Supreme Court seat? Nah, pass.

The Record has The Next Generation of Potential Judges Is Losing Interest in State Supreme Courts. Here's Why -- Those who have served on their states' courts of last resort say that the pay gap between private practice and public service is widening to the point of turning away attorneys who have the potential to serve their state well.

• Justices on state supreme courts often make less than first-year associates at major firms.
• Pay and other factors may be pushing away qualified high court applicants.
• The drive for public service trumps pay for some.
• On average, jurists who serve on the highest state courts in the country are paid a little more than $200,000 per year.
• Since the beginning of 2020, justices have left 98 of the 339 total spots on states’ courts of last resort. At least a quarter of those went on to some form of legal practice, most as litigators and mediators, though a few have gone in-house, and three were appointed to federal judgeships. Seven weren’t reelected, three ran for other public offices (with mixed results), a few took senior status, and four died during their term, but the majority of those 98 justices have gone into retirement, either voluntarily or because their state has a judicial age limit.
• The state with the most turnover is Illinois, with three Supreme Court justices leaving the bench in 2020 and another four in 2022.
• State Supreme Court justices across the country often go multiple years without getting a pay raise.
• Federal district court judges, meanwhile, get a raise every year, with the same salary for every judge across every district. That salary in 2024 is $243,300, a 4.6% raise from 2023 and more than Supreme Court justices are paid in 44 states. Salaries for U.S. Supreme Court associate justices get an additional $55,200.
• which state’s justices are getting paid the least? That would be West Virginia, where judges on the court of last resort are paid $149,600 and the per capita personal income is one of the lowest in the nation. But compared to the average income in the state, Wyoming justices are paid the least at $175,000, taking home about 2.25 times the state’s per capita personal income.
• At the other end of the pay scale, California pays its justices the most at $291,094 per year. When compared to the rest of their state’s population, justices in New Mexico make the most: at $232,600, each associate justice is making well over four times the income of the state’s average resident.