Twenty judges from Shanghai have traveled to Madison for the third Judicial Skills Training Program (or “Shanghai Judges Program”) conducted by the UW Law School’s East Asian Legal Studies Center in cooperation with the Shanghai People’s Court.

Several state and federal judges in Madison are participating, welcoming the judges into their courtrooms and, when possible, meeting with the visitors before court sessions.

The judges (12 men, 8 women) come from three levels of courts in Shanghai. For most of them, this is their first visit to the United States.

“The Judicial Skills Development Program is a significant part of the Law School's extensive and continuing efforts to engage China and assist in China's movement towards a more rule based economy,” comments Professor Charles Irish, director of the East Asian Legal Studies Center. “I think this program involves the most substantial interaction between the Chinese judiciary and the American judiciary and academics.”

During the judges’ three-week stay in Madison in October and early November 2005, they are observing trial and appellate court procedures and hearing lectures on substantive and procedural issues of particular relevance to the judiciary. Several Law School faculty are conducting sessions in their area of expertise.

This year the judges also are traveling to Minneapolis, where they will visit the Hennepin County Court, Federal District Courthouse, Minnesota Supreme Court, and the Briggs & Morgan law firm.

The first part of the exchange took place in August 2005, when Professor John Ohnesorge, Judge David Flanagan of the Dane County Circuit Court, and Becky Fisher, UW-Madison Instructor of English as a Second Language, conducted sessions in Shanghai.