To the Editor:
Re “On the Subject of Judicial Salaries, a Difference of Opinion,” by Adam Liptak (Sidebar column, Jan. 20):
Judges are public servants. My colleagues and I are productive because our duty is to serve. But that does not mean that we are not underpaid.
Since 1994, I have routinely worked 60 hours a week and have never seen a raise, although there have been a few cost of living adjustments, or COLAs, to keep pace with inflation. This year, judges are the only federal employees who will not even receive a COLA. Members of Congress gave themselves the very COLA denied to judges.
If all 1,200 federal judges received a 2.5 percent COLA, it would amount to approximately $5.5 million—a pittance compared with the money spent on bailouts and lengthy wars.
If America wants the highest quality judiciary—one that reflects our nation’s diversity—we must not limit the opportunity to those who have already built a nest egg in the private sector.
Shira A. Scheindlin
United States District Judge
Southern District of New York
New York, Jan. 20, 2009
Note from KBJ: It is tiresome to have to explain this again, but let me do it. Every job involves compromise. It gives you X but denies you Y. Federal judges have lifetime tenure. Few workers in the private sector have job security at all, much less lifetime job security. If you want job security, you must pay for it in some other way, such as less income. If Shira A. Scheindlin doesn't like what she is paid, she should go out into the private marketplace with her knowledge and skills (such as they are) and see what they are worth. No, she is not likely to get job security (unless she becomes a tenured professor—and then she'll really bitch about her salary), but she will (in all likelihood) earn more money (which is a kind of security). Alas, she doesn't want to have to choose; she wants both. Well, yes, and I want all of the following: to be a Major League Baseball player, to be a rock star, to be a professor of philosophy, to be filthy rich, to have job security, to race in the Tour de France, to be autonomous, to have a large family, and to travel the world. Oops, I almost forgot: I want to fly, I want to live forever, and I want to marry Anna Kournikova. Life is about choices, trade-offs, and compromises. Only someone who lives in Cloud Cuckoo Land could believe that one can have it all (or even very much of it).
