Federal Judges Appalled Over Pay for ‘Youngsters’

For his job as the nation’s top-ranking federal judge, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist earns $181,400. Not bad, but his own law clerks could beat that salary next year simply by joining a major law firm.

Scrambling to join a trend that began in money-laden Silicon Valley last year, the nation’s leading law firms are offering the best and brightest young lawyers starting salaries--complete with signing bonuses--that spiral higher and higher. Annual compensation has increased by up to $40,000 in less than a year.

Federal judges are not amused.

“We are following these developments with great interest,” said David Hansen, a federal appeals court judge from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. “It’s tough when you realize the compensation for a lawyer three years out of law school exceeds that of the chief justice of the United States.”

Ann Williams, a federal appeals court judge from Chicago, is more blunt.

“It’s an outrage,” she said. “These salaries for youngsters devalue the experience judges take to the bench with them.”

Seven-figure compensation for senior partners in large law firms is not rare, and Hansen, who chairs a U.S. Judicial Conference committee that tracks judicial pay, accepts the disparity as “an economic fact of life.”

“Federal judges’ lifetime work has some monetary value down the road,” he acknowledged. A federal judge can retire at full pay at age 65 after 15 years of service or at 70 after 10 years.

Working as a federal judge’s law clerk is a prestigious job with a real-world payoff, and it sparks vigorous competition among the leading students at the top law schools. A Supreme Court clerkship is the biggest prize of all.

After clerking one year at a lower court and a year for a Supreme Court justice--a job that pays just under $50,000--a lawyer typically is besieged by law firms offering employment as a third-year associate. A year’s salary at that level can reach $175,000, not counting a signing bonus that can go as high as $50,000.

Some lawyers fresh out of law school are lured away from clerkships and offered entry-level salaries of $125,000 by many large law firms, up as much as $45,000 over just a year ago.

Federal judges have groused about their pay for decades, with little effect because they lack a champion and a constituency.

Congress stiffed them for five straight years--doling out not even a cost-of-living increase from 1993 through 1997. They got one in 1998 and again in January.

Rehnquist’s Supreme Court colleagues now earn $173,600; appeals court judges get $149,900 and district court trial judges $141,300.

Despite the two more recent raises, the buying power of federal judicial salaries has dropped 13% since 1993. The situation would have been far worse if not for a 25% increase that took full effect in 1993.

“Sure, it’s a privilege and an honor to be a federal judge, but try telling that to someone who’s got two kids in college, paying $60,000 in tuition and watching the take-home pay take a nose dive,” said Ralph Mecham, director of the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts.

Rehnquist makes pay a recurring theme of his year-end reports on the state of the judiciary. “More appropriate compensation” is vital to “the quality and morale of the federal judiciary,” he said in January.

Some federal judges leave for greener pastures, but court officials worry more about the judiciary’s ability to attract top-notch legal minds to the bench in the first place.

“It’s not an issue of arrogance,” said Williams, president of the 800-member Federal Judges Assn. “We just are grossly underpaid in terms of our counterparts in private practice. We should not be in a situation where a federal judge must rely on a spouse who works outside the home, or only wealthy people can consider judicial service.”

In fact, many lawyers appointed to the federal bench are nominated after years in lucrative law practices. Other traditional sources for judicial posts, however, include lower-paying governmental legal jobs and academia.

Although there are signs of backlash to the higher attorney pay from corporate clients, the salary surge for young lawyers continues.

That trend and the doubling of the president’s salary to $400,000 next January give federal judges hope Congress will not go another five years before adjusting their salaries.