Most attorneys would jump at the chance to be a federal judge making better than $160,000 a year with great benefits and a nice retirement. You make a lot of points and I'll try to address most of them. First, I agree with this statement entirely. However, most attorneys are grossly incompetent and are entirely unqualified to be a Federal judge. I'm certain most would jump at the opportunity, because (a) it would be an increase in pay for "most" attorneys, and (b) it is life tenured.
However, as I've noted before, the well qualified people are almost uniformly much, much higher paid--there is simply more demand for their legal skills.
The fact is that most of these appointments to private attorneys tend to be political favors. These people appointed are not necessarily well qualified.
I'm not sure what you base this on. While there are, no doubt, political appointments for the unqualified (Earl Warren comes to mind), by and large, the Federal bench is much, much better than its state (usually elected) counterpart. A federal judgeship is more prestigious and more rigorous. Plus, the nomination and appointment process provides and opportunity to vet people that lack the necessary qualifications. Again, the best attorneys are generally the best paid. That's just a function of the market. Skadden Arps isn't able to charge $1000 an hour for some of its partners because these people are lousy attorneys. They are very good at what they do.
As far as why judges make more than federal prosecutors or defenders, it is simply because judges need to be better attorneys than these other people. Though I'm aware that federal prosecutors and defenders are usually fine attorneys, many, many people have those skills and could do that job. Judge, however, is a different story. The skill sets are not the same.
Just as an aside, do you know what's been happening with attorneys incomes in the private sector? When you factor in inflation, they've plummeted over the years.
I'd like to see some numbers to back this up. First year associates in large firms in New York are now being paid $150,000 a year. This is double than it was just a few years ago. Though you might be right that attorney wages across the board have dropped, they certainly haven't dropped at large firms, which makes up the pool of potential federal judge candidates.
As I said before: in order to attract well-qualified candidates, the salary needs to be increased. Period. The Chief Justice absolutely has it right.
I don't really have time today to do a lot of research, but I'm always hearing complaints about a nationwide drop in attorney incomes when I go to continuing legal education seminars. The ABA has made a big deal out of it, and certainly those of us who practice law are well aware of how hard it has become to make a living as a lawyer these days. Currently, the mean annual wage for attorneys in this country is $110,520, according to the U.S. Dept. of Labor.
http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes231011.htm I'm sure historical numbers are out there, but I don't have time to dig for them right now.
As for first year associates in large firms in New York earning $150,000, I don't know if that is true or not. I do know that is significantly more than most recent graduates from law school earn in this country.
I do not agree with your assessment of most attorneys as being "grossly incompetent." Some are, most aren't. Competency does vary though, but high earnings certainly do not necessarily equate with a high level of competency. There are plenty of piss poor attorneys pulling down high incomes. Pull your phone book out and look at the first few pages of the attorney section in the yellow pages. Unless you are in a tiny city, odds are most of the lawyers with these big two page spreads, or even one page ads, are pulling down big bucks relative to the incomes of most attorneys in your area. Some of these lawyers may be damned good at what they do. But, a lot of these jokers aren't worth a flip as attorneys. They're just good at marketing, and somehow or another they came up with enough money to start advertising in a big way. They talk a good game, get people who come for help to sign on the dotted line, and then they sell their clients down the river, settling their cases for a fraction of what they are worth. You see the same sort of thing at some of the big firms that aren't ambulance chasing firms. Some of the senior partners aren't that great as lawyers. They either happened to throw in with the right people when they started the firms or got in through family connections or because they had money and they hung on until they made partner. I've seen some of these guys just botch the hell out of cases. They may have gone to Ivy League schools and have all the right connections, but when push comes to shove their clients get eaten alive at trial when they are up against halfway decent lawyers who may have made C's at their local state law school. They'd be doing their clients a service if they quit practicing law and took teaching jobs.
As for all the vetting that takes place for federal judge candidates, it's often not that rigorous. For a position on the Supreme Court or a federal appeals court there will usually be a considerable amount of vetting, but this will not be the case with most Federal Magistrate or District Court jobs. These are low level federal judge jobs. Like I said they are often handed out as political favors. There is rarely any big fight over these appointments. I've been practicing law a lot of years and I've seen this whole thing works. We always know who is in line for these federal appointments locally and we know what it takes to get serious consideration for these positions. Politics often play a much bigger part than qualifications. Of course we see that in Supreme Court nominations as well, but with all the vetting we're far less likely to get incompetent boobs in those positions than we are in Magistrate and District Court positions.
I do not see the need to raise federal judges salaries across the board such that they compete with the highest paying private attorney jobs. There are plenty of highly competent attorneys and state judges who would be more than happy to fill these jobs at the current rates of pay. These positions should pay more in areas with much higher than average costs of living. But on the whole federal judges shouldn't be making more money than Congressmen and Senators, especially the lower level federal judges.
Keep in mind that there are a lot of federal judges. If we raise salaries for Supreme Court Justices, the appellate judges in the various circuits will all want raises. If we raise their salaries, the District Court judges and Magistrates will all want raises. If we raise their salaries all the special federal judges will want raises, and then all the federal attorneys will want raises, and on and on and on. These judges are public servants, well paid public servants at that. If they just have to earn more money, they need to move on to the private sector and we'll replace them with people with more of a sense of civic duty. If we try to raise their salaries so they can keep up with the Joneses, there will never be an end to that.
Now if you want to talk about raising salaries for prosecutors and public defenders in my state such that starting pay is better than the mid thirties and experienced attorneys are making better than somewhere in the forties, as is the case now, I'd be all ears. Federal prosecutors and public defenders do better on average than state public defenders, but still incomes are so low that most people in these positions are barely scraping by. Even if federal judges aren't making as much as the top ten percent of private attorneys, they do at least make more than enough to live comfortably, and their decent salaries are complimented with nice benefits and nice retirement packages. I can't feel that sorry for them.