US Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has received payments totaling nearly $3 million for her memoir, "Lovely One," according to a financial disclosure report released in June. This makes Jackson one of the highest-paid authors among Supreme Court justices, according to reports.
The book, published in September 2024, debuted at No. 1 on The New York Times bestseller list upon its release. According to the financial statement, Jackson reported receiving a $2,068,750 advance for the book in 2024, in addition to the approximately $900,000 she was paid by publisher Penguin Random House in 2023, per Politico.
The publishing company also provided Jackson with reimbursements for food, lodging, and transportation for her nationwide promotional book tour, according to the report, with stops in major cities such as Seattle, Chicago, San Francisco, Atlanta, and Miami. According to a book description on Amazon, "Lovely One" is described as "tracing [Jackson's] family's ascent from segregation to her confirmation on America's highest court within the span of one generation."
The Supreme Court recently enacted a formal rule of ethics for accepting gifts and free travel; however, the amount that justices can currently earn from book deals remains uncapped, Fox News reported.
"Last month, Barrett, Jackson, Gorsuch, and Sotomayor recused themselves from a decision over whether to hear a case involving the parent company of the book publisher Penguin Random House. The justices did not explain their reasoning for sitting out the discussion, but an ethics expert said it was probably because the case involved the German company Bertelsmann, which owns the publishing house that has published or will be publishing their books," the Washington Post reported.
Jackson's earnings roughly match the amount Justice Sonia Sotomayor received as an advance for her 2014 autobiography, "My Beloved World." Sotomayor estimated collecting approximately $132,000 in 2024 from Penguin Random House for her previous works and a forthcoming one, according to the financial disclosure report. Fix the Court, a SCOTUS watchdog group, reported that Sotomayor has earned a total of $3.9 million in advances and royalties for her books, according to Politico.
