Independent New Hampshire Journalism · Northfield, NHAbout fifty circuit judges carry nine of every ten cases filed in this state. Here is the working life behind the robe: the courts, the powers, the pay, and the clock — the first entry in a GSR series on the people who do the law’s work.
Correction, Sept. 22, 2026, 9:00 p.m. EDT: The image that ran at the top of this article was an illustration of a judge on the bench, with a nameplate reading “Hon. Elizabeth V. Moseley.” No judge of that name appears anywhere in this article, the picture is not a photograph, and it carried no label saying so. The image has been removed. A new image was added on Sept. 29, 2026. No other part of this article has been changed.
Update, Sept. 22, 2026, 7:50 a.m. EDT: This article described Gordon J. MacDonald as the sitting chief justice. He resigned on September 15, 2026. The roster passage and time references now carry dates.
By 4:00 p.m. each afternoon, the Superior Court posts the next day’s docket, and somewhere in New Hampshire a judge learns what tomorrow holds: a felony arraignment at 9, a suppression motion at 10:30, a sentencing after lunch, a stack of written orders due before any of it starts. The state employs roughly 80 judges across three courts, and the job they hold looks almost nothing like the one on television. Most of it happens without a jury, much of it without an audience, and some of it on a video screen.
This piece opens a Granite State Report series on jobs in the law: who holds them, what they demand, what they pay, and where the pressure points sit. We start at the top of the courtroom because everything else in the system routes through it. Every number below comes from the state’s own statutes, the Judicial Branch’s published data, or a named report, and each one is logged in the fact-check table at the bottom.
Three courts, one commission
New Hampshire runs a unified court system with one appellate court, two trial courts, and an Administrative Office of the Courts behind them. The Supreme Court sits in Concord with a chief justice and four associates. The Superior Court operates 11 locations, one per county plus a second in Hillsborough, and it is the only courtroom in the state where a jury ever sits. The Circuit Court, created in 2011 by merging the old district, probate, and family courts, covers 10 circuits and 34 locations through three divisions: District, Family, and Probate.
The three-court map every case travels. Chart: Granite State Report. Data: N.H. Judicial Branch, courts.nh.gov.
Who ran it as of August 2026: Gordon J. MacDonald, chief justice from March 2021 until he resigned on September 15, 2026, with Senior Associate Justice Patrick Donovan, Justice Melissa Countway, Justice Bryan Gould, and Justice Daniel Will, who moved up from the Superior Court in March 2026. Countway is the first Circuit Court judge ever to join the state’s high court. Mark Howard is chief justice of the Superior Court. Ellen Christo has led the Circuit Court as its administrative judge since July 2024. Two seats turned over from September 2025 to March 2026, and a third opened in September 2026; the clock behind that churn is below.
Where the caseload lives
The Circuit Court is the workhorse, and the Judicial Branch says so itself: roughly 90 percent of everything filed in the state lands there. The 2022 weighted-caseload study by the National Center for State Courts put the Circuit Court’s volume at an average of 126,811 cases a year, against an average of 11,558 in the Superior Court. A circuit judge is the judge most Granite Staters will ever stand in front of.
The trial-court split. Chart: Granite State Report. Data: 2022 NCSC weighted-caseload study, as reported by NH Business Review and Business NH Magazine.
What does that volume look like on a Tuesday? In the District Division: misdemeanors and violations, probable-cause hearings on felonies headed upstairs, small claims, landlord-tenant writs, stalking petitions, appeals of denied gun permits, and civil suits up to $25,000 where the division shares jurisdiction with the Superior Court. In the Family Division: divorce, parenting plans, child support, domestic-violence protective orders, guardianships of minors, abuse and neglect, delinquency. In the Probate Division: wills and estates, trusts, adult guardianships, name changes, adoptions, and involuntary commitments. A person in danger can walk into a District or Family Division and ask a judge for an emergency protective order; the job is built around that kind of immediacy.
The corps carrying it, per the branch’s 2025 outside assessment: 49 full-time circuit judges, backed by four retired judges on senior active status, 15 judicial referees, and three part-time or per-diem judges. Circuit judges hold statewide commissions and go where the administrative judge assigns them, subject to a certification rule before a judge sits in a new division. A judge certified in family law can be trained and certified into probate; the robe travels.
