Chief U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV of the District of Massachusetts said Tuesday that he has been quite intentional in raising the profile of magistrate judges and trying to overcome negative perceptions of the the legal community.

"One of my priorities was to improve the stature and happiness of the magistrate judges, and I think we've gone a long way toward doing that," Saylor told a meeting of the Massachusetts chapter of the Federal Bar Association. "I decreed during the pandemic that they would be present at all of our monthly court meetings."