YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR

“The denial of annual [pay] increases, [Chief Justice John] Roberts wrote, ‘has left federal trial judges—the backbone of our system of justice—earning about the same as (and in some cases less than) first-year lawyers at firms in major cities, where many of the judges are located.’ The cost of rectifying this would be less than 0.004% of the federal budget. The cost of not doing so will be a decrease in the quality of an increasingly important judiciary—and a change in its perspective. Fifty years ago, about 65 percent of the federal judiciary came from the private sector—from the practicing bar—and 35 percent from the public sector. Today 60 percent come from government jobs, less than 40 percent from private practice. This tends to produce a judiciary that is not only more important than ever but also is more of an extension of the bureaucracy than a check on it... The enlargement of the judiciary’s role by the regulatory state requires compensation of the judiciary commensurate with its ever-expanding importance. That importance, although regrettable, is a fact, and so is this: You get the quality—and the perspective—you pay for.” —George Will