Lower salaries can serve a useful normative function by discouraging the completely self-interested utility-maximizers from accepting a role that demands they rize above their own narrow concerns, and adopt a dispassionate, all-encompassing view of society and the law. Do we really want someone to become or stay a judge just because it pays well?

We want someone who cares about the distinguished honor of being an Article III judge, of upholding the Constitution, and protecting the rights of vulnerable people from a tyranny of the majority. I doubt you’d see a progressive judge whining about being underpaid, because she would realize the importance of courts, of a living constitution, and of ensuring that each person has fair access to justice.

That is not to say Supreme Court judges are overpaid, just that focusing on salary comparisons without discussing benefits is misleading.

Doesn’t this all boil down to “compensating differentials”? Just as you have to pay someone more to drive a truck in Iraq than in Illinois, you have to pay someone doing a law partner’s sometimes unhappy job more than you do to pay someone to be a Supreme Court justice. My guess is that there are very, very few law partners who would turn down a Supreme Court appointment based on the money. Something — power, prestige, or the black robe — must be compensating them for the loss they suffer in wage terms. Just as the joys of being a law professor compensate us for not earning $250,000 a year as BIGLAW associates.