As we reported earlier today, Rachel Kovner — a.k.a. “the Empress of Palo Alto” — just landed herself an October 2007 Supreme Court clerkship, with judicial icon Antonin Scalia.

It’s a well-known fact that Justice Scalia doesn’t hire women often. But when the woman in question is (1) a staunch conservative with (2) the highest GPA in the history of Stanford Law School, he’s considerably more open-minded.

So Rachel Kovner has a pretty good life. She spent law school in beautiful, sunny California, where she shattered academic records left and right. Then she decamped for pastoral Charlottesville, Virginia, for a real plum of a clerkship: a year with the courtly and delightful Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson (4th Cir.).

After spending the year with Judge Wilkinson — who is, by the way, a great friend and mentor to his clerks (with whom he lunches and runs three miles each day) — Rachel will move to Washington, DC. There she will join other brilliant young legal minds inside the marble palace of One First Street, where she will serve as a Supreme Court clerk. And not just any SCOTUS clerk, but a clerk to Justice Scalia — one of the most desirable justices to clerk for.

This is truly a charmed life. What more could a girl want?

Umm, how about A BILLIONAIRE FOR A FATHER?

Yes, that’s right: Rachel’s dad, hedge fund genius Bruce Kovner (at right), is the 93rd richest person in America, with a net worth of $2.5 billion. Forbes describes Bruce Kovner as a “[d]evout Republican,” who chairs the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and funds the Manhattan Institute, another conservative think tank.

So if a daughter of Bruce Kovner’s wound up with a Scalia clerkship, one might legitimately wonder: Did Daddy’s right-wing connections help her land the job?

But Rachel Kovner need not fear such stigma. Harvard College, Stanford Law School (#1 in history of school), Stanford Law Review (senior articles editor), and a coveted Wilkinson clerkship should be more than sufficient to dispel such aspersions.

Note to all OT 2007 Supreme Court clerks: Whenever you go out to dinner with Rachel, pass her the bill. Her father’s net worth is equal to over 10,000 of your piddling SCOTUS bonuses.

Random aside: After graduating from Harvard and before going to Stanford, Rachel Kovner worked as a reporter for the New York Sun, the conservative New York daily — which, by the way, is funded by Bruce Kovner. This fact led some critics of the Sun, with an obvious axe to grind against the paper, to refer to Rachel as “Daddy’s Girl”. But now, thanks to her indisputable legal genius, she has earned herself a new nickname: “Nino’s Girl”!

Update: More on the Fabulous Rachel Kovner

Bruce Kovner [Wikipedia]
Forbes 400, #93: Bruce Kovner [Forbes]

Earlier: SCOTUS Clerk Hiring Watch: Nino Almost Done for OT 2007