Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts‘s spouse, Jane Roberts, was paid more than $10 million by top law firms for recruitment work, with at least one of those firms arguing a case before the high court.
The staggering figure comes from records in a whistleblower complaint filed by a former colleague of Jane Roberts, who claims that as a spouse of the top judge on the Supreme Court, the high dollar amount she earns from law firms who practice before the court should be scrutinized.
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A comprehensive internal spreadsheet compiled by the legal recruiting firm Major, Lindsey & Africa shows that Jane Roberts’s “attributed revenue” amounted to $13,309,433 between 2007 and 2014. Her share of that revenue, described by the spreadsheet as payments for “commissions,” adds up to $10,323,842.70, according to documents obtained by Insider.
Whistleblower Kendal B. Price, who worked alongside Jane Roberts at the recruiting firm, told the outlet that while she was there, “I was discouraged from ever raising the issue.”
But Price contends, “When I found out that the spouse of the chief justice was soliciting business from law firms, I knew immediately that it was wrong.”
A memo written in support of Price’s complaint by Bennett Gershman, professor at the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University who has authored books on legal ethics, cited at least one case in which a firm Jane Roberts did recruitment for eventually argued before the Supreme Court.
That case was Dutra Group v. Batterton, in which the Supreme Court overturned a decision that found a WilmerHale client potentially liable for punitive damages. Price alleges that Jane Roberts received $350,000 for Salazar’s placement at WilmerHale.
John Roberts was in the majority over the decision made in favor of the WilmerHale client. However, there is no evidence that the lawyers Jane Roberts placed have argued before the Supreme Court, as opposed to the firms that hire them.
The Insider report noted that Jane Roberts’s “access to people is heavily influenced by her last name,” citing a legal consultant previously interviewed by Politico.
Mark Jungers, another one of Jane Roberts’s former colleagues, spoke to Insider and gave positive commendations about her work. Jungers stressed that “Jane was always very sensitive to the privacy of her family, and when she could drop the name or make certain calls, she didn’t.”
Lawmakers including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) responded to the Insider report on Twitter, writing, “This seems bad.”
Reports of Jane Roberts’s earnings come alongside a string of ethics concerns raised by mostly Democratic lawmakers after the revelation of Justice Clarence Thomas’s undisclosed trips paid by a GOP megadonor, his failure to report a transaction with that donor, and a report this week that Justice Neil Gorsuch did not reveal the CEO of a major law firm bought his property days after his 2017 confirmation.
All of the revelations related to ethics concerns in the past month have surrounded Republican-appointed members of the high court.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin previously asked John Roberts to testify about ethics on the Supreme Court in light of the revelations about Thomas, though the chief justice declined that invitation with a letter signed by all nine justices, highlighting the “importance of preserving judicial independence” while noting testimony from chief justices “is exceedingly rare.”
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“The Justices, like other federal judges, consult a wide variety of authorities to address specific ethical issues. They may turn to judicial opinions, treatises, scholarly articles, disciplinary decisions, and the historical practice of the Court and the federal judiciary. They may also seek advice from the Court’s Legal Office and from their colleagues,” the chief justice wrote in part of his response to Durbin.
Price previously made her complaint over Jane Roberts’s work in a letter sent to Congress and the Justice Department in January.
