Recently retired from her post as Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals, Judith Kaye (Barnard BA ’58, NYU LLB ’62)will be joining Skadden as Of Counsel. The New York Law Journal reports that she describes the move as the beginning of “Chapter 3″ of her legal career.
Kaye was forced to retire at the end of December due to mandatory-retirement rules (she’s 70), after 25 years on the state’s highest court, the last 15 as Chief. Kaye championed a number of causes and is trying to figure out how to keep working on children’s program and diversity in the legal profession in her new role.
But her most famous fight was against the New York legislature on the issue of judicial pay. In April, she sued the legislature on behalf of her 1,250 colleagues on the bench. The suit sought a pay increase for trial judges from $136,700, the level at which pay had been stuck for 10 years, to $169,300, which would put state judges on par with federal district court judges – or slightly more than a first year at her new firm. No word yet on how that case will turn out for the judges, but at least Kaye is getting paid.
To provide a little more context, Kaye was making $156,000 pa. Skadden pays first years $160,000, plus in 2008 (as in 2007) the bonus was $35,000. The most-senior associates who are paid lockstep are class of 2001, for whom the salary was $265,000 and the bonus was $65,000. Despite the bad year, Skadden’s partners took home, on average, $2.06 million last year. Expect Kaye to earn in the ballpark of half that – we’re guessing an even $1 million pa.
Anyone care to justify the market discrepancy?
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