Western District of NY could get a fifth federal judge

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer on Friday announced Senate passage of the Judicial Understaffing Delays Getting Emergencies Solved (JUDGES) Act, to address shortages and case backlogs by increasing the number of federal district judges.

The increases would add five federal district judges in New York, including one in the Western District.

“Our federal courts in New York and across America simply can’t keep up with the immense workload. As our country has kept growing and growing, our federal courts sadly have not kept pace, with no significant increase in judges since 1991,” Schumer said in a news release.

There has not been a significant increase in the number of federal judges since 1991 when the courts had about 280,000 pending cases across the country. In March 2023 there were nearly 690,000 pending cases in federal district courts across the country.

The shortage has been felt especially hard in the Western District of New York, which has a median wait time of nearly 17 months. At the end of 2023, the Western District had 3,565 pending cases for its four judges. During 2023, 2,885 new cases were filed.

The JUDGES Act would create 66 new federal district court judgeships across the country. In addition to the Western District adding one judge, the Eastern and Southern districts would add two each.