Judicial performance evaluation systems, such as The Case Quality Assessment System (CQAS), examined in this chapter, provided the baseline institutional incentives for Chinese judges and determines the stakes for judges’ career-related decisions, setting up dynamic interactions between legal processes, forms, and substances in urban China. In the terms of ecology-based socio-legal theory, judges in these distinct strata act to enhance their own survival in a process of “competitive co-operation.” Judges’ navigation of the CQAS is critical to understanding the influence of stratified local legal markets in urban China on judicial selection institutions and personal autonomy.