WASHINGTON — Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and leaders of two of the nation's largest lawyers' associations joined Tuesday in pushing for higher salaries for federal judges.
Rehnquist appeared with the presidents of the American Bar Assn. and the Federal Bar Assn., who presented a report warning that salary levels on the federal bench "have reached such levels of inadequacy that they threaten to impair the quality and independence" of the judiciary.
"I consider the need to increase judicial salaries to be the most pressing issue facing the federal judiciary today," Rehnquist said in a brief appearance at a Supreme Court news conference. "We must provide these judges--whom we ask and expect to remain for life--adequate compensation."
The average district court judge makes $145,000 a year, compared with salaries for partners at major law firms that can exceed $500,000 annually, the report said. Some first-year associates in major cities earn an average $125,000 a year, the report said.
"Lawyers straight out of law school make more at the top firms than federal judges with 30 years' experience," said FBA President Robert McNew. "That's why we are beginning to see greater numbers of judges leaving the bench and some promising candidates not willing to serve."
Although federal judges have received recent cost-of-living raises--2.7% last month and 3.4% in 2000--they had not received one before that since 1993.
Declining salaries are the "single most important factor discouraging potential candidates from seeking judicial appointment," the report said.
"What cost are you willing to put your family through to engage in public service?" asked ABA President Martha Barnett. "There is a real financial disincentive there."
In the last decade, 52 circuit and district judges left positions that were tenured for life--more than during any other period in the nation's history, the report said.
Two such judges who left the bench because of salary concerns--Layn Phillips and John Wagner--both served in the 10th Circuit Court in Oklahoma but now work at Irell & Manella, a Los Angeles-based private law firm.
"We needed to educate our children, and it got harder and harder to do that on the salary I was being paid," said Wagner, who left the bench three years ago and works at the firm's Newport Beach office. "I needed to make multiples" of what he was making as a judge, he said.