Who hears nine of every ten cases. Chart: Granite State Report. Data: National Center for State Courts, N.H. Judicial Branch Assessment, June 30, 2025.
That same 2022 study concluded the state needed 18 more judges, 17 of them in the Circuit Court, plus 32 more clerical staff, just to match the workload. Three years later the strain was still visible: when the branch’s consultants counted in spring 2025, the Circuit Court was carrying 55 vacant positions, and its deputy administrative judge seat sat empty as of August 2026.
The Superior Court day: juries, felonies, and a 36-hour clock
The Superior Court is where the stakes concentrate. Felonies. Civil suits over $25,000, and any civil claim of $1,500 or more where a party demands a jury. Misdemeanor appeals up from the District Division. A specialized business and commercial docket has run since 2008, and a land-use review docket now sits beside it. The statute authorizes a chief justice, appointed to a five-year term, and 22 associate justices; the court’s summer 2026 assignment list names 21 sitting full-time, with retired judges on senior status and referees covering the gaps.
A superior judge’s calendar cycles through arraignments, bail hearings, motion days, final pretrials, jury draws, trial weeks, and sentencings, with civil scheduling and settlement work threaded between. Dockets post publicly by 4 p.m. the day before. Most proceedings are back in person, but the court still runs hearings over WebEx, the public can email the clerk for access to a remote hearing, and the criminal rules flatly prohibit recording the stream. The paper never stops: e-filing covers civil and criminal cases on the Tyler Odyssey platform, and since September 2025 every card transaction on the courts’ filing systems carries a 3 percent processing fee.
The felony intake. Chart: Granite State Report. Data: NCSC, N.H. Judicial Branch Assessment, June 30, 2025.
The most consequential change to the criminal side of the job in years arrived in 2025. House Bill 592, the bail overhaul Gov. Kelly Ayotte pushed through her first legislative session, passed the House 204-175 and the Senate 24-0, was signed March 25, 2025, and took effect September 21. For a list of serious charges, only a judge in the circuit or superior courts can now set bail; the person waits in custody, up to 36 hours, for that arraignment. The law also killed the magistrate program, three court-trained attorneys who had started work that January handling bail when judges were off the clock. Ayotte called the old system “the failed experiment of bail reform in our state.” The judiciary’s fiscal note warned lawmakers that a judge’s salary and benefits run about twice a magistrate’s, and that judges would absorb the hearings. The practical result for the bench: weekend and holiday arraignment coverage is a judge’s problem again, and the jail intake those judges see has grown. By April 2026, Attorney General John Formella reported the Coös County jail population up 50 percent year over year and Merrimack County’s up 30, figures the administration cites as success and opponents cite as the cost.
One Charles Doe Drive
The Supreme Court’s working day is a reading day. Since January 2004 nearly every timely appeal from a final trial-court decision is a mandatory appeal, accepted automatically; discretion survives mostly for administrative appeals, interlocutory questions, and original petitions like habeas corpus. Most cases are decided on the briefs, no argument at all. When the court does hear argument, it sits either as the full five or as a rotating three-justice panel called 3JX, a system running since 2000: five minutes per side, a unanimous result required, and an order that binds only that case. Full-court arguments get 30 minutes total, timed by lights at the podium; amber is the four-minute warning, red means sit down.
The appellate bench also carries duties no trial judge has. Under Part 2, Article 73-a of the state constitution, adopted in 1978, the chief justice is the administrative head of every court in New Hampshire, and the court’s procedural rules carry the force of law. The justices supervise attorney discipline and judicial conduct. And under Article 74, the legislature or the governor and council can require the justices’ advisory opinions on important questions of law, a power New Hampshire’s political branches still use.
The powers that come with the commission
Strip away the setting and a New Hampshire judge holds a short list of powers that reach further than almost any other public job in the state. A judge decides who stays in jail before trial and who goes home, a power HB 592 just re-concentrated in the bench alone for the gravest charges. A judge sentences within the limits the legislature writes into each offense. A judge signs the protective order that bars a person from a home, the commitment order that holds a person in a psychiatric facility, the order terminating a parent’s rights, and the decree dividing everything a family owns. A probate-division judge decides who controls an estate and who becomes guardian of a person who can no longer decide for themselves. On the civil side a superior judge can issue the injunction that stops a project or a business practice, and enter judgments that follow a defendant for years.
