NVTC Titans Breakfast: Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia Warns Technology Business Community that Low Salaries Will Impact the Quality of Federal Judges
Justice Scalia Also Discusses Constitutional Interpretation and Other Vital Legal IssuesHERNDON, VA, Dec. 13, 2006 - At an exclusive appearance this morning before 640 technology business leaders at the Northern Virginia Technology Council's (NVTC) Titans Breakfast co-hosted by the NVTC General Counsel Committee, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia voiced his concerns about the impact of low-paying judicial salaries on the caliber of individuals sitting on the bench. He warned that "if you don't have good courts, you won't have good law and your businesses will suffer."
"Businessmen should be concerned [about low judicial salaries]," Scalia said. He believes that judicial salaries are about 40 percent lower in terms of today's dollars than when he first was appointed to the bench and, as a result, judges are increasingly leaving the federal bench to return to private practice. "Worse than that, more and more, we [the federal judicial system] cannot attract the really, bright successful lawyers," which adversely impacts the quality of judicial decisions, Scalia said.
Justice Scalia also spoke at length on his perspective on constitutional interpretation. He described his judicial philosophy as originalism which holds that, when interpreting the Constitution, it is essential to look at what the terms in question were understood to mean at the time they were enacted. Justice Scalia's response to detractors of originalism is that they have not been able to produce an alternative "coherent theory of interpreting the Constitution."
When asked why attorneys generally have a poor reputation today, Justice Scalia remarked that "the nature of the practice has changed a lot" and has moved from advising to litigating. Justice Scalia noted that "you like your family lawyer who writes your will. You like the lawyers who write a good contract for your company. The lawyer you hate is the lawyer who litigates against you." Today, the "average American's contact with lawyers likely is to be in litigation, which can be a gut-wrenching experience," he said. "I don't think the problem is the litigiousness of our people; I think the problem is the rules that govern litigation."
The speaker at NVTC's first Titans Breakfast of 2007 will be Jim O'Neill, President, Northrop Grumann Information Technology, on January 31 at the Hilton McLean. To learn more about upcoming Titans Breakfasts or other NVTC events, please visit www.nvtc.org
