The introductory chapter opens with a brief discussion of recent events in two states, North Carolina and Tennessee. The chapter lays out the contrasting motivations of legal professionalism and partisan/policy responsiveness, which are linked to the ideas of the democratic and legal subcultures described almost 50 years ago by Richard Richardson and Kenneth Vines. A highly abbreviated history of judicial selection in the U.S., emphasizing the various phases, sets the stage for the chapters that follow.