Courts in rural counties need more resources
It is good to be a judge.
At least if you are a judge in Waukesha County where there are 12 judges sharing the workload and who are able to specialize in their particular areas of the law.
In a January 10 piece, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel political columnist Daniel Bice, wrote about Waukesha Circuit Court Judge Brad Schimel. Schimel is a conservative candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, having previously served a term as the state attorney general before losing his reelection bid in 2018.
Bice quotes Schimel’s comments to a conservative online news organization and elsewhere. 'The circuit judge gig is nice,' Schimel told DrydenWire, a conservative online news outlet for northwest Wisconsin, in February 2024. 'You know we have a private bathroom. … Seriously, it's under Supreme Court rules. We have to have a private bathroom. I think that's crazy. I'm not giving it up.”
The piece goes on to quote Schimel about having ample free time as a judge to do things like participate in shooting leagues and be part of a band.
The journalist quotes Schimel about the benefits of being a judge in Waukesha County.
“You set your own hours,' Schimel said. 'I set the hours. Certainly, I've got to get my cases done, but I can decide — you know what? — if I want to do golf on Thursday afternoon, I can do that.”
It is great for Schimel that he has an enviable work-life balance with ample free time to pursue personal interests. This is a goal that is shared, and often unattainable, by many in the workforce whether they are on the factory floor or a c-suite executive.
For fiscal conservatives, the takeaway from the column isn’t so much that Schimel has a sweet gig, but that if he has so much free time on his hands that there are too many judges in Waukesha County.
Circuit court judges are paid by the state government, out of state tax dollars. If there is not enough work to keep their judges busy, the state should reallocate those resources to other parts of the state, particularly in the northern tier of counties.
Wisconsin has 26 counties, including Taylor County, with only one judge, and there are six counties who don’t even have that much, and instead they share their judges with a neighboring county.
High workloads and long hours are normal for these judges who don’t have the luxury of specializing in the types of cases they hear, but instead must be ready to switch from sexual assault trials, to traffic court, to family law, to juvenile court and civil lawsuits sometimes all within the same day. This heavy workload and full court schedules are a contributing factor to delays in cases and the burnout endemic among judges. Neither of these is good for anyone.
Schimel is running for a seat on the state Supreme Court, a job that oversees the court system. Hopefully during the campaign trail he will realize that his ample free time as a Waukesha County judge is the exception rather than the rule and that if he is elected, will work to reallocate resources to bring relief to judges in more rural portions of the state.
