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26 Judges J. 1 (1987)

handle is hein.journals/judgej26 and id is 1 raw text is: Court
News
Roundup

JAD Now Provides Home for
Nonlawyer Court Administrators
The Judicial Administration Division at its 1987
Midyear Meeting changed its bylaws to allow non-
lawyer persons engaged in the field of judicial
administration to join the Division's Lawyers Con-
ference as judicial associates. Lawyers Conference
chairman Eugene J. Murret, attorney and Judicial
Administrator for the Supreme Court of Louisiana
said that the JAD welcomes all court administra-
tors into the Judicial Administration Division. This
is an important group whose ideas we need to hear.
By bringing them into the JAD, we will involve an
important new constituency in the Division's efforts
to help solve the problems affecting our courts.
The category judicial associates is defined as:
persons who have received a degreee in judicial
administration from an accredited college or
university, fellows of the Institute for Court
Management, persons who are employed full-
time as instructors in degree-granting judicial
administration programs at accredited colleges
and universities or the Institute for Court Man-
agernent Court Executive Development Pro-
gram, or non-judge executive administrative
officers of the courts and their chief deputies.
Associate membership is available only to non-
lawyers for $60, which includes a $20 fee for JAD
membership and an additional $40 fee for required
ABA Associate membership. For additional infor-
mation please write: ABA Judicial Administration
Division, 750 N. Lake Shore Dr., Chicago, IL 60611.
ABA Plays Major Role In Securing
Federal Judicial Salary Increases
When Congress, on February 3, 1987, agreed to in-
crease pay for judges and other federal officials in-
cluding legislators, one of the primary justifications
for doing so was to ensure that the quality of the
federal judiciary remain high. The primary voice
making this argument was the American Bar Asso-
ciation, which has led the fight for improved judicial
compensation. both federal and state.

In a January 12 letter to the Democratic and Re-
publican leaders in both the House and Senate,
American Bar Association President Eugene C.
Thomas said: Judicial salaries are disproportion-
ately low in comparison with salaries paid to simi-
larly qualified and experienced lawyers in the private
sector.... The differential threatens the quality and
independence of our federal court system. Thomas
also said that judicial resignations were a serious
consequence of inadequate compensation and noted
that 30 judges had resigned in the 1980s, many be-
cause of the pay, compared with only seven in the
1950s.
Giving testimony before Congress is but a part of
the ABA's efforts to improvejudicial compensation,
which ranges from providing information to actively
urging state and local bar association leaders to lobby
legislators for their support.
Improving judicial salaries and benefits has been
a primary legislative goal of the American Bar As-
sociation for years. In the latest round, federal judges
and magistrates on February 5 received the follow-
ing raises: from $81,100 to $89,500 for federal dis-
trict judges: from $85,700 to $95,000 for circuit
judges; from $70,300 to $82,500 for claims court
judges: and from $70,500 to $72,500 for bankruptcy
judges and federal magistrates. On the U.S. Supreme
Court, salaries of associate justices went from
$107,200 to $110,000, and the chief justice from
$111,700 to $ 115,000. Salaries for congressmen were
raised from $77,400 to $89,500.
However, the new salary increases, as originally
proposed by President Reagan, fall far short of what
the Commission on Executive, Legislative and Ju-
dicial Salaries (the Quadrennial Commission), and
the ABA Federal Judicial Compensation Commis-
sion (FJCC) had requested for federal judges. For
example, under the Quadrennial Commission's pro-
posal federal district judge salaries were set at
$130,000, while the ABA Commission recom-
mended $102,800. stressing that its judicial salary
recommendations were to be considered a floor
for increases and that much higher salaries were jus-
tified.
Although the ABA has for years had improving
judicial compensation as its main goal, the latest
federal efforts began in December 1983, when the

Winter 1987

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