Legal News

Reuse Those Gavels and Robes, Federal Judges

By Ashby Jones

So if the federal government shuts down, what’s likely to happen to the federal judiciary?

It’s unlikely that federal judges will be told to pick up their gavels and go home to wait out the impasse. But according to this post over at the BLT blog, the federal judiciary is developing contingency plans in the event of a government shutdown next month.

In this memorandum, issued Wednesday by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts,  federal judges and staff are encouraged to limit non-salary spending to the essentials

James Duff, the director of the administrative office, said the "magnitude of the funding cuts" in a House spending bill, which passed in February, "could potentially result in the loss of a significant number of on-board court staff." The judiciary, he said, "will take all steps necessary to minimize adverse personnel actions."

The bill, which President Barack Obama has vowed to veto, reduces overall spending for the federal judiciary by $145 million below fiscal year 2010 and $200 million below the "level needed to maintain base operations and current on-board court staffing levels," the memo said.

"With all of this uncertainty and out of an abundance of caution, we are urging chief judges and court unit executives to institute immediately a hiring freeze for all but the most critical vacancies until a final FY 2011 spending bill is enacted," Duff said in the memo. "We also urge you to defer cash awards and discretionary step increases and to limit non-salary spending to essential expenditures only."

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on February 25, 2011 (boomark / email).