Debating a Judicial Pay Raise

As Congress veers closer to an across-the-board raise for federal judges, the great pay debate rages on in the legal community. (Click here for our previous coverage.) Earlier this month, Scott Baker, a professor at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill School of Law, published an op/ed in the Los Angeles Times, describing a study in which he found that the robed ones’ performance was not affected by their pay. Boiled down, Baker says there’s no reason to throw money at judges unless it supercharges their work ethic:

In a time of strained budgets, both Democrats and Republicans need to make hard choices on spending priorities. Federal judges earn six figures. Why choose to pay judges more — as opposed to equally deserving, lesser-paid federal employees such as park rangers, members of the military or FBI agents — if it ultimately makes no difference to how well the judges perform their jobs?

Today, Law.com’s Howard Bashman takes a swipe at Baker’s reasoning in this commentary:

Baker did not ask federal appellate judges whether they would work harder or reach better reasoned or more exacting rulings in exchange for more money. Rather, he undertook a statistical study, from which he ultimately concluded that, overall, higher salaries would not affect the judges' work habits and the quality of their resulting rulings — one possible exception being that they might dissent more frequently if they were better paid.

“The fact that federal appellate judges would not work harder or rule more soundly for more money is not an argument against raising salaries,” Bashman says. “Rather, it is for the sake of retaining these hardworking individuals and ensuring a continued supply of high-quality judicial candidates that a meaningful federal judicial pay raise should, at last, be enacted.”

A bit of background on the bills being considered in Congress: Under the Federal Judicial Salary Restoration Act of 2007, federal district judges would earn $218,000 annually, uncoupling them from members of Congress, who make $165,200 a year. Federal appeals judges would earn $231,000; Supreme Court associate justices $267,900; and the chief justice $279,900.

The bill broke out of the House Judiciary Committee last month, but the Senate’s version is still waiting for a committee vote.

Comments

[W.B. Howard]

Most of the major law firms make the bulk of their money by having their associates churn hours out in very creative ways (e.g., 1 hour transmittal letters). They operate similar to the contractors who provide the Pentagon toilet seats and hammers. The thing is, the pay discrepency has become so huge that now 1st year associates working on mickey mouse legal affairs make more than judges with 30 times the experience who make daily decisions impacting the lives of millions of people (e.g., SCOTUS justices). All these poor judges want is to not be given de facto pay cuts. What is so wrong with that?

Even academics are now paid dramatically more than the federal judges. How absurd -- a bunch of people who do not even practice law but deal in the world of legal theory. I suppose Mr. Baker can say greedy things because he works for such a greedy employer himself. UNC, like all major universities, has increased the tuition charged to students way, way beyond the rate of inflation even though it is a public institution that is supposed to serve the public. Instead, it heaps mounds and mounds of student debt on people that they are debt bound until they are middle aged, apparently so these institutions can pay people like Mr. Baker some absurd salary so they can claim they have the "smartest" professors (whatever that means).

We all know that elected representatives don't vote themselves pay raises because they are afraid doing so will offend voters and, after all, they have so many other ways they can make money (e.g., Honoraria or being asked by a major donor to sit on a board or invest in a real estate deal). These buffoons in Congress even get to keep the campaign war chests when they leave office. So an unintended consequence of the way these representatives conduct their affairs is that, by tying the judges pay to theirs, they shaft the judges. Give these judges a break. They have to pay for college just like everyone else. They need family vacations like everyone else. They should not be forced into living at a level so dramatically below other lawyers with similar levels of experience. The most outrageous example are the SCOTUS justices. Not only do they make decisions impacting millions of americans, but these decisions impact future generations of millions of americans. Yet, they get paid less than 1st year associates who spend their days in libraries doing "research." What a joke (and unfortunately, a cruel one played on the judges). America can and should do better than this out of basic fairness. America should not let greed blind it from the fact that these judges are given de facto pay cuts, year after year after year, despite having among the most important jobs in the nation.