Our system of judicial appointment is dramatically different from the continental system. On the Continent, when one finishes university or completes a law degree, one makes a choice on graduating as to whether one wishes to go into the judicial arm of the state. Then one works one's way up through the judicial mechanism, sometimes to dizzy heights. That is not to say that all continental judges are appointed from that system because people from academia and practice are also appointed. In our system, which is different from the continental system, the judge is an independent arbiter on an adversarial basis. It is an important difference and it has dramatically different consequences for the way in which legal business is done.