Judge Ward's Retirement Highlights Need for Increased Judicial Pay

According to Micheal Smith's ED of Texas blog, Judge Ward from the Eastern District of Texas will not accept an offer to continue judging on senior status, but will instead retire from the bench entirely to resume the practice of law with his son Johnny Ward in Longview, Texas.

Taking the bench in 1999 as a Clinton nominee, Judge Ward presided over a dramatic increase in patent infringement cases in that district from 1999 through 2008. In 1999, there were just 14 patent infringement cases filed in the ED of Texas. By 2006, there were 234 cases. The district is consistently among the eight or so districts handling more than 100 new patent filings each year.

While the number of filings in East Texas has been in decline since the CAFC's en banc decision in TS Tech, finding an abuse of discretion for Judge Ward's refusal to transfer a case out of Texas and into a more convenient venue, Judge Ward remains one of the most influential judges in modern patent infringement. His court is reputed to be more friendly to patent infringement plaintiffs, however, even defense lawyers have described Judge Ward as "fair."

I believe that Judge Ward's retirement and return to private practice underscores the need for judicial pay reform. Simply put, the federal judiciary is losing talented judges to retirement with years still left to serve on senior status. And while good, experienced judges are lost to retirement, still other highly qualified judicial candidates will never even make it to the bench for the simple reason that they cannot afford to. Federal dockets in the most favorable venues are backed up due to a lack of judicial horsepower. Justice is suffering.

The statistics of judicial pay increases over the years are startling. Since 1992, the pay of most federal workers has increased by 91 percent, while inflation has increased by 36 percent. However, judicial pay has fallen way behind, increasing by only 39 percent over this time.

While Congress routinely votes in favor of raising its own pay, it has refused judicial pay increases in 1994, 1995, 1996, 1999, 2007, and 2010.

An American Bar Association report from 2001 concluded that "[o]ver the course of the past decade, judges have experienced both an absolute loss in purchasing power and a relative decline in remuneration as the salaries of peer groups have risen dramatically." This report is now almost 10 years old and Congress has done nothing to ensure that judicial pay is brought up to standard with other federal employees, let alone other lawyers.