The limits are just as specific. Part 1, Article 35 of the constitution promises litigants judges “as impartial as the lot of humanity will admit,” and RSA 492:1 bars a justice from sitting in any case in which the judge has been a party or counsel; the courts apply an objective test, whether a reasonable person would question the judge’s impartiality. Article 79 forbids any judge from acting as an attorney in matters that could come before them, and full-time judges may not practice law at all. Everything a judge decides in open court is reviewable one floor up, on a record the public can read.
What the job pays, and what the bench costs
Judicial pay is set by statute, RSA 491-A:1, last raised in the 2023 budget with the second step landing in July 2024. The chief justice of the Supreme Court earns $208,157. Associate Supreme Court justices, the Superior Court chief, and the administrative judges appointed under court rule earn $201,895. Every other full-time judge in the state, superior associate, circuit, district, probate, earns $189,350. There is no locality pay, no case bonus, and no seniority ladder beyond those lines.
Statutory pay, effective July 12, 2024. Chart: Granite State Report. Data: RSA 491-A:1.
The bench sits inside a branch of roughly 800 employees. The two-year state budget signed in 2025 carries the Judicial Branch at about $231 million in general funds for fiscal 2026 and 2027, well under the $258.8 million base the branch requested, and the Senate had to strip out a $7.9 million House cut to get there. The governor’s own budget added about $3.6 million over the biennium specifically to cover the bail law’s costs to the courts. Part-time judges are a separate math problem entirely: their pay runs on a weighted-caseload formula, capped at 70 percent of a full-time trial judge’s taxable salary.
How you get the robe, and how you lose it
No one elects a New Hampshire judge. Under Part 2, Article 46 of the constitution, the governor nominates and a majority of the five-member Executive Council confirms, for every seat from a district division courtroom to the Supreme Court. A Judicial Selection Commission screens candidates first, and RSA 4:44 requires the council to hold a public hearing on every judicial nominee, noticed at least seven days ahead in two statewide newspapers. Nothing in the constitution requires a law degree; in practice, every sitting judge is a lawyer, and the current Supreme Court includes justices who came from the attorney general’s office, private civil practice, the Superior Court, and the Circuit Court.
Once confirmed, a judge holds office during good behavior, with no re-election, no retention vote, and exactly one expiration date. Part 2, Article 78: no person may hold the office of judge after age 70, a line written in 1792. Voters were asked in November 2024 to raise it to 75. The amendment drew 452,031 yes votes against 237,105 no, 65.59 percent in favor, and still failed, 1.07 points short of the two-thirds a constitutional change requires. The clock is not academic. Justice James Bassett left the court on August 31, 2025, and Justice Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi on February 12, 2026; both seats were refilled within weeks.
Age 70 ends the judgeship, not the work. A judge who retires before 70 can elect senior active status year to year and keep hearing cases on the court they left. Past 70, the only lawful role is judicial referee: taking testimony and recommending findings that a sitting justice must review and approve. Referees and senior judges are paid a per diem pegged to the salary of the seat they left, capped so that pension plus pay never exceeds a sitting judge’s salary. It is how the system squeezes extra courtrooms out of a bench the constitution keeps amputating.
Removal before 70 runs through three doors, all rarely opened: impeachment by the House with trial in the Senate; removal by the governor and council upon the address of both legislative chambers; or discipline through the Supreme Court’s own machinery. The Code of Judicial Conduct is Supreme Court Rule 38, complete with annual financial-disclosure filings, and complaints go to the court’s Committee on Judicial Conduct, which can end in public discipline up to removal. The legislature’s parallel Judicial Conduct Commission, a statutory overseer that had existed alongside the court’s committee, was repealed outright in 2024, leaving the judiciary to police itself, with a performance-evaluation program whose reports the branch posts publicly.
