Supreme Court Clerk Hiring Watch: The Official List for October Term 2011

On Monday we published an update on Supreme Court law clerk hiring. In the wake of that update, we received a veritable cornucopia of tips and news of new hires. The most welcome information came from the Supreme Court itself, so let's take a look!

On Monday we published an update on Supreme Court law clerk hiring. In the wake of that update, we received a veritable cornucopia of tips and news of new hires (for which we thank you).

The most welcome information came from the Supreme Court itself. The Court’s Public Information Office kindly provided us with the official list of law clerks for October Term 2011. This list does not include law school and prior clerkship information, which the PIO will release later this year, but it does allow us to verify all of the crowdsourced hiring information we have gathered on our own.

So let’s take a look at (1) the official list of SCOTUS clerks for OT 2011, courtesy of the Court itself; (2) our unofficial list of OT 2011 clerks, with law school and prior clerkship information; and (3) an updated list of October Term 2012 hires thus far (at least three justices are already done)….

If you’d like to see the official list of Supreme Court law clerks for October Term 2011, click here (PDF). You can also scroll down to the very end of this post to view the list as a JPG file. If you’ve been dying to know the middle initials of the newest members of the Elect, eat your heart out!

We took the official list, supplemented it with information we’ve gleaned from our tipsters, and created an OT 2011 clerk list of our own, with law school and prior clerkship information. We have also prepared a list of OT 2012 hires thus far.

You can see both lists below. In addition to prior clerkships — primarily circuit-court clerkships with feeder judges, but also district-court clerkships and even a state-court clerkship and a clerkship on the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces — we’ve indicated if a clerk served as Bristow Fellow in the U.S. Solicitor General’s office. As we’ve previously explained, these staggeringly prestigious fellowships often feed their occupants into staggeringly prestigious Supreme Court clerkships.

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If you have any additions or corrections, please email us, subject line “SCOTUS Clerk Hiring,” or text us. We hope these lists prove helpful. And we thank you, our loyal readers, for sending in the information that made compilation of these lists possible.

OCTOBER TERM 2011 SUPREME COURT CLERK HIRES (as of July 13, 2011)

Chief Justice John G. Roberts
1. Christoper DiPompeo (U. Penn. 2009 / Niemeyer)
2. Frederick Liu (Yale 2008 / O’Scannlain / Colloton)
3. Colleen Roh (Harvard 2010 / Garland)
4. Hagan Scotten (Harvard 2010 / Kavanaugh)

Justice Antonin Scalia
1. Donald Burke (UVA 2008 / Kethledge)
2. Rebecca Krauss (Yale 2010 / Kavanaugh)
3. Carl Marchioli (Harvard 2010 / Colloton)
4. John Moran (UVA 2010 / Sutton)

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy
1. Ishan Bhabha (Harvard 2009 / Garland)
2. Leah Litman (Michigan 2010 / Sutton)
3. Eric Nguyen (Harvard 2009 / Kozinski)
4. Justin Walker (Harvard 2009 / Kavanaugh)

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Justice Clarence Thomas
1. Liam Hardy (Georgetown 2008 / Ryan (C.C.A.F.) / Sentelle)
2. Brian Lea (UGA 2009 / Carnes)
3. Matt Nicholson (UVA 2009 / Wilkinson / Bristow Fellow)
4. Michelle Stratton (née Shamblin) (LSU 2009 / E. Jones / Bristow Fellow)

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
1. Rachel Wainer Apter (Harvard 2007 / Katzmann / Rakoff)
2. Benjamin Beaton (Columbia 2009 / Randolph)
3. Jennifer Clark (Georgetown 2008 / Tatel Tot / Bristow Fellow)
4. Gerry Sinzdak (Berkeley 2008 / Berzon / C. Breyer (N.D. Cal.) / Bristow Fellow)

UPDATE (1/18/12): The entry above has been revised to reflect that Gerry Sinzdak also clerked for Judge Charles Breyer (N.D. Cal.), brother of Justice Breyer. See here.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer
1. Rachel Bloomekatz (UCLA 2008 / Calabresi / Margaret Marshall (Mass.))
2. Jonathan Bressler (Harvard 2010 / Boudin)
3. Andrew Dawson (Stanford 2008 / W. Fletcher / C. Breyer)
4. Rebecca Stone (NYU 2009 / Posner)

Justice Samuel Alito
1. Sarah Campbell (Duke 2009 / Pryor)
2. Anthony Dick (Stanford 2010 / Griffith)
3. William Levi (Yale 2010 / Scirica)
4. Ryan Newman (U. Texas 2007 / Leon (D.D.C.) / Edmondson)

Justice Sonia Sotomayor
1. Michael Bern (Harvard 2008 / McConnell)
2. Mark Hiller (UVA 2009 / Sack)
3. Daniel Habib (Yale 2010 / W. Fletcher)
4. Jane Kucera (Harvard 2008 / Gorsuch)

Justice Elena Kagan
1. Jeff Johnson (Harvard 2010 / Wilkinson)
2. Rakesh Kilaru (Stanford 2010 / Wilkinson)
3. Erica Ross (Stanford 2009 / Tatel / Bristow Fellow)
4. Jonathan Schneller (Harvard 2010 / Reinhardt)

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor (retired):
1. Candice Chiu (Harvard 2008 / Kavanaugh)

Justice David H. Souter (retired):
1. Matthew Tokson (Chicago 2008 / Randolph)

Justice John Paul Stevens (retired)
1. Dina Mishra (Yale 2009 / Boudin)


OCTOBER TERM 2012 SUPREME COURT CLERK HIRES (as of July 13, 2011)

Chief Justice John G. Roberts
1. ?
2. ?
3. ?
4. ?

Justice Antonin Scalia
1. Adam Klein (Columbia 2011 / Kavanaugh)
2. Ian Samuel (NYU 2008 / Kozinski / Bristow Fellow)
3. Danielle Sassoon (Yale 2011 / Wilkinson)
4. Eric Tung (Chicago 2010 / Gorsuch / Bristow Fellow)

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy
1. ?
2. ?
3. ?
4. ?

Justice Clarence Thomas
1. Robert Dunn (Chicago 2010 / O’Scannlain)
