This article studies how judges should be as central agents of a legal culture under Bourbon Reforms, during the second half of the eighteenth century. The analysis focuses on the local level, considering the experience of a city called Antioquia, located in the Nuevo Reino de Granada viceroyalty. In particular, it takes the experience of local magistrates (called Jueces Pedaneos), who started to be appointed in this region in the 1750s, and who were constantly criticized by authorities such as the governors of the province of Antioquia and ordinary mayors of Antioquia city due to their poor performance in justice matters