The year the job changed
Set the statutes aside and 2025 and 2026 rewrote the working conditions. The bail law put judges back on the arraignment clock and swelled the jail populations arriving in their courtrooms. In April 2025 the Supreme Court ordered a top-to-bottom efficiency review of the branch and froze hiring while it ran. The resulting NCSC report, delivered June 30, 2025 and released that September, made 27 recommendations: consolidate the Circuit and Superior Courts’ administration into the Administrative Office of the Courts, study the repeal of the Felonies First process, rethink fines and fee waivers, consider multiyear judge assignments to courthouses, and more. “This is an exciting time for New Hampshire’s Judicial Branch,” MacDonald said in releasing it. By October the court had installed Judge Christopher Keating in a newly created State Court Administrator role to run the consolidation, alongside Howard at Superior and Christo at Circuit. The legislature also ordered a judicial training coordinator position created under the chief justice by July 1, 2025.
Add the arithmetic of Article 78 and the shape of the next few years is visible from here: a bench the caseload studies say is at least 17 judges short in the Circuit Court alone, dozens of staff vacancies, a retirement rule voters declined to loosen in 2024, and an administrative overhaul mid-flight. Every judicial nomination Gov. Ayotte sends to the Executive Council lands on that math, and every one comes with a public hearing you can attend.
That is the job: statewide commission, $189,350 to start, mandatory exit at 70, nine-tenths of the state’s legal conflict flowing through 34 circuit courtrooms, and the whole thing conducted in public, on dockets posted by 4 p.m. and streams anyone can watch. Next in this series: the people who make the courtroom run when the judge takes the bench, starting with the clerk of court.
Your Turn
You tell me: Have you stood in front of a New Hampshire judge, in any of the three courts, and seen this system work or fail? Which job in the law should this series take apart next? granitestatereport@gmail.com
Fact check
| # | Claim | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | NHJB = one appellate court (Supreme), two trial courts (Circuit, Superior), plus the AOC | VERIFIED | N.H. Judicial Branch, “Our Courts,” courts.nh.gov |
| 2 | Supreme Court: chief justice + 4 associates, Concord; sole appellate court | VERIFIED | RSA 490:1; courts.nh.gov Supreme Court page |
| 3 | Superior Court: 11 locations, one per county, two in Hillsborough; only jury forum | VERIFIED | courts.nh.gov Superior Court and Court Locations pages |
| 4 | Circuit Court created 2011 by merging district, probate, family courts; 10 circuits, 34 locations; 31 district, 31 family, 10 probate divisions | VERIFIED | RSA 490-F; courts.nh.gov Court Locations; NCSC 2025 assessment |
| 5 | Current Supreme Court: MacDonald (CJ, since 3/4/2021), Donovan, Countway, Gould (sworn 9/18/2025), Will (sworn 3/4/2026); Countway first circuit judge elevated | VERIFIED | courts.nh.gov, Supreme Court Justices page |
| 6 | Mark Howard is Superior Court chief justice; Ellen Christo is Circuit Court administrative judge (since July 1, 2024) | VERIFIED | courts.nh.gov news release (Oct. 2025); Q3 2026 justices assignment list; Find a Court page |
| 7 | Circuit Court handles roughly 90% of all cases filed in the state | ATTRIBUTED | N.H. Judicial Branch’s own institutional description (branch LinkedIn profile) |
| 8 | 2022 NCSC weighted-caseload study: Circuit avg 126,811 cases/yr; Superior avg 11,558; recommended 18 new judges (17 circuit) and 32 clerical staff | ATTRIBUTED | NCSC study as reported by NH Business Review and Business NH Magazine, April 2023 |
| 9 | District Division jurisdiction: misdemeanors/violations, felony probable-cause hearings, small claims, landlord-tenant, stalking, gun-permit-denial appeals, civil to $25,000 concurrent with Superior | VERIFIED | courts.nh.gov, “Case Types” and “How NH Courts Work” |
