• Here’s what happened: Lawmakers in Georgia are a step closer to advancing a law raising and standardizing pay for state judges, helping reduce major geographical salary disparities and recruit top lawyers to serve on the bench.
• Dig deeper: Georgia’s measure links state judicial salaries to those of federal judges in Atlanta, increasing Supreme Court justices’ pay from $186,000 to more than $223,000, and appellate court judge pay from $185,000 to $212,000.
• Sound familiar? Judicial pay was a topic of Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Nathan Hecht’s 2023 State of the Judiciary address.
• What about Texas? Texas judges have not seen a pay increase since 2013, and our judicial pay remains behind the curve nationally. At the district court level, Texas judicial salaries rank 41st among the states. We are 23rd at the intermediate appellate level and 29th at the high court level, according to the Texas Judicial Compensation Commission. Catch up in the TLR Advocate 
  • The base pay of a Texas district judge (to which other judicial salaries are tied) is currently $140,000.
• Remind me: During the 88th Regular Session, TLR supported a bill to give Texas judges regular pay increases without legislative action, as well as a bill providing an across-the-board pay increase. Both failed to make it to the governor’s desk.
• TLR Thoughts: Even if Georgia’s bill fails to ultimately pass, Georgia’s judges would still make more than Texas’ judges do. It’s high time for Texas to take a hard look at what it is doing—and not doing—to attract the best legal minds to our judgeships and ensure good judges remain in office.

Read the full article here.