As the debacle of judicial pay raises in New York grows, the finger-pointing and back-biting does as well.  No, not between the judges and politicians (that’s been going on since the beginning), but between judges and lawyers.  The  New York Law Journal has put together a series of letters, back and forth, between judges and lawyers and bar associations.

While this series of letters is largely officious, and lacks the grit that appears in  Judicial Reports where the discussion has been far deeper, angrier and, frankly, more honest, the fact that it’s come out in the open in a paper where platitudes and courtesy reigns supreme is telling.

The question of whether the judges deserve a raise has long been answered:  Of course they do.  The problem now is that the judges, unable to break the stalemate in the Legislature on their own, having lost faith in their judicial leadership to be capable of accomplishing the task and seeing no viable means of taking action on their own, have turned to lawyers and bar associations and accused them of not having done enough for judges.

This is a huge paradigm shift.  While judges may be lawyers, and enjoy those bar association functions when there’s food and drink for everyone, there has long been a professional distance between the two.  Once they put on the robe, the brotherhood is forgotten and they are judges.  They treat lawyers like, well, mere lawyers.  Some treat us quite poorly.  Some use their power in the courtroom, and over our clients, to make it clear who’s the boss.  Now they want us to be their buddies.  Interesting.

This was the gist of  my commentary at Judicial Reports a while back, where I challenged the judiciary to change their attitude toward the bar in general before they expected lawyers to make their pay raises our problem.  Nothing happened, as far as I can tell, though I hardly expected it would.

So now we’re at the next crossroad.  Bar associations, mired in their amorphous dedication to “justice”, have come out in support of judicial pay raises, but have done little to help aside from press releases.  I don’t know what more the judges’ expected them to do, but whatever it was they haven’t satisfied the judges.

It’s reached the point where judges sound more like the Wobblies, ready to take to the streets in frustration.  They tried it the right way, the nice way, to no avail.  Pay Raise Central in Albany keeps telling them there will be pie in the sky when they die, but the judges have no interest in waiting (or dying).  And they have run out of options.

Our new governor, David Paterson,  has announced that with all the problems he has in Albany, budgetary and otherwise, it’s not going to happen this year.  Now if only judges can do without eating for a year, they may be okay.  Yes, that’s an exaggeration, but not much of one.  Let’s face it, life has become far more expensive recently and their effective earnings decrease daily. 

The situation has grown dire.  While I had argued before that it was demeaning to suggest that good lawyers only become judges for the loot, there is a harsh reality that good lawyers will not go through the rigors of seeking the bench, and good judges won’t continue to suffer, and make their families suffer, when the salary won’t cover a reasonable nut.  It has really grown that bad.  It may reach the point that the only people who want to be a judge badly enough to live with the pay are the ones we least want on the bench.  And they are going to be there a long time, making life and law miserable for all.

The judges have suffered enough, and they have made their point.  It’s time for the polite lawyers who run the bar associations to take off the gloves and start making a ruckus.  Judges must receive a substantial increase in pay now, or we’ll all be suffering the consequences for a generation.