Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. made the need for a federal judicial pay raise the sole focus of his 2006 year-end report on the federal judiciary. Although the chief justice’s characterization of the federal judicial pay issue as a “constitutional crisis” suffered from hyperbole, he is absolutely correct that federal judges are seriously underpaid and deserve to receive a meaningful increase in their pay.
A federal judge’s salary will never come close to matching what a talented lawyer in private practice can earn in a big city, nor should it, but the salary should at least be adequate to allow federal judges to afford to put their children through college. And if life tenure is to remain a meaningful aspiration for federal judges, the salaries paid to these individuals should at least keep pace with inflation. In the absence of these two changes, it will become more difficult to recruit talented younger judgeship candidates, and it will become more difficult to retain experienced judges who can command substantially more money in private practice.
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