Biography & Early Wealth Journey

Altogether, Supreme Court justices took home about $800,000 in book royalties and advances over the course of last year, meaning that well over half that total was earned by Justice Barrett herself.

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Six figure publishing advances are nothing to sneeze at, but these kinds of figures are especially impressive compared to the actual Supreme Court salaries, which this year are at $274,200, with Chief Justice John Roberts earning $286,700.

Primary Income Streams & Multi-Million Contracts

Before Justice Barrett's $2 million advance, the other two biggest publishing advances made to Supreme Court justices were made to Justices Sotomayor and Clarence Thomas – both of whom got more than $1 million each for their personal memoirs. Sotomayor has been a particularly prolific author during her time on the bench, and she's disclosed more than $3 million in advances and royalties over the course of her career. And in 2019, Gorsuch reported $650,000 in earnings from his book "A Republic, If You Can Keep It."

As for Barrett, she is reportedly working on a book on the subject of separating one's personal feelings from one's legal decisions while on the highest court of the land.