More Judges Leaving Bench for Better Pay

By JOE MANDAK Associated Press Writer

February 6, 2004 

PITTSBURGH (AP) - U.S. District Judge Robert Cindrich has a lifetime 

job and could have retired in less than six years with full pay - though not a pension
 - of more than $155,000 a year.

But on Feb. 2, the 60-year-old jurist launched a new career as chief 

legal counsel with a hospital network, joining a record number of federal judges who
 observers say are retiring or resigning because of lagging pay and stringent guidelines
 that take away most of their discretion in criminal sentencings.

"We're losing more every year. (Those are) two principal reasons as I 

see it - and they apply to me, too," Cindrich said.

There are 877 federal judge positions that are lifetime appointments, 

from the Supreme Court on down to district courts, and 45 of those seats 

are vacant, according to the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts. 

Although a Senate logjam that has kept President Bush from getting his 

judicial appointees confirmed gets the headlines, observers say a more 

pressing long-term concern is the rate at which judges are leaving.

From 1991 through February 2002, more than 60 judges either retired or 

resigned to go into private practice, said Karen Redmond, spokeswoman 

for the U.S. Courts office, which studied the matter two years ago. 

Since then, another 10 federal judges have left the bench - compared to 

just five judges who resigned or retired during the entire decade of the 

1960s, Redmond said.

A commission chaired by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker 

two years ago strongly urged Congress to boost the pay of federal judges, 
but a resulting bill that would have raised those salaries by 16.5 percent was
 defeated last session.

The two largest groups of federal judges - district and circuit court 

judges - annually make $154,700 and $164,000, respectively. The deans at 
top U.S. law schools earn more than $300,000, while law professors at those
 schools make more than $209,000, according to a study cited by the
 Volcker Commission.

Joe Kendall left his U.S. District Court job in Texas when he was 47 

after 10 years on bench. He told The Third Branch, the newsletter for the federal
 courts system, that with two soon-to-be college-aged children, he couldn't afford
 not to sell his skills to the private sector.

"If federal judges were paid what an average partner in an average law 

firm in an average city was paid," Kendall said, "I'd still be on the 

bench."

Cindrich earned $133,600 when he was appointed in 1994. His $154,700 

salary - which has been adjusted for cost of living just five out of his nine years
 on the bench - is worth about $11,000 less in real dollars today.

"Judges are supposed to be relatively smart people so it doesn't take 

us long to figure out, 'I'm going backward,'" Cindrich said. Added to 

that are hidden costs.

Federal judges don't get a pension. They can retire after age 65 once 

they have at least 15 years' service or take senior status and continue 

to work as long as they carry a caseload equal to 25 percent of those 

carried by judges on their court. Either way, they continue to receive 

full pay - but because it's not a pension, their dependents lose that 

income when the judge dies.

"That's one of the reasons a lot of us leave the bench," Cindrich said. 

"You compensate for it by buying a lot of life insurance."

Although Cindrich says the job is deeply satisfying, the changing face 

of federal law is taking its toll on that, too.

Developed in 1986, federal sentencing guidelines were designed so 

defendants in different areas of the country received similar sentences for 

similar crimes. But, combined with mandatory minimum sentences heralded 

as the solution to the "war on drugs," the guidelines too often result 

in lengthy sentences for what Cindrich calls "street criminals ... not 

the big drug runner flying in on jets from South America."

"When the law provides a result that is repugnant, we must still follow 

the law," Cindrich said. "And you can only do that so many times before 

you start to wonder, 'How many more times am I going to put my name on 

this sentence that I don't believe in?'"

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