| 10 | Family Division jurisdiction: divorce, parenting, support, DV protective orders, minor guardianships, abuse/neglect, delinquency; Probate: estates, trusts, guardianships, name changes, adoptions, involuntary commitments | VERIFIED | courts.nh.gov, “Case Types” / “How do I figure out which court” |
| 11 | Circuit Court judicial corps at 2025 review: 49 full-time judges, 4 senior active, 15 referees, 3 part-time/per diem, 383 staff; 55 vacant positions; deputy administrative judge vacant | VERIFIED | NCSC, N.H. Judicial Branch Assessment (6/30/2025), courts.nh.gov; Find a Court page (vacancy) |
| 12 | Circuit judges assigned statewide by the administrative judge; certification required before sitting in a new division | VERIFIED | RSA 490-F:6; N.H. Supreme Court Rule 61 |
| 13 | Superior Court authorized at chief justice (5-year term) + 22 associates; summer 2026 assignment list names 21 sitting full-time | VERIFIED | RSA 491:1 (current text, gc.nh.gov); courts.nh.gov Superior Court justices page (July–Sept. 2026) |
| 14 | Superior civil jurisdiction: claims $1,500+ with jury demand; exclusive over $25,000; felonies; misdemeanor appeals; business docket since 2008; land-use review docket | VERIFIED | courts.nh.gov Superior Court page; RSA 491:7-a, 491:7-b |
| 15 | Superior new criminal cases: 11,109 (2021); 13,200 (2022); 13,558 (2023); 11,411 (2024) | VERIFIED | NCSC, N.H. Judicial Branch Assessment (6/30/2025) |
| 16 | Superior dockets post by 4 p.m. the day prior; WebEx public access by email to clerk; recording streams prohibited (N.H. R. Crim. P. 46) | VERIFIED | courts.nh.gov, Superior Court Daily Docket page |
| 17 | 3% fee on card transactions in courts’ e-filing platforms since Sept. 3, 2025, per Supreme Court order | VERIFIED | courts.nh.gov, Superior Court attorneys/e-services notice |
| 18 | HB 592 (2025): House 204-175, Senate 24-0, signed 3/25/2025, Chapter 3, effective 9/21/2025; only circuit/superior judges set bail for listed serious offenses; custody up to 36 hours pending arraignment; magistrate program (3 attorneys, begun Jan. 2025) repealed | VERIFIED | LegiScan/FastDemocracy bill history; N.H. Bulletin (3/13, 3/20/2025); Governor’s office release (3/25/2025); JURIST; Prison Legal News |
| 19 | Judiciary fiscal note on HB 592: a judge’s salary and benefits are roughly twice a magistrate’s; judges absorb the hearings | ATTRIBUTED | Judicial Branch fiscal note as quoted by N.H. Bulletin, March 11, 2025 |
| 20 | Ayotte quote: “the failed experiment of bail reform in our state” | VERIFIED | N.H. Bulletin, March 20, 2025 (Senate passage statement) |
| 21 | Coös County jail population up 50% and Merrimack up 30% one year after HB 592, per AG Formella | ATTRIBUTED | Attorney General John Formella, as reported by N.H. Bulletin, April 10, 2026 |
| 22 | Mandatory appeals of timely final trial-court decisions since January 2004 (Rule 7); most cases decided without oral argument; 3JX since 2000: 5 min/side, unanimity required, non-precedential; full court 30 min, 3JX 20; amber/red podium lights | VERIFIED | courts.nh.gov Appeal Process, Supreme Court FAQ, Oral Argument FAQs; Rule 12-D(3) |
| 23 | Chief justice is administrative head of all courts; court rules have force of law (Part 2, Art. 73-a, adopted 1978); advisory opinions under Art. 74 | VERIFIED | N.H. Const. Part 2, Arts. 73-a, 74 (full text) |
| 24 | Oral arguments streamed live except confidential cases, with recorded archive | VERIFIED | courts.nh.gov, Oral Argument and Live Stream pages |
| 25 | Art. 35 quote “as impartial as the lot of humanity will admit”; RSA 492:1 disqualification; objective reasonable-person recusal standard | VERIFIED | N.H. Supreme Court order, April 28, 2026, courts.nh.gov (quoting Part 1, Art. 35 and RSA 492:1) |
| 26 | Judges may not act as counsel in matters that could come before them (Art. 79); full-time judges barred from practicing law | VERIFIED | N.H. Const. Part 2, Art. 79; RSA 490-F:10; RSA 491-A:1 cross-references (RSA 502-A:21, 547:2-a) |
