Northern District of Illinois announces application process for Magistrate vacancy

The United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois is accepting applications for a full-time United States Magistrate Judge position in the Eastern Division, "with the Everett McKinley Dirksen United States Courthouse at Chicago, Illinois as the duty station."

Chances are pretty good that the successful applicant for the position would already know where the "duty station" is... but I suppose the Court did not wish to automatically exclude law professors from the process.

Of course, even if law professors were interested in getting a real job (as opposed to the adjuncts who do work all day in the real world and then teach nights and weekends, trying to provide law students with practical instruction they would never otherwise get), the academics would likely stumble on the first of the following requirements of the magistrate position:

1. be, and have been for at least five years, a member in good standing of the bar of the highest court of a State, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, or the Virgin Islands of the United States, and have been engaged in the active practice of law for a period of at least five years;
2. be competent to perform all of the duties of the office; be of good moral character, emotionally stable and mature; be committed to equal justice under the law; be in good health; be patient and courteous; and be capable of deliberation and decisiveness;
3. be less than seventy years of age; and
4. not be related to a judge of the district court.

The pay is good -- the present annual salary for a United States Magistrate Judge is $205,528 -- and the retirement plan is even better: A magistrate who reitres after turning 65 and serving 14 years in the position, whether continuously or not, gets an annuity equal to the salary being received at the time the United States Magistrate Judge leaves office.

Further details, and the application itself, are available at this page of the Northern District's website.

Filling this U.S. Magistrate Judge position is contingent upon approval of the Seventh Circuit Judicial Council and of the Judicial Conference Committee on the Administration of the Magistrate Judges System. The candidate selected will be appointed only upon the successful completion of a Federal Bureau Investigation and Internal Revenue Service background check.

The application deadline for this vacancy is 5:00 p.m. on November 23, 2022.