Supreme Court Clerk Hiring Watch: No Such Thing As Bad Publicity? (Also: Justice Ginsburg hires for OT 2010.)
A few weeks ago, Judge Brett Kavanaugh of the Most Holy D.C. Circuit warned summer associates not to do anything that would get them a shout-out on Above the Law. Law school career counselors, we're told, tell students the same thing when advising them about how to conduct themselves as summer associates.
That may be wise advice, as far as Biglaw goes. You don't want to stand out from the crowd. Work hard, keep your head down, get the offer.
But if you're gunning for the ultimate credential in the legal profession, a coveted U.S. Supreme Court clerkship, could a little bit of publicity on ATL perhaps be a good thing? Could the Elect be governed by a different set of rules than mere mortals?
Am Law 200 law firms are expected to hire about 10,000 new associates this fall (although query whether that number will go down with the economy). In contrast, the nine justices, plus retired Justice O'Connor, hire just 37 new law clerks each year. Thus, unlike summer associates, Supreme Court clerks DO need to stand out from the crowd to land their jobs.
Interestingly enough, a number of Harvard Law School students who were mentioned by name on ATL subsequently landed SCOTUS clerkships. Consider:
And now, perhaps the most exciting news of all:
So, did Crespo's hiring get touted to HLR editors in a congratulatory email?
Andrew Crespo's hiring isn't the only piece of SCOTUS clerk hiring news we have to pass along today. From a tipster:
The University of Minnesota Law School may not suck as badly as our lacking US News rankings suggest. A member of my graduating class, Amy Bergquist, will be clerking for Justice Ginsburg. See here.
Congratulations to Andrew Crespo and Amy Bergquist on their Supreme Court clerkships. By the way, note that Bergquist is for October Term 2010. As we previously reported, RBG is done with her hiring for OT 2009. Her hiring of a clerk for OT 2010 suggests that Justice Ginsburg has no current plans to retire from the Court (even if President Obama and a Democratic Senate would get to select her successor).
Update: Congrats also to Roman Martinez (Yale 2008 / Kavanaugh), who will be clerking for Chief Justice Roberts in OT 2009.
Check out the updated list of Supreme Court clerks for OT 2009 (and OT 2010 -- namely, Bergquist), after the jump.
Please note that these are the clerks for October Term 2009 (i.e., the 2009-2010 judicial year). If you're looking for a list of the October Term 2008 clerks, starting up at the Court this summer, click here.
We are always looking for more Supreme Court clerk hiring information. Please bring errors or omissions to our attention by email (subject line: "Supreme Court clerk hiring"). Thanks.
OCTOBER TERM 2009 SUPREME COURT CLERK HIRES (as of July 16, 2008)
Chief Justice John G. Roberts
1. Roman Martinez (Yale 2008 / Kavanaugh)
2. ?
3. ?
4. ?
Justice John Paul Stevens
1. Hyland Hunt (U. Michigan 2008 / D. Ginsburg)
2. Adam Jed (Harvard 2008 / Calabresi)
3. Merritt McAlister (University of Georgia 2007 / Anderson (11th Cir.))
4. David Pozen (Yale 2007 / Garland)
Justice Antonin Scalia
1. Jonathan Bond (GWU 2008 / Sutton)
2. Steven Lehotsky (Harvard 2002 / D. Ginsburg)
3. Daniel M. Sullivan (Chicago 2008 / O'Scannlain)
4. Katherine Twomey (UVA 2008 / Wilkinson)
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy
1. Scott Keller (University of Texas 2007 / Kozinski)
2. ?
3. ?
4. ?
Justice David H. Souter
1. ?
2. ?
3. ?
4. ?
Justice Clarence Thomas
1. Marah Stith (Yale 2006 / O'Scannlain)
2. ?
3. ?
4. ?
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
1. Elizabeth Barchas (Harvard 2008 / Garland)
2. Pamela Bookman (UVA 2006 / Sack)
3. Vincent Levy (Columbia 2007 / D. Ginsburg)
4. John Rappaport (Harvard 2006 / Reinhardt)
For October Term 2010: Amy Bergquist (U. Minnesota 2007 / W. Fletcher / J. Tunheim (D. Minn.))
Justice Stephen G. Breyer
1. Andrew Crespo (Harvard 2008 / Reinhardt)
2. Bessie Dewar (Yale 2006 / W. Fletcher / L. Pollak (E.D. Pa.))
3.
4.
Justice Samuel Alito
1. Jaynie Randall (Yale 2006 / M. Patel (N.D. Cal.) / Cabranes)
2. ?
3. ?
4. ?
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor (retired):
1. Joshua Deahl (U. Michigan 2006 / Benavides)
Congratulations to Jonathan Bond [Volokh Conspiracy]
SCOTUS Clerk Hiring [Clerkship Notification Blog]
List of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States [Wikipedia]
Clerks Head Off to $250,000 Bonuses [Washingtonian]
Earlier: Prior ATL coverage of Supreme Court clerks (scroll down)
(69) Comments
poopin' in a hat
Not first :(
i got a spot. where's my mention?
---Dickie Scruggs
Can anyone explain why Yale and Harvard dominate SCOTUS hiring, both on the clerk and justice levels? I realize that they're the two "best" schools in the nation, but why don't we see a more proportional representation of Stanford, Columbia, Chicago, and NYU graduates?
isn't crespo not especially bright? Breyer usually hires smarter.
RBG won't retire. Neither will JPS. They will both stay at the SCOTUS until they pass away (like WHR did).
DHS is probably the only justice who would retire in the next decade.
11:31 because the judges are loyal to their alma matars. most of them are from h or y
barchas is a machine.
11:31(2) what the hell? double negatives make it impossible to read. you'll never get a scotus clerkship
Alas, I never was in the running.
:*(
-11:31 (2)
11:38: not fair. :(
How realistic is my dream of arguing a case before SCOTUS?
11:44 - no sh*t!
11:44(2) - better than clerking
"The University of Minnesota Law School may not suck as badly as our lacking US News rankings suggest."
The US News ranking is a proxy for the placement of the entire class, not a few legal whiz kids who would have succeeded with or without a brand name resume.
Do former SCOTUS clerks generally turn into successful and brilliant lawyers? Off the top of my head, I can't think of one SCOTUS clerk turned star advocate, but my knowledge isn't comprehensive by any stretch of the imagination.
11:56 - Carter Phillips (sp?) at Sidley
11:56, you must not know of many star advocates, then. See, e.g., Carter Phillips (Burger OT '78); Walter Dellinger (Black OT '68); Maureen Mahoney (Rehnquist)...I could go on. And of course, John Roberts, a former Rehnquist clerk, was a a star advocate before his appointment to the bench.
i believe paul clement was a scotus clerk as well. ignore your political position for a second as he is a star advocate and the list goes on and on. but no reason to despair as most of the great attorneys have not clerked. i mean those attorneys that know how to connect with people, juries etc.
Paul Clement, the former SG, was a Scalia clerk; Gregory Garre, the acting SG, was a Rehnquist clerk.
many if not most sg's were clerks
First Wisconsin and now Minnesota.
C'mon Iowa! Stop whining about US News and do something!
not to be a troll but quinn emanuel is the place. swiss hike etc
Barry Zito pitched a good game. Therefore, he does not suck as badly as his numbers suggest.
Soria was an all-star. Therefore, the Royals do not suck as badly as their record suggests.
...it's not hard to figure out why your LSAT was so lousy that you were forced to attend Minnesota. Logic, anyone?
11:31,
Part of it is a "who you know" game, but of the YLS and HLS grads I know who've gotten SCOTUS clerkships, their credentials and resumes are downright frightening compared to their classmates. Pozen, e.g., is publishing an article in Columbia Law Review which he wrote while still a student at Yale.
I once spoke to a former Alito clerk who got the spot because he had worked to help get Alito confirmed. When the vote was taken, he (half-jokingly) said, "By the way, if you ever need a clerk..."
A few months later, he got a phone call. True story.
Nice not to have to worry about grades, opens up some time for writing.
"is publishing an article in Columbia Law Review which he wrote while still a student at Yale."
Isn't publishing par for the course at Yale Law? Regardless of "grades," they're going to be able to easily land any firm job, allowing them to find time to write. I'm sure that the school and faculty encourage it.
<-- Still laments YLS rejection
11:31 - The anomaly is that Yale dominates SCOTUS clerkship hiring year after year. Harvard is five times larger than Yale and Stanford, for example, so you'd expect it to get clerkships on a regular basis, but last term Stanford was second to Yale (with five clerks) and yet has none this year. Yale's consistent domination probably reflects the feeder effect of rankings - US News sends students with the best credentials to Yale because Yale is number one (well-credentialled students are prestige whores just like everyone else - maybe more than everyone else), and Yale sends them to the Court (because well credentialled students also often are smart). Fashion runs in cycles, however, and no doubt this one will change.
On the other hand, Lat's fascination with SCOTUS clerkships is harder to fathom. He didn't get one, we all know that, but why he's still drooling is confusing. I've known about three dozen SCOTUS clerks well over the years, some as friends of our children and most as students, and while impressive as a group, they were not markedly more talented than many others in their classes who didn't get picked (or "elected" in Lat's strange term - a genuine election would produce different results) for the Court. Some were markedly less talented. The best student in my HLS graduating class didn't clerk for the Court, for example, and many people I know tell the same story about other classes. (If Lat was in Akil Amar's law school class he could tell the story as well.) Lat seems to suggest that being part of a small group ("only 37 each year") makes SCOTUS clerks stand out, but the starting associate class at every solo practice in the country is smaller and yet I doubt Lat thinks of that a prestigous group. Living with Lat's developmental clerkship disability just seems a condition of reading this blog. It's not much of a price to pay and maybe someday there will be medicine targetted to deal with it. In the meantime, one always has the Asia Chronicles and Marc "Professor" Edelman for comic relief.
Has anyone worked with a SCOTUS clerk at a BigLaw firm? Are they automatically treated with the gravitas of equity partners? Does everyone send substantial work to them?
Have any of them turned out to be legal "duds"? Lat: it would be far more interesting to track the post-SCOTUS stories, instead of focusing on their election like it's the end of their careers.
Harvard is about 3 times the size of YLS and SLS, not 5 times larger.
11:31(2), Crespo graduated magna from HLS (top 10% of the class). Plus HLR President. There was no way he wouldn't get a SCOTUS clerkship.
12:49, it's closer to 4 times larger. Classes of ~560 vs. Classes of ~150.
12:47 i agree lets see how they are in firms. granted lots dont go to firms and stay in govt but on those taht do go lets get a thread
Why is Souter always so late in hiring? He always takes forever compared to everyone else.
Yale has more like 200 students, not 150.
I didn't know Andrew well at all, but he always struck me as a very smart and decent guy, whose bad reputation as President was vastly overstated. Congrats to him on his selection (even if 12:43 is right that the importance of the credential is probably overstated and largely the result of happenstance rather than merit).
12:51: Harvard usually accepts ~40 transfers. Yale and Stanford accept ~10. I think that "four times" is, indeed, an accurate multiple, as evidenced by their transfer numbers.
Harvard starts with ~550. Yale has 180 and Stanford has 170.
The point is that Yale is a monster school. The extent to which their graduates are treated like gold is almost unfair; I've met YLS kids and they're usually not smarter than their counterparts at other "top" schools.
(But who cares, really? Everyone's a lawyer in the end. Let's get out there and kick a for our clients.)
When are you writing about the new bonuses? Rumor from 1 First is $275k (last year + 10%).
HLS had 580 graduating students this spring. If Yale has 180 plus 10 transfers, that is almost exactly 1/3 the size of HLS.
12:47, to answer your question, some Supreme Court clerks at my firm are excellent lawyers, while some are complete turkeys. While not treated particularly differently in my experience, they do tend to think they should be treated differently. Overall, they tend to be overrated, much like Harvard and Yale lawyers are more generally.
let's give some credit where credit is due. yale doesn't just give people "time" to write so everybody just churns out publications - most don't. publishing takes a lot of great research and writing skills, as well as something interesting to say
Reading all you jokers treat "x times larger" as equivalent to "x times as large" reminds me why that lawyers suck at math.
1:02: It's a publication. There are -- what? -- thousands of those every year? Don't some professors (see: Chicago to Harvard guy) churn them out at the rate that most bakers make loaves?
It's impressive, yes, but not THAT impressive.
"reminds me why that lawyers suck at math." .. a critical grammatical comment ending with this quote .. interesting
thanks for playing
12:59: they clerked for the SUPREME Court. Why wouldn't you treat them with more respect? Couldn't you tell clients that a SUPREME associate is working on their case?
(Incidentally, I would give them that title: SUPREME associate.)
Just kidding. Sort of.
12:43, I disagree with your comparison to fashion. Show me how fashion is a self-feeding and -perpetuating cycle in the same way that the YLS feedback loop is.
1:18 = former SCOTUS clerk
Congrats to Elizabeth and Andrew! Glad they got the nods despite the undeserved trashing they've received here and elsewhere in the blogosphere. Both are superstars, and nice and hardworking to boot!
There are lots of nice, hardworking superstars who haven't been accused of violating Harvard's academic policies regarding group work or running HLR with an oppressively ideological bent, though . . . .
"the ultimate credential in the legal profession" ... yeah, maybe in the 27-and-under category.
Being a SCOTUS clerk is like being ranked #1 in tennis for exactly one year. Some move on, but most won't; some people care, but most don't.
I don't know Amy Berquist, but she, with David Weissbrot, has written an absolutely fantastic law review article two years ago on Extraordinary Rendition: David Weissbrot and Amy Berquist, Extraordinary Rendition: A Human Rights Analysis, 19 Harv. Human Rts. J 123 (2006).
The Ninth Circuit is considering a case on this as we speak, and will certainly be looking to Ms. Berquist's work. Congrats to her.
Unlike some of this thread’s Debbie downers, I’d like to extend my congratulations to this year’s SCOTUS clerks.
1:28: Agreed. Both Elizabeth and Andrew are fantastic people, who've worked hard enough and are certainly talented enough to merit their clerkships. It's been a pleasure getting to know them over the last 3 years.
I love it when good things happen to good people.
Roman is also a great guy - a star in the making. Many congrats to him.
The SCOTUS clerks I've worked with have been great attorneys--focused, patient, discerning, and able to deal with people. I really think that there are two key characteristics that translate well from clerking on the SC to great law firm work: (1) high level of intelligence, and (2) an ability to work well with really bright and extremely arrogant co-workers and clients.
I think Judge Fletcher (CA9) is super cool and it's even super cooler that his clerk is going to SCOTUS.
200 firms hiring 10,000 Associates? On average 500 hires per firm? Not likely.
200 firms hiring 10,000 Associates? On average 500 hires per firm? Not likely.
200x500 = 100,000.
3:59 = Math mistake.
Bergquist is the second state school/in-state tuition LOL @ the prestige "this is my life's track and it is holy" AutoAdmit scum in two years (after Klingle, mother of four, from Wisconsin).
“It is a great honor that Justice Ginsburg selected me to be one of her law clerks,” Bergquist says. “When I left my 11-year career as a high school teacher to come to law school, I never would have dreamed that this would be possible.” Bergquist taught at Minneapolis South High School from 1993 to 2004.
L-M-F-A-O.
3:15 = Judge Fletcher.
One of the former SCOTUS clerks at my firm beat me with a stapler for not averting my eyes when they walked by. True story.
1:14, 1:05 here. My comment wasn't a grammar comment, it had to do with the meaning of the phrase "x times larger than."
I'll cop to a sloppy typo, but I'll take a sloppy typo (one extra word - OMG!) over a fundamental misunderstanding of a concept any day. A sloppy typo happens to busy people juggling many matters (or postings on ATL) at once. A fundamental misunderstanding of a simple concept happens to a moron.
1:05, 1:14 here. I was simply pointing out the irony .. you looked like a moron trying to make someone else look like a moron. Ha!
thanks for playing again
Hyland Hunt is a great human being, and really smart too. Kudos!
So S.Ct continues it elitist Harvard recruiting. Hey ATL, have the Supreme hired a Native American clerk yet? The last time I checked they hadn't in their entire history. How's that for racism, we make Federal Indian Law but we won't hire Natives.
This profession is bunk.
Oh, wah. There was already a Native American Vice President. Get over it.
Is "Lehotsky" a real name?
I've known Andrew Crespo for ten years. He's freaking brilliant and also one of the sweetest guys I've ever met.
"Isn't publishing par for the course at Yale Law?"
No, it isn't. And even if it were, publishing in the Columbia Law Review is a whole different ballgame. Most tenured professors haven't done that.