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Sunday, September 27, 2009

Courts - "Judicial pay disparity drains talent from federal bench"

Carol J. Williams reports today in the LA Times:

With seven children to care for and a caseload that quadrupled this past year, U.S. District Judge Stephen G. Larson says he can no longer afford his prestigious lifetime appointment.

The 44-year-old, named to the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California less than four years ago, is the latest defection in an accelerating nationwide trend toward leaving the federal bench long before retirement age to earn more money in private practice.

Vacancies in the federal judiciary are mounting, and too few of the best legal minds are stepping forward to replace them, judicial analysts say. They attribute what they see as a troubling phenomenon to Congress' failure for nearly two decades to pass a significant pay increase for federal judges or to expand their numbers to handle a soaring caseload.

Chief Justice John Roberts of the U.S. Supreme Court has been warning of a "constitutional crisis" and threat to judicial independence if stagnant salaries drive judges out of positions long considered the pinnacle of a distinguished legal career. * * *

Scholars of the judiciary see uncompetitive pay as a disincentive to joining the federal bench, but they cite other reasons as well: withering confirmation proceedings that expose nominees to intense and often politically charged interrogations, tedious cases decided in settlement conferences instead of jury trials, workloads that grow larger with each colleague's departure and the slowing pace of finding replacements.

Aside from the high-profile selection of Sonia Sotomayor as the newest Supreme Court justice, President Obama has made only 17 nominations to 94 vacancies on the federal bench, or 18%. That compares with President George W. Bush's nominations to 44% of open judgeships during his first eight months in the White House.

"They're having a tough time finding people," said Russell Wheeler, a Brookings Institution scholar who studies judge selection. "Those advocating for salary increases say that soon it will be difficult to get the best talent, which is code word for saying they are already not getting the best applicants."

District judges earn $169,300 a year, and those on circuit courts of appeal get $179,500. Even Roberts, the top judge in the 876-person federal judiciary with a salary of $217,000, earns less than a Los Angeles County judge. The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts calculates that the buying power of those federal salaries has fallen about 25% in the last four decades, while the national average for real wages has increased 18%.

Larson is the third judge lost from California's Central District over the past year, and a fourth has informed the chief judge that she plans to resign to pursue private judging in March. Reacting to Larson's decision, Collins expressed concerns about compounding influences as each departing judge leaves behind a caseload that has to be redistributed among those left on the bench. That is an especially severe problem in the district's eastern sector, where Larson serves, as only one other judge is assigned to that courthouse. Those with business before the court in San Bernardino and Riverside counties may have to travel to Los Angeles or Santa Ana to have their cases heard, Collins said.

Although retention is an acute problem in the costly cities of California, it is a problem across the country. The number of judges departing over the last decade is projected to be 68 by the end of this year, a 24% increase over the 1990s and compared with only three in the 1960s.

Congress last year took up a bill that would have raised federal judges' salaries to $218,000 a year, but it died amid partisan bickering. A measure introduced this session would add 63 new federal judgeships but sidesteps the pay-raise issue. * * *

Federal judges' salaries may seem lavish to many taxpayers, but private judges with alternative dispute-resolution services can earn three times what a district judge makes and a successful partner at a top law firm can take home seven figures, said Arthur Hellman, a University of Pittsburgh law professor and federal judiciary expert.

He also sees a major change in the type of cases dominating a federal judge's docket, with intellectually stimulating cases squeezed out by more pressing prosecutions involving drugs, gangs and deportations.

"It's just not the attractive job it was 20 or 30 years ago, especially if you've been in private practice doing business- related cases," Hellman said.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on September 27, 2009 04:28 PM
Posted to Courts in general