Judges do better than you think

We shouldn't be surprised by the Herald article recently that reported Illinois judges as among the best paid in the nation. After all, their salaries are determined and passed by our own state legislature. Since the majority of legislatures are lawyers and the judges are lawyers, why should we be surprised about their high level of compensation? Our politicians may want to become a judge some day.

One might be surprised about the fact that they can retire after 20 years with 85 percent of their salary. No other state or government employee that I know of can do that.

In fact, the legislators were very vocal about changing the pension plans of government employees and teachers. Some were advocating longer years of service, higher contributions, and a lower percent payout just to balance the state budget. I don't remember any of them wishing that on their fellow lawyers who are judges.

If the article is correct, our judges still enjoy the best of all possible state jobs. That is apart from the lawmakers themselves.

The article mentioned caseload, but there was no information about the average number of hours the judges work daily or the number of days they are in court per week. I would wager that it is less than most of us invest in our jobs on a daily and weekly basis.

Does anyone know how many holidays and vacation days these judges get on the average? I'll bet it's higher than most other public and private employees.

Tom Martin

Geneva