The Indy Star has an article entitled Daniels to sign judicial pay raise bill, discussing the passage of SB 363. It passed the Senate 42-4 and passed the House 75-17.
Trial court judges get a pay raise from $90,000 to $110,500; appellate court judges go from $110,000 to $129,800; and Supreme Court justices go from $115,000 to $133,600. I don’t begrudge the judges a higher pay particularly after 8 years, but I feel compelled to point out that, from my perspective, that seems like a pretty sweet deal in some of the more rural counties with lighter case loads. I practice in an 11 county radius around Lafayette and the difference in the apparent case loads seems pretty significant. Maybe I just show up on slow days in those counties, but I sort of doubt it. I’m also skeptical of the ability of private practitioners in those counties to make $110,000, guaranteed each and every year, plus pension, health benefits, paid vacation, etc. while working the same number of hours. But, I don’t know, I could easily be wrong, and maybe the argument is that the best lawyers wouldn’t hang around those counties — they’d move to the big cities where they can make considerably more. (On the other hand, those attorneys apparently hung around the area long enough to become established and be elected judge.)
But, that’s just so much hand waving. Each county needs a court. It would just be nice if the case loads could be balanced out a bit. Some courts are so busy as to have the appearance of “justice mills” while others have the appearance of slow, leisurely, stately kinds of places. It seems unfair to pay the judge of the latter as much as the judge of the former.
Court fees are going to go up quite a bit to pay for this. Small claims filings, for example, will cost an additional $10, up 21% from $46 to $56. When I started in private practice in 1999, the fee was $35. So, small claims filing fees are up 60% over 6 years. Court fee increases seem to be keeping pace with health insurance premium increases. Oh well, I suppose that’s just more money to collect from the debtor who was too poor to pay his bill in the first place.
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