Except perhaps for my wife, I don't put anyone on a pedestal, and I certainly don't do so automatically just because someone is a judge. For every story you can tell in this contect, I can tell you scores, both good and bad.
There are "bad apples" in every profession, whether they be lawyers, doctors, engineers, financial planners, insurance brokers, and on and on. Likewise, there are both honest and dishonest people in all non-professional occupations. As a result, it is both unfair and wrong to generalize that all lawyers and judges are dishonest or unethical.
As for myself, I "judge the judge" based on his or her known reputation, results in prior cases, and conduct in a given case. Unless one approches the subject from the biased view that "all are crooks even though I don't know anything about them", there's really no other way to do it --- the bottom line is that all judges are different and have different proclivities, and just because one may be dishonest, stupid, biased, and so forth, certainly does not apply to all.
Best wishes.
