Fair Pay for Judges

Congress should give the federal judiciary the bump-up legislators are getting.

THERE IS no question that federal judges deserve substantial pay raises. Judges often earn less in salary than even the most junior lawyer in a major national law firm. As a result, the bench is increasingly stocked with those who can afford the federal pay cut because they have made a fortune in private practice or those for whom the six-figure federal salary represents a raise. Increasingly cut out of contention for these important and prestigious positions are workaday lawyers most familiar with the realities of the business and legal arenas. The bench is also at risk of losing legal talent as some sitting judges decide they can no longer accept reduced pay. Former judge Paul Cassell cited financial hardship as a driving force behind his 2007 decision to relinquish his seat on the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. reiterated his plea for a salary increase in his annual state-of-the-judiciary report, in which he also highlighted the years-long efforts by judges to tamp down courthouse and administrative costs. Yet even the chief justice seems to acknowledge that this renewed request comes at a bad time. Although raises are well-deserved and long overdue, federal judges will have a tough time this year making headway in their quest, even though Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) recently vowed to continue the fight. Congress came tantalizingly close to approving an increase last year, but failed to finalize the package before broader economic woes pushed the judicial pay question aside.

This is not to discount the security of a lifetime appointment amid an economic meltdown that is costing tens of thousands of jobs and extracting pay concessions from those who earn substantially less than the nearly $170,000 annual salary of federal trial judges. It would border on the unseemly to push for a big spike in judicial salaries under these circumstances.

What is impossible to justify, however, is Congress's refusal to provide federal judges with the same cost-of-living increases lawmakers recently awarded themselves. The failure to give judges these adjustments annually over the past two decades is a prime cause of the growing gap between private-sector salaries and judicial pay. Congress should at least guarantee that these modest increases go forward so that judicial salaries don't continue to erode in terms of real dollars.