On raising the mandatory retirement age for state court judges in Virginia

The General Assembly has passed legislation that would raise the retirement age for Virginia judges from 70 to 73. It applies to "justices of the Supreme Court of Virginia and judges of the Court of Appeals of Virginia effective July 1, 2015," and "those judges of the circuit, general district, and juvenile and domestic relations district courts who are elected or appointed to an original or subsequent term commencing on or after July 1, 2015."

In the past, I always wondered whether at the back of such legislation were old lawyers who wanted to finish their careers as judges, but I have not heard anyone say that in a while.

Locally, the federal Judges Dalton, Widener, Turk, Williams, and Michael all kept working long past the age of 73, and the current order for the division of cases in W.D. Va. shows that the three W.D. Va. judges over the age of 73 (who shall remain nameless) are still taking all the cases from the Abingdon, Big Stone Gap, Lynchburg, and Danville divisions, and some of the Roanoke and Charlottesville cases.