Do they? Appellate attorneys usually work for big law firms. Roberts worked for Hogan & Hartson. Made partner. H&H is a great firm, but partners aren’t making a killing. $1 million/year or so.
Good amount of money, but hardly top dollar, particularly in the legal profession.
The guys making top dollar are the plaintiffs attorneys (can sometimes bring in well over $50 or $100m in a year; see Joe Jamail, a billionaire), celebrity attorneys, sports agents (though not technically a legal profession), etc.
You want to see a big paycut, take a look at John Edwards. Successful trial lawyer —> politics.
Substitute “once you have been an active, experienced trial lawyer” for “judge,” and the difference is only one of degree, not of kind.
Connected people enjoy advantages, potentially? Yep, always been true.
If a particular sitting judge has a specific type of personal, financial, familial relationship with an ex-judge-now-counsel-for-a-party lawyer, he can/must recuse himself as provided in the judicial ethics rules. But the relationship of “used to work with him” does not, it is pretty clear under the rules, rise to that level (this happens the other way around, you realize – sitting judges routinely encounter counsel in their courtroom who are their former law firm partners, etc., and do not have to automatically recuse themselves then, either).
to be a judge, you must have a law degree. There are no Justices of the Peace.
there are a few positions for which judges are appointed (Constitutional Court, Supreme Court), but it’s easier to get them for someone who’s already a judge.
the usual process is, you get a law degree, then you take an oposición. An oposición is any competitive exam conducted by any level of government in order to fill positions; you have to pass it on two levels: you must perform at a minimum level, and then you must be among the N best of those who passed, where N is the amount of open positions.
Passing an oposición to be a judge does not immediately make you a judge: it gets you a position in a one-year course, then (if you pass the course) an apprenticeship to a judge, then (if you pass the apprenticeship) you finally can be assigned a bench. Your first bench is likely to be in the boondocks and not necessarily in a field you’re interested in: passing further oposiciones and concursos internos (like oposiciones but without an exam, these are all about CV) lets you move to different positions if you want to.
These are considered the second-hardest oposiciones in the country: number one is Notary Public, a position which recently got merged with Property Registrar (this used to be number four, with three going to Fiscales, Prosecutors). Notarios and Fiscales (and, formerly, Registradores) must hold law degrees and have coursework/apprenticeship processes similar to those of judges.
And pretty much the only ways you stop being a judge are retirement or being debarred… no conflict of interest there.
In the UK you have to have Latin. You have to have the Latin for the judging. If you hadn’t the Latin, you’d had it as far as judging was concerned. You need it to get through the rigorous judging exams. They’re very rigorous indeed. They’re noted for their rigor. People come staggering out from the exams saying, “My God, what rigorous exams!” This is in stark contrast to the mining exams…
Funny how our society loves to take shots at lawyers for being weaselly sticky-fingers yet expects judges to be near-paragons of virtue considering how most judges are lawyers first, isn’t it?