Actually you are just denigrating yourself with such an ignorant remark.
I started the 12th grade at 15 years old
Congratulations. Will you turn 16 before you graduate this year?
This issue is not much different from the teacher pay issue. We have lots of bad teachers (not all of them are, but many are bad). How do we remedy this? Paying bad teachers won't make them good, that is true, but increasing pay will likely attract better teachers.
The same is true of judges. We have many bad ones (see the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals for a prime example). Relative to other lawyers, they are NOT paid well. Full disclosure, I am an attorney--that's pond scum to some of you in here-- in my 18th year of private practice. I don't do criminal defense or personal injury work, and I am shocked to report that even I make more than federal district court judges (but not that much more). I did ok in law school, upper 10% of my class (not that hard at UNC liberal bloodbath school, but ok for a mill village kid first to attend college on either side of the family).
I'd be willing to take a pay cut to serve as a district court judge-- as soon as I can get my kids through college, but it WOULD be a pay cut. Most of those in the true running for federal judgeships earn FAR more than what they would make as a judge. Those who earn less are attorneys who, for the most part, are not as able or experienced as those who do better, and as one post above mentioned, many are liberals working in public defender or legal aid jobs and the like.
Finally, a brief word in my own defense on the "pond scum" characterization. If I am pond scum, I was pond scum when I was a school teacher, a convenience store clerk, a custodian (my job in the summer before law school), and an iron worker (in a stair and rail business). I help lead our early morning worship service each Sunday, and teach my adult Sunday School class. I admit I am pond scum, but probably no more so than the rest of us.