D.C. Court of Appeals (Photo by Andre Eleazer)

D.C. Superior Court offers some of the more journalist-friendly legal chambers in town, with observers permitted to have their laptops open to chronicle proceedings, but a few modern tools of the trade are still verboten.

Cell phones are right at the top of that list and one byproduct of that restriction is that inside the courtroom, especially when the wi-fi gets wobbly, is that checking one’s Twitter feed is a no-no On more than one occasion, I’ve been warned by a court marshal to stash my phone or be removed from the room; some colleagues have actually gotten the boot for tapping out 140-character updates.

But D.C.’s judges might not actually be that Twitter-averse, with the District’s top jurists set to answer questions via the social networking service next Tuesday. May 1, it turns out, is Law Day, an unofficial celebration of the rule of law. (It also happens to be International Workers’ Day, May Day and, in Hawaii, Lei Day, natch.)

Chief judges Eric Washington of the D.C. Court of Appeals and Lee Satterfield of D.C. Superior Court will take questions phrased with the hashtag #AsktheCJs, according to a D.C. Courts press release. They’ll use the District’s judicial system’s Twitter account, @DCCourtsInfo to answer.

“Our Twitter Q and A is a tremendous opportunity for members of the public to ask us questions, and an excellent opportunity for us to demystify the judicial system for those who aren’t as familiar with it,” Satterfield said in the press release.

For starters, we might ask what one gets for a judge on Law Day. Also, if May 1 is “Law Day,” would that make the rest of the year a celebration of lawlessness? We eagerly await the judges’ answers.