Susan Larson Christensen, chief justice of the Iowa Supreme Court, gave the annual Condition of the Judiciary address in the Iowa State Capitol Jan. 15, 2025. (Photo by Robin Opsahl/Iowa Capital Dispatch)
Iowa Supreme Court Chief Justice Susan Christensen called Wednesday for a “modernization” of the state’s magistrate system, increasing state district court judge pay and addressing the lack of contract attorneys in the state as top goals for the 2025 legislative session.
During her Condition of the Judiciary address, Christensen said many of the goals she put forward during her 2024 address — like the 5% increase to judicial officers’ salaries — were delivered by lawmakers in the previous session. She thanked the Legislature and asked those gathered Wednesday to imagine “more than 400 men and women in black robes hooting and hollering.” But she said that even with this increase, Iowa judges and magistrates still ranked 41st in the nation for judicial pay.
When adjusted for inflation, Christensen said, district court judges are currently earning 16.5% less than they were 15 years ago, which she said contributed to applications for judgeship vacancies falling by 56% in the past 20 years.
To address the need for district court pay increases, she called for the implementation of “the Kansas plan,” modeled after a measure implemented by Kansas that went into effect Jan. 1, 2025. The proposal would set the salary for Iowa district court judges at 75% of a federal district court judge’s salary, and would determine salaries for other classes of judges as a percentage of state district court judge’s salary. The program would be phased in over four years.
The chief justice said Iowa district court judges earned 68% of federal district court judges’ salaries.
“I recognize this would represent a significant change in how judicial salaries are determined,” Christensen said. “But, like my dad used to say, ‘You get what you pay for.’ If judicial salaries remain uncompetitive, we risk attracting a pool of applicants who may not have the right qualifications or proper temperament to serve effectively. … While our judiciary is strong today, we cannot afford to let these challenges become tomorrow’s reality.”
Consolidation, restructuring of magistrate system
Christensen said there are also areas where the judicial branch can become more efficient, calling for significant changes to the state’s magistrate system. Magistrates are part-time judicial officials serving the county they reside in or a neighboring county. They preside over cases that include simple misdemeanors, evictions, small claims as well as county and municipal infractions — and have the authority to conduct preliminary hearings and issue search warrants.
These officials, who serve four-year terms after being appointed by county magistrate appointing commissions, serve vital roles in Iowa’s judicial system, Christensen said, but many magistrates, “through no fault of their own,” are not devoting as much time to their magistrate workload as intended by the law.
Iowa Code currently requires each of the state’s 99 counties have at least one magistrate. Christensen proposed the state reduce the number of magistrates required by Iowa law and allow some magistrates to serve multiple counties when needed, a change she said could save the state $2 million annually.
Christensen said there has been pushback on this proposal from within the judicial branch, with concerns about the change’s impacts on rural communities. She argued that this effort does not mean she believes Iowa doesn’t need magistrates — “I don’t want to read that in the paper” — but that she believes the change will help ensure the state uses its resources most effectively.
She said the judicial branch would take the same approach to the magistrate system as it did with changes made to the judicial clerk system, pointing to the “Workshare” program that allowed for the redistribution of work across an entire judicial district based on available staffing and existing workloads. She said the program helped rural counties play a more significant role in judicial districts by taking up needed work.
“I am confident the modernization of our magistrate system has the potential to be just as successful,” she said. “Much like the Workshare program for clerks, this approach ensures magistrates in rural counties stay relevant by extending their service beyond their home county’s borders. If one magistrate can serve multiple counties, that magistrate is going to hail from a rural county like Ringgold, Palo Alto or Audubon.”
Contract attorneys’ pay increase
There was another compensation area Christensen asked Iowa lawmakers to focus on in 2025: the pay for contract attorneys. The chief justice said she has repeatedly brought up the need to increase pay for attorneys who provide indigent defense — and specifically highlighted how a lack of available contract attorneys has put a strain on the state’s judicial system.
She said Iowa currently has roughly half the number of contract attorneys compared to a decade ago. As the U.S. and Iowa constitutions guarantee a criminal defendant’s right to counsel, not having attorneys in these cases lead to missed deadlines and a defendant getting to avoid prosecution entirely. She said the lack of contract attorneys not only causes major problems for criminal defendants, but also for the children and families going through the juvenile court system.
“While their numbers may not be as high as criminal defendants requiring court-appointed counsel, their cases are often the most resource intensive,” Christensen said. “Every child in a child welfare or delinquency proceeding is entitled to court-appointed counsel. So is every parent or guardian of a child within the child welfare system if they are unable to afford private counsel. And unlike criminal proceedings, these cases are rarely one and done. Juvenile cases often span months or even years and require frequent hearings, demanding significant judicial resources. Without a healthy stable of contract attorneys, we cannot adequately protect the fundamental rights, well-being and safety of our most vulnerable population.”
Christensen said she is “committed to talking about this issue until it is adequately addressed” in increasing pay for these attorneys. She thanked contract attorneys currently working in Iowa for their work, where they often take on increasing workloads despite stagnant pay.
“We need to throw these attorneys a life ring,” Christensen said. “Just like the judicial pay issue, our contract attorneys are paid at a lower rate in comparison to every other state that touches Iowa. I know our state public defender is doing what he can to make the work as attractive as possible. And our chief judges across the state are imploring Iowa attorneys to sign up for court-appointed work with little success because, we are told, attorneys won’t work at our low state rate when they have clients who can pay a competitive hourly rate.”