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.
"The sad reality we now face is that, in at least some situations, active judges at the peak of their judicial careers must resign to support their families," Chief Judge Audrey B. Collins of California's Central District said after Larson's announcement. The district covering Los Angeles and six other counties is the nation's most populous federal trial court, serving 19 million people.
Even California state courts are feeling the pay pinch, despite salaries and benefits significantly higher than those for federal judges. In Los Angeles County Superior Court, a judge takes home $249,413 a year with locally paid extras, or 47% more than a federal district judge.
"What that says is that the federal judges are way underpaid, and everybody knows it," said Presiding Judge Charles "Tim" McCoy of the Los Angeles County bench. The county Superior Court doesn't face as dire a situation in attracting and retaining judges as the federal judiciary, McCoy said, but the pressures are mounting there too. McCoy said one trial judge left for private practice late last year and a second just informed him he'll be resigning to earn enough to pay a college-bound child's tuition.
Neither federal nor state judges' salaries can be cut, due to constitutional protections. But the vast majority of California's 1,711 judges have volunteered to forgo a day's pay each month to share in the sacrifice imposed by furloughs that close state courts the third Wednesday of each month.
