the fact that most trips come in under $2000 is still no reason to include reimbursement for things that aren't even a benefit to the recipient (travel and lodging).
Comment By ziemer
Friday, February 29, 2008 at 8:29 AM
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Amendment limits ability to get federal judges as speakers
One of Wisconsin’s U.S. senators, Russell Feingold, is engaged in a mission that borders on demagoguery. Feingold has managed to amend the long-overdue pay raise for federal judges, to include a prohibition on federal judges receiving more than $2,000 in compensation or reimbursement for speaking or attending educational programs, unless it is sponsored by the federal or state government, or a bar association (geographic or subject matter based).
Aimed at eliminating “junkets” the low cutoff has the practical effect of preventing judges from attending educational programs outside of a small geographic area.
Doug Lederman’s article on the Inside Higher Ed Web site shows the type of problems this would create:
“‘We brought Justice [Antonin] Scalia to our campus, and the airfare alone for two roundtrip, first class tickets [for the justice and his wife] was almost $5,000,’ said Thomas Cleary, director of community and government relations at the University of San Diego. With a $2,000 cap per trip, San Diego would ‘probably be unable to get him to come out again,’ and the $20,000 annual cap per judge — which was raised from $5,000 in an earlier version of Feingold’s amendment — would greatly intensify competition among law schools to get in-demand judges in front of their students, he said.”
The measure appears to be the work of a George Soros-financed organization called the Community Rights Counsel.
It has been widely criticized by organizations that would be adversely affected, and recently, law schools are joining the chorus in condemning this amendment. The Judicial Conference of the United States has also condemned the amendment.
As attorneys practicing in the same state that Sen. Feingold represents, with an interest in a federal judiciary that is free to pursue continuing education, we too should be letting him know that we disapprove of this amendment, and intend to express our disapproval with our votes and campaign contributions.
6 Comments on This Article
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Dear Mr. Zeimer,
Thank you for responding to my comment. The only trial lawyer seminars for judges that I know of are run by a non-profit organization called Institute for Law and Economics Policy (ILEP). A conservative newspaper in DC called the Washington Examiner did an extensive series recently (http://www.examiner.com/lawyers/ilep/) about ILEP's effort to use trips for judges to advance the interests of plaintiffs in security fraud, class action cases. ILEP's not a bar association -- their trips should be banned by Senator Feingold's Amendment. On the gift issue, I'd make a couple of points. First, my organization has reviewed 14 years worth of financial disclosure forms filed by federal judges and recorded over 10,000 reimbursed trips for judges. The vast majority of those trips involve reimbursement for expenses totaling less than $2,000. Most of the trips taken by judges -- short trips to law schools to give speeches or to judge moot courts -- should not be affected at all. Second, the LA Times and other media outlets have documented some eyebrow raising gifts to judges, including a $19,000 Gutenburg Bible given to Justice Thomas by a man who sat on a board of a non-profit that regularly filed Supreme Court briefs, http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1231-04.htm. My organization's focus is and has always been on junkets, not gifts, but I think the gift limits in Senator Feingold's amendment are a good faith effort to address the problem of excessive gifts without unduly limiting the freedom of judges to accept expenses as part of a teaching or speaking opportunity.
Comment By Doug Kendall Thursday, February 28, 2008 at 1:34 PM |
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Mr. Kendall:
Actually, seminars funded by plaintiffs' bar groups such as would be exempt, because they would fit into the subect matter bar association exemption. The $2,000 limit is absurd when one considers the cost of air fare and lodging in larger cities. Air fare provides absolutely no benefit to the judge, and neither does lodging, even if in a very nice hotel (some judges like to stay in hotels i'm sure, but you know what i mean). Yet, these two costs alone would make many perfectly legitimate, educational functions out-of-bounds. The reality is that a law firm on the west coast can easily drop $2,000 to bring a second-year law student from the east coast for an interview. To suggest that our federal judges can be bought for the cost of accomodations that a lowly 2L takes for granted is exactly what I called it -- demogoguery. Comment By ziemer Thursday, February 28, 2008 at 10:09 AM |
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"The reality is that Senator Feingold junkets/gift ban Amendment responds to a decade of harsh criticizm of trips funded by corporations and other interested parties ..."
