---
title: "Supreme Court disclosures show book deals padding the justices' pay"
description: "The annual financial disclosures of the Supreme Court justices, released this week, show that book royalties, teaching and the occasional gift can add substantially to their government salaries, with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson reporting more than a million dollars from her memoir in a single year."
category: "U.S."
category_url: https://herald.la/category/us
author: "Elias Rosen"
published: 2026-07-09T01:54:00.000Z
updated: 2026-07-09T01:54:00.000Z
canonical: https://herald.la/article/supreme-court-disclosures-show-book-deals-padding-the-justices-pay
tags: ["supreme-court", "financial-disclosure", "ethics", "justices", "books"]
---
# Supreme Court disclosures show book deals padding the justices' pay

The annual financial disclosures of the Supreme Court justices, released this week, show that book royalties, teaching and the occasional gift can add substantially to their government salaries, with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson reporting more than a million dollars from her memoir in a single year.

The justices of the Supreme Court are paid a comfortable government salary, but their newly released financial disclosures show how much more some of them earn on the side, mostly by writing books.

## The salaries, and the extras

For context, the disclosures note the justices' base pay: about $320,700 for Chief Justice John Roberts and $306,600 for the associate justices in 2025, [NPR reported](https://www.kgou.org/politics-and-government/2026-07-08/supreme-court-financial-disclosures-reveal-how-their-books-add-to-their-income). The forms, required by federal law and made public this week, track income and gifts beyond that salary.

## Book money leads the way

By far the largest outside earnings came from books. Justice Jackson reported about $1.1 million in 2025 from her memoir, "Lovely One," pushing her total from the book to roughly $4 million since it was published in 2024, [NPR reported](https://www.kgou.org/politics-and-government/2026-07-08/supreme-court-financial-disclosures-reveal-how-their-books-add-to-their-income). Justice Amy Coney Barrett reported about $849,000 in book royalties, Justice Neil Gorsuch about $300,000 and Justice Sonia Sotomayor about $88,000. Justice Clarence Thomas reported no book income for the year, though he has earned from a memoir in the past. Several justices reported no book earnings at all.

## Teaching, gifts and travel

Beyond books, several justices earned money teaching at law schools, and some reported gifts and reimbursed travel. Justice Jackson disclosed a painting valued at $2,500 for her chambers, and Justice Sotomayor reported concert tickets worth about $4,333 received during a trip to Puerto Rico, [NPR reported](https://www.kgou.org/politics-and-government/2026-07-08/supreme-court-financial-disclosures-reveal-how-their-books-add-to-their-income). Chief Justice Roberts reported no gifts or reimbursed travel.

## The ethics backdrop

The disclosures land in the middle of a continuing debate over Supreme Court ethics. After reporting revealed undisclosed gifts and luxury travel accepted by some justices, the court in November 2023 adopted its first written code of conduct, [NPR reported](https://www.npr.org/2023/11/13/1212708142/supreme-court-ethics-code). Critics have noted that the code lacks an enforcement mechanism, unlike the rules that bind lower-court judges. The annual disclosures are one of the few formal windows the public has into the justices' outside finances.

## A familiar wait

As in past years, not every report was ready. Justice Samuel Alito again requested an extension to file his disclosure, continuing a pattern he has followed for years, [NPR reported](https://www.kgou.org/politics-and-government/2026-07-08/supreme-court-financial-disclosures-reveal-how-their-books-add-to-their-income). His filing was still pending.

None of the reported income or gifts is inherently improper; federal law permits justices to earn royalties and accept certain gifts, within limits, so long as they disclose them. What the filings offer is a measure of transparency, a yearly accounting of how the nine most powerful judges in the country supplement their pay, and from whom.