Sotomayor: ‘Do As I Say, Not As I Do’

How would you like a free butler, maid, chef and chauffeur? Try that and the Department of Labor will sue you for violating the minimum wage, overtime and record-keeping requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act — unless you are Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

That’s right. Since 2010, she has hired unpaid interns as her servants. No other justice does this.

Justice Sotomayor’s job description, posted on a Latino Facebook page and other places, tells us that applicants do not need a law degree, but “a driver’s license is a must” because the intern’s duties will include running “errands outside of the Courthouse.” The intern will prepare “lunch and snacks for the Justice,” photocopy, and answer the phone. The intern is responsible for his own living arrangements and transportation. She pays them nothing.

Whether Sonia Sotomayor is abusing her position as a justice by leveraging that appointment to secure free butlers is an important question of judicial ethics. A more prosaic question is whether she is violating U.S. labor laws, including the requirements of a minimum wage. It turns out that the answer is yes.

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