Indeed. It's actually quite amazing how impressive our federal judiciary is (two notable examples in Chicago: Posner [1] and Easterbrook). Unfortunately, the judiciary has faced a fairly serious crisis in funding over the last two decades [2]. The Chief Justice spoke about this in his year end report in 2010 [3]. It's one of the largest unsung problem in the U.S. today and it makes me worry about the calibre of judges we will end up with a few decades down the road. The math is depressingly straightforward: judges get paid a lot less, law school costs a lot more, and an entire branch of government is at risk for decay.

[1] http://www.projectposner.org/

[2] http://www.uscourts.gov/JudgesAndJudgeships/JudicialCompensa...

[3] http://www.supremecourt.gov/publicinfo/year-end/2010year-end...