in checking complaints about judges. Almost all states require reports from candidates, which provide useful information on interest groups that are major contributors. The newspaper reported that one incumbent judge received 81.5 percent of his money from lawyers, mostly those representing plaintiffs seeking personal-injury awards. The opponent, an appeals court judge, received 38.6 percent of his money from lawyers, mostly from firms that defend business, insurance, and medical interests. Almost all states require full-time judges to make financial disclosures to protect against conflicts of interest.
Reporters can track a judge's net worth over a period of years.
If an increase in net worth is inconsistent with a judge's pay and income from limited assets, the reporter should seek an explanation. A reporter also can check listed assets, such as real estate and stock holdings, against cases handled by the judge. In this day of computerization, virtually all states and many individual jurisdictions publish data on cases filed, disposed of, and pending. Two-thirds of the states have adopted time standards some mandatory, some voluntary on disposing of different types of cases. The Cincinnati Enquirer , using Ohio Supreme Court guidelines, reported in a 1993 story that Hamilton County judges had the biggest backlog of overdue cases among the state's six most populous counties, and a half-dozen judges had backlogs that were twice the state average.