| 27 | Salaries: $208,157 CJ Supreme; $201,895 associate justices and Superior CJ/administrative judges; $189,350 all other full-time judges; effective July 12, 2024 (2023, ch. 79) | VERIFIED | RSA 491-A:1 (2025 codification, Justia mirror of gc.nh.gov text) |
| 28 | Part-time judicial pay by weighted caseload, capped at 70% of a full-time trial judge’s taxable salary | VERIFIED | RSA 491-A:3, 491-A:4 |
| 29 | FY26-27 budget carries the branch at about $231 million in general funds; Senate removed a $7.9M House cut; branch had requested $258.8M base plus $17.9M; ~$3.6M added for bail-law costs; branch employs about 800 people and about 80 judges | VERIFIED | LBA House Finance briefing 4/8/2025 ($230.9M, gc.nh.gov); NHFPI budget analyses (Nov. 2024–Aug. 2025); NHJB institutional profile (headcount) |
| 30 | Selection: Judicial Selection Commission list, governor nominates, Executive Council confirms; RSA 4:44 public hearing, 7 days’ notice, two statewide newspapers; no law-degree requirement, though all current judges are lawyers | VERIFIED | N.H. Const. Part 2, Art. 46; RSA 4:44; John W. King N.H. Law Library guide, “Judges” |
| 31 | Mandatory retirement at 70 (Part 2, Art. 78, 1792); Nov. 2024 ballot question to raise to 75 failed: 452,031–237,105, 65.59%, 1.07 points short of two-thirds | VERIFIED | N.H. Const. Part 2, Art. 78; Secretary of State tallies via Boston Globe (11/7/2024); NHPR/NHBR (11/8/2024) |
| 32 | Bassett left the court Aug. 31, 2025; Hantz Marconi Feb. 12, 2026; both seats filled within the year (Gould, Will) | VERIFIED | courts.nh.gov Supreme Court Justices page (service dates) |
| 33 | Senior active status for pre-70 retirees (annual election); post-70 service limited to judicial referee; referee recommendations approved by a sitting justice; per diem capped so pension plus pay cannot exceed the seat’s salary | VERIFIED | RSA 493-A:1, 493-A:1-a, 493-A:1-b, 493-A:1-c |
| 34 | Removal: impeachment (House/Senate) or address by both chambers with removal by governor and council; discipline via Code of Judicial Conduct (Supreme Court Rule 38, incl. Rule 3.15 financial disclosure) and the court’s Committee on Judicial Conduct; statutory Judicial Conduct Commission (RSA 494-A) repealed effective May 14, 2024 | VERIFIED | N.H. Const. Part 2, Arts. 38, 73; N.H. Law Library guide; RSA Title LI table (494-A repealed by 2024, 11:1); courts.nh.gov data-reports (JCC annual report; performance evaluations) |
| 35 | April 2025 Supreme Court order launched efficiency review with immediate hiring freeze; NCSC report (6/30/2025, released Sept. 2025) made 27 recommendations incl. consolidating trial-court administration into the AOC and studying the Felonies First repeal; MacDonald quote as printed; Keating named to new State Court Administrator role (Oct. 2025); judicial training coordinator required by July 1, 2025 (RSA 490-K) | VERIFIED | courts.nh.gov news releases (April 2025, Sept. 2025, Oct. 2025); NCSC assessment; HB 592 text amending RSA 490-K |
| 36 | Small claims in the District Division cover money disputes up to $10,000 | ATTRIBUTED | NewHampshireCourtRecords.us circuit-court guide (secondary source) |
Worked inside the New Hampshire courts — clerk, bailiff, public defender, judge? This series wants your view of the job. Confidentiality respected where possible.
granitestatereport@gmail.com · (603) 931-9264
Editor’s note. Every load-bearing claim above was checked against the statute text, the constitution, Judicial Branch publications, or the named report or outlet before publication; see the fact-check table. Rows marked ATTRIBUTED rest on a named source rather than a primary document read directly. Judicial roster, leadership, and budget figures are current as of August 20, 2026 and will change as seats turn over. Corrections: Granite State Report corrects verified errors promptly and appends a dated note identifying what changed and when. The corrections policy and the corrections register are public, and correction notes are never removed.
