A $168,800 salary that was boosted by a pay raise wasn't enough to keep a New York City judge behind the bench.
Justice Ariel Belen said the raise was "too little, too late" for him to stay as a judge of the Appellate Division, the New York Law Journal reported Thursday.
"The pay raise was welcome, but it really was long overdue and I don't think really changes substantially a judge's life, particularly in New York City," Belen told the Journal.
Belen, along with his fellow judges, got a 17 percent salary boost in April and was slated to get an even higher hike over the next two years, according to the Journal.
But Belen received an offer from a private alternative dispute resolution company, JAMS, which beat even the prospect of a raise.
"There comes a point where the prospects of substantially increasing your income just outweigh everything else," Belen told the Journal.
Belen's also claims he feels "bad" about vacancies in the court and the extra workload his colleagues have to carry.
"It was a very difficult and heart-wrenching decision for me," Belen told the Journal.
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