Paid enough to judge?

This may not be Wake-centric in the least, but the New York Times' Adam Liptak just posted an interesting column set to run in tomorrow's paper about whether or not federal judges were making enough.

Weighing in were some Triangle-area professors.

The salaries are at levels that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. says have "reached a constitutional crisis."

That, UNC Law's Scott Baker says, just isn't the case. He tells the Times, "“I couldn’t find any evidence to support his claim."

Baker published a study last year in the Boston University Law Review that examined whether society would be better off if judges were paid more. He, and a similar study conducted by the Journal of Legal Analysis, determined that nothing indicates that taxpayers would be better off if federal judges get bigger paychecks.

So what are judges getting paid? Liptak tells us federal district judges get paid $169,300 a year, federal appeals court judges $179,500, Supreme Court justices get $208,100 and the Chief Justice (Roberts) gets $217,400.

Liptak writes that those salaries can easily be topped at big law firms. But there is the whole lifetime appointment aspect that offers some pretty significant job security.

Duke Law Dean David F. Levi, a former federal judge, took up for his former colleagues.

"The country wants and deserves the strongest possible judiciary, and we should be willing to pay for that,” Levi said, according to the Times.

Just some food for thought.