Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Nathan Hecht urged lawmakers to pass legislation increasing judicial pay, bolstering the data collection and case management capabilities of the third branch of government and creating business courts in his biennial state of the judiciary address Wednesday.
During the wide-ranging, 37-minute speech to a full house at the Texas Supreme Court, Hecht also made the argument that the proven ability of the judiciary to nimbly respond to the challenges of adjudicating cases during the pandemic should increase the appetite to implement more needed changes to how courts function.
“We have long known our justice system ill fits present realities,” he said. “The public complains that going to court takes too long and costs too much. Our response has been slow and muted. … If the justice system were a business, and its customers had any choice, it would be in bankruptcy.”
Noting that Zoom and electronic appearances won’t work for every proceeding, particularly jury trials, he said the technology has increased participation rates in child custody and traffic cases, which flipped from about an 80 percent no-show rate to an 80 percent appearance rate during the pandemic. The efficiencies of electronic participation, he said, “clearly outweigh the drawbacks.”
“A legal system that would knowingly structure proceedings to make participation impossible for those most affected should be ashamed of itself — and should change,” he said.
Turning to legislation that’s been proposed by lawmakers this session, Chief Justice Hecht championed Senate Bill 1 and House Bill 1, the general appropriation bills that would increase funding to allow for the collection of more specific and detailed data by the Office of Court Administration and courts across the state.
Analyzing that kind of data, which is not currently collected, would allow court administrators to suss out what’s working and what’s not in court operations and increase productivity across the state’s 254 counties.
Echoing a refrain from state of the judiciary addresses he’s made in the past, the chief justice also urged lawmakers to increase judicial pay, noting it’s difficult to attract top-tier lawyers to the bench when there hasn’t been a pay raise for Texas judges since 2013 and cost-of-living increases are nonexistent.
Texas pays its judges less than Guam. Only West Virginia pays judges less than Texas.
Adjusted for inflation, he said judges in Texas currently make less than they did in 1981.
“The Judicial Compensation Commission, created by the Legislature to assess judicial pay, has recommended an 11 percent increase in the base salary each year of the next biennium,” he said, noting S.B. 802 and H.B. 2779 would institute a biennial cost-of-living increase “so that it would cease to be an issue every legislative session, just as Congress has done for federal judges.”
Arguably the most controversial statements made by Chief Justice Hecht during his address were comments supporting the creation of business courts, something lawmakers are currently considering, via S.B. 27 and H.B. 19, and also considered last session.
Increasing judicial compensation, he said, is “critical” to the business courts legislation.
If passed, the legislation would create a business court that has jurisdiction to hear certain disputes between businesses where the amount in controversy exceeds $10 million, including breach of duty cases, derivative actions and securities actions.
“The proposal is not without controversy here, though the Texas Judicial Council has endorsed a pilot project,” he said. “I believe business courts would benefit the Texas justice system, and I support their creation.”