The reported scope of the proposed legislation goes well beyond that. What is the ethical problem with Justice Scalia doing "some freebie for some law school" (as Mr. Zales put it)? Comment By Terrence Berres Thursday, February 28, 2008 at 9:01 AM |
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In wrongly accusing Senator Feingold of conduct bordering on demogoguery, Mr. Zeimer engages in some demogoguery of his own, suggesting that Senator Feingold's efforts to ban junkets and limit gifts for judges, as part of legislation that would give judges a very generous pay raise, is part of some grand conspiracy led by George Soros and directed by my organization, Community Rights Counsel.
The reality is that Senator Feingold junkets/gift ban Amendment responds to a decade of harsh criticizm of trips funded by corporations and other interested parties by: Current and former federal judges: For example, Abner Mikva, former chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, wrote that judicial integrity “becomes meaningless when private interests are allowed to wine and dine judges at fancy resorts under the pretext of ‘educating’ them.” When Judge Joel Flaum, a Reagan appointee, recently stepped down as chief judge of the federal appeals court for the Seventh Circuit, he warned his colleagues that these private expense-paid seminars have undermined the public’s perception of judicial integrity and contributed to strained relations with the Congress. Legal ethics experts: According to Steven Lubet of Northwestern University School of Law, many of the junkets Senator Feingold's amendment would ban “are thinly cloaked efforts at indoctrination, and judges should not go to them.” Stephen Gillers, Vice Dean of New York School of Law, stresses that the impartiality of judges can “reasonably be questioned” when they receive free trips to seminars funded by corporations or groups that litigate in federal courts. Editorial boards: Dozens of major papers have condemned these junkets, including USA Today, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and, in this state, the Milwalkee Journal Sentinal and the Tomah Journal. As the Post concluded, “when judges take educational vacations on the dime of private groups, they do so at the expense of the judiciary's reputation for impartiality, even if not impartiality itself.” While most of these trips are funded by corporations, this is an ethics issue not a left-right issue. It’s an ethics issue. Trial lawyers offer pro-plaintiff seminars, while pro-business libertarian groups provide junkets that push an anti-environmental agenda. Both are banned by Senator's Feingold's Amendments. The fact that Senator Feingold's amendment is opposed by the organizations that provide gifts to federal judges and the judges who enjoy these trips is not a particularly persuasive argument against these rules. The reality is that the need for a junkets ban is exceedingly well documented and the limits provided for other gifts ($2,000 per trip/$20,000 per year) are quite generous. I strongly support a pay raise for judges. But Senator Feingold is surely correct in thinking that legislation that would give our federal judges a very large judges' a massive pay raise (approximately $60,000 a year) is the perfect place to address an ethical issue that has stained the reputation of the federal judiciary for more than a decade. Comment By Doug Kendall Wednesday, February 27, 2008 at 4:16 PM |
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Given what they do, federal judges are vastly overpaid. Free staffs, overhead, parking, insurance, million dollar chambers, free health care, the best security in the world and other "free" benefits, federal judges receive about $400,000 a year worth of compensation and benefits that they would have to pay for if they were in the private practice. So good for Sen. Feingold.
As for the junkets issue, I could care less if Antonin Scalia can't do some freebie for some law school. When he came to Marquette Law School he spoke to a limited audience and the school grounds were overrun by police on horseback videotaping lawyers and students protesting his visit. It reminded me of a police state. Who knows what that cost the taxpayers. Federal judges can write articles if they want to get their message out or pay for these trips themselves. Sen. Feingold's solution may seem drastic, but who is offering any other solutions? Comment By Nick Zales Tuesday, February 26, 2008 at 9:19 PM |
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