Baton Rouge, La. (12/9/2025) – A state government panel set up to evaluate judges’ pay recommends the Louisiana Legislature raise state judicial salaries — again.
Louisiana’s Judicial Compensation Commission voted Monday to back a plan that would raise pay next year for district court judges by $25,414, appellate judges by $29,111 and state Supreme Court justices by $27,409. It also suggested smaller raises in 2027, 2028 and 2029, — ranging from $3,800 to $6,000 annually.
The three judges who sit on the state Board of Tax Appeal, which meets between five and six days per month, would also see a pay hike of $35,800 in 2026 and subsequent salary increases of a little over $1,000 each year the next three years, under the commission’s recommendations.
The panel followed a salary schedule created by economist Loren Scott, a retired LSU professor who state judges have paid to evaluate whether their compensation is adequate. Scott told the commission the salary increases, while hefty, would keep pace with inflation and other rising expenses.
Louisiana trial court judges earn between $176,188 and $195,627, depending on whether they served at the district, appellate or Supreme Court level. Scott said the raises, which would run from 14% to 15.9% in the next year alone, would move the judges closer to the purchasing power they had in 1983.
State judges have seen some form of an annual pay increase going back to at least 2019, when the first of five straight years of 2.5% hikes took effect. Even when legislators rejected permanent pay raises for judges over the past two years, they found a workaround to provide the judges with essentially the same increase, albeit on a temporary basis, through pay stipends.
The commission’s newly adopted pay scales for the judges are only suggestions. Gov. Jeff Landry and Louisiana lawmakers ultimately have to weigh the higher salaries against other state expenses and decide whether to approve them.
Yet legislators rarely turn down the judiciary request for pay raises. A critical mass of lawmakers from both political parties in the Louisiana Legislature are attorneys who have to appear in those judges’ courtrooms for their day jobs.
Dynamics
The dynamic makes it awkward for lawmakers to reject judges’ requests for additional compensation.The legislature created the Judicial Compensation Commission, in part, to create a buffer between themselves and the judges to evaluate more independently what their pay should be.
The 15 commission members include legislators, judges, attorneys and at least five members of the general public who must not be attorneys or elected officials.
Some of those general public members have close ties to judges, however. For example, House Speaker Phillip DeVillier, R-Eunice, appointed Rebekah Cole, who is married to Supreme Court Justice Cade Cole, to one of the seats.
The question of what is appropriate judicial compensation has become a touchier issue in recent years. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Weimer has made it a personal mission to rein in spending on judges’ salaries and other personal perks, such as state per diem payments they receive for travel and meals.
“The pennies become dollars and the dollars become millions over a period of time,” Weimer told the commission Monday.
National Center for State Courts
A study by the National Center for State Courts concluded Louisiana’s district court judges had the 17th highest compensation in 2023 compared to their peers in other states. Salaries for most other positions in Louisiana often fall well below the national average.
But Scott and individual members of the judiciary have pushed back on the study’s conclusions. They said it doesn’t account for the financial perks judges receive in other states or the high rate at which judges are asked to pay into their retirement accounts.
“We are tens of thousands of dollars behind,” Supreme Court Associate Justice John Michael Guidry said in testimony before the commission.
Guidry and several other judges vehemently disagree with Weimer that judicial compensation needs to be curbed, so much so that the chief justice regularly gets outvoted by his colleagues when it comes to budgetary matters.
This year, Weimer tried a different tactic to get his message across to the compensation commission. He worked with his own economist to counter Scott’s arguments and analysis, but the person didn’t come to the hearing to testify with Weimer. The chief justice withheld the economist’s name, saying he feared they might face retaliation from judges.
Judicial compensation increases also affect far more than judges. A number of elected officials across the state, such as sheriffs and parish presidents, have their salaries tied to judiciary compensation in state law. When judges get a raise, many other public servants automatically see an increase in compensation as well, said former state Sen. Edwin Murray, D-New Orleans, who leads the commission.
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