28 U.S.C. § 371 — Retirement on salary; retirement in senior status

(a) A justice or judge appointed to serve during good behavior (that is, for life, unless removed) can retire completely once they meet the age-and-service requirements in (c). After retiring, they receive an annuity for the rest of their life equal to the salary they were making when they retired. (b) (1) Instead of fully retiring, a justice or judge meeting the same age-and-service requirements can keep their office but step back from regular active service — this is called "senior status." They keep receiving their full salary for the rest of their life, as long as they meet the yearly certification requirement in (e). (2) If a judge in senior status doesn't meet that certification requirement in a given year, they instead keep receiving whatever salary they were last getting while in active service (or under their last valid certification), adjusted under section 461. (c) The age-and-service combinations that qualify a justice or judge to retire under this section are: age 65 with 15 years of service, 66 with 14, 67 with 13, 68 with 12, 69 with 11, or 70 with 10. (d) When a justice or judge retires under this section, the President must appoint — with the Senate's approval — a successor. (e) (1) To keep receiving full salary while in senior status under (b), a justice must be certified each calendar year by the Chief Justice (or a judge by their circuit's chief judge) as meeting at least one of these standards: (A) they handled at least as much courtroom work in the past year as an average active judge would do in three months (appellate and trial work are counted separately for judges who sit on both, then added together); (B) they did substantial judicial work not involving the courtroom — like helping settle cases, deciding motions, writing opinions in cases argued only on paper, or handling administrative duties — equal to at least three months of an average active judge's work, with a certification describing that work in detail; (C) their combined courtroom and non-courtroom work under (A) and (B) together adds up to at least three months' worth; (D) they did substantial administrative work directly tied to running the courts, or substantial work for a federal or state government body, equal to a full-time judicial-branch employee's job (part-year work here can be combined at half value with work under (A), (B), or (C)); or (E) a temporary or permanent disability kept them from doing enough judicial or administrative work to meet (A) through (D) — certified in writing to the Chief Justice or chief judge; once certified as permanently disabled, they're treated as meeting this requirement every year after. (2) The Judicial Conference of the United States sets the rules for measuring the work described in (A) through (D), taking into account its existing standards for giving senior judges space and staff. (3) If a justice or judge doesn't get certified for a given year (other than under the disability rule in (E)), they can still get credited for that year later by doing enough extra qualifying work in a later year and attributing part of it back to the earlier year — but no work can be counted toward certification for more than one year. (4) For a justice or judge who retires under (b) partway through a calendar year, all the qualifying work they did that year before retiring counts toward that year's certification.