We should be looking for ways to encourage judges to take senior status. I think maintaining their stature is important. If stature would have been maintained, maybe I would have stayed. I don’t know.
— Former Third Circuit Judge Thomas I. Vanaskie, who briefly took senior status before leaving the bench entirely in 2019, commenting on one of the ways to sweeten the pot for federal judges who are interested in senior status but wind up not taking it. Vanaskie said that allowing senior status judges to participate in en banc rehearings would be a “tremendous inducement” for judges to give up their active status on the bench.
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.