No judge expects to keep pace with that, but judges do have a right to expect pay commensurate with colleagues in other states doing similar work. Unless judicial salaries are kept current, Delaware might have difficulty attracting to the bench the kind of top legal practitioners who now serve. A special committee of the Delaware State Bar Association prepared an extensive study of judges' compensation in key commercial jurisdictions throughout the nation. They presented their findings to the Delaware Compensation Commission. It's clear the commission understood the implications and provided significant increases.
Judicial salaries hinge on the pay for the chief justice.
Clearly, the commission recognized that a raise of that size would have been impossible politically. These new salaries will keep the Delaware judiciary from falling behind. But the General Assembly should consider a way to examine judicial salaries more frequently than every four years.