Last year, the Supreme Court justices received free concert tickets, money tied to lucrative book deals, and supplemental income from teaching jobs, according to a Washington Examiner review of the high court’s 2025 financial disclosure reports released on Monday.
All but Justice Samuel Alito, who requested a deadline extension for the 15th consecutive year, filed their annual disclosures on time.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor accepted free concert tickets for herself and guests valued at $4,333 from Rimas Entertainment, the record label representing Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny.
Sources told Puerto Rican journalist Jay Fonseca last year that Sotomayor would be attending Bad Bunny’s sold-out summer concert series in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
“It’s an excellent initiative by both Bad Bunny and the company he runs with his business partners,” said a guest appearing on Fonseca’s podcast, according to an English translation. “I think that even if you aren’t a fan of Justice Sotomayor, it’s an excellent opportunity, an honor, and a privilege to have her attend a concert of that magnitude.”
The podcast guest celebrated Sotomayor’s Puerto Rican roots, praising that a figure of “national importance, regardless of what anyone says, decided to share her time here at a concert in Puerto Rico that many Puerto Ricans enjoy.”
Sotomayor’s attendance was not widely reported at the time in the U.S., nor did she publicly announce her appearance.
It is unclear why Sotomayor did not specify that the tickets, simply listed as a gift of Rimas Entertainment on her disclosure form, were to see Bad Bunny in concert. Sotomayor wrote in the disclosure’s appendix, “Rimas Entertainment is a record company, which provided tickets for a concert for me and guests while I was on a private trip to Puerto Rico in August 2025.”
In contrast, Sotomayor reported in an entry directly below the vague ticket listing that she was given $598 from the Coterie Theater in Kansas City, Missouri, and explicitly stated in the gift’s description that the travel funds were so that Sotomayor could attend the opening night of Just Ask! Be Different, Be Brave, Be You, the musical adaptation of her children’s book.
Bad Bunny, a vocal critic of President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, generated controversy in the lead-up to his Spanish-only performance at the Super Bowl halftime show this year. Conservatives argued that Bad Bunny intended to stir anti-American sentiments over the Trump administration’s mass deportation operations, while supporters saw Bad Bunny’s appearance as a form of “resistance to U.S. imperialism.”
Ketanji Brown Jackson’s $1.18 million book advance
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson received a $1.18 million book advance from Penguin Random House, paid through KayPac LLC, a private company created by her husband, Dr. Patrick Jackson.
District of Columbia business registration records list Jackson as the “beneficial owner” of KayPac, which is used to manage the justice’s book-derived payments.
Dr. Patrick Jackson, a prominent gastrointestinal surgeon at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, also operates a side business as a medical-legal consultant offering expert witness testimony in court proceedings for a fee. It is unknown whether KayPac was established to process earnings from his expert-witness services.
Ketanji Brown Jackson made more than $2 million in 2024 from Penguin Random House book advances paid through KayPac.
Signing bonuses for a book contract are typically paid in installments, rather than in one lump sum upfront. Jackson’s memoir, Lovely One, was published by Penguin Random House in 2024 and became a New York Times bestseller.
Jackson surpassed Sotomayor as the most-compensated author of all the current justices who have written books, with 2025’s million-dollar haul bringing her overall book payments to a total of $4.14 million, compared to Sotomayor’s $4.06 million.
The only gift that Jackson reported receiving was a painting of herself valued at $2,500.
Paid teaching gigs and undisclosed gifts
Five justices supplemented their income through teaching.
Chief Justice John Roberts took home $25,000 in pay for teaching at New England Law. Associate Justices Clarence Thomas earned $18,000 teaching at Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law, Neil Gorsuch made about $30,000 teaching a summer abroad program in Prague for George Mason University. Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett both taught at the University of Notre Dame’s Law School, each earning $33,285. None of the justices exceeded the statutory maximum of $33,855 for income earned from outside employment.
Several justices reportedly failed to disclose gifts and awards given to them in 2025.
Among them, Sotomayor received the 2025 Brandeis Medal from the University of Louisville, according to a copy of the vendor receipt obtained by Louisville Public Media, which shows the award was worth $822. She also received the Powell Distinguished Leadership Award from the City University of New York, with the plaque and medallion costing $344, and the Tort Trial and Insurance Practice Section’s Lifetime Liberty Achievement Award, a $359 glass trophy, donors told Fix the Court.
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Gorsuch reportedly received but did not report a wooden bowl priced at $450 from the Yakima Valley Museum to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.
Jackson was bestowed the Spirit of America Award by the National Council for the Social Studies, but reportedly did not disclose the $193 medal.
