Marshall urges legislators to approve judicial pay hikes

The chief justice of the state's highest court, seeking to speed up a stalled measure, yesterday urged the Legislature to end months of delay by approving a raise for nearly 400 judges, saying stagnant salaries make it hard for members of the Massachusetts judiciary to pay mortgages, college tuition for their children, and other expenses.

''We cannot continue to attract the best and brightest lawyers to serve as judges unless the compensation they receive keeps pace, at a minimum, with the rising financial demands that confront us all," Margaret H. Marshall, chief justice of the Supreme Judicial Court, told about 250 judges and lawyers at the annual conference of the Massachusetts Bar Association.

It's not clear why the raise, which judges have been lobbying for for more than a year, has yet to win approval on Beacon Hill, but the relationship between the Legislature and the judicial branch in Massachusetts has been tense. Lawmakers have tried to control patronage hiring in the courthouses, and some legislators have been angered by Marshall's court decisions, including the landmark decision that legalized gay marriage.

House and Senate leaders in October reached agreement on a plan to provide pay raises of up to 15 percent for the 357 trial court judges and 31 appellate court justices, including the seven on the SJC. But in an interview yesterday after her annual speech on the state of the juidiciary, Marshall said that the Legislature appeared to push the matter to the back burner while dealing with other issues, including healthcare reform.

The raises are essential, said Marshall, because Massachusetts ranks 46th among the 50 states and the District of Columbia in judicial salaries, when adjusted for cost of living. The current base salary for trial judges is $112,777 a year.

''Nobody expects to get rich by being a judge, but you expect to be fairly compensated," Marshall said after her speech at the Marriott Copley Place hotel.

Fifteen percent raises are included in the supplemental budgets of both the House and the Senate, but differences between the bills need to be worked out. James Eisenberg, chief of staff to House Ways and Means chairman Robert A. DeLeo, said he could not discuss the status of negotiations. But he said the fact that money has been set aside in both bills ''certainly bodes well for the increase." Senate leaders could not be reached for comment.

Judges in Massachusetts have not received a raise in six years. Warren Fitzgerald, president of the bar association, said that first-year associates at big law firms typically earn more than new judges. Recent law clerks to judges often make more than their former bosses if they go to the private sector.

''It is simply very unfair to the men and the women who have children in school and are paying their tuitions to have not had a pay raise in seven years," said Superior Court Judge Thomas E. Connolly, who attended the conference.

Marshall said many judges expected to get the raises in January and that some in the legal community mistakenly think they did.

Although Marshall said she has gotten no indication from legislative leaders that the raises might fall through, relations between the Legislature and the judiciary have been tense in recent years. Some lawmakers accused the SJC of overreaching when the justices voted, 4 to 3, to declare same-sex marriage legal in Massachusetts, effective May 2004.

The adequacy of judicial salaries is hardly an issue unique to Massachusetts. In his first annual report on the state of the federal judiciary, US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. said recently that the real pay of federal judges has declined almost 24 percent since 1969.

''There will always be a substantial difference in pay between successful government and private sector lawyers," Roberts wrote. ''But if that difference remains too large -- as it is today -- the judiciary will over time cease to be made up of a diverse group of the nation's very best lawyers."

In other remarks yesterday, Marshall said the state judiciary planned to make it easier for litigants who choose to represent themselves, in part by allowing them to hire lawyers for some aspects of litigation but not for others. She also said the trial courts are seeking $3.3 million to improve acoustics in courtrooms.

Jonathan Saltzman can be reached at jsaltzman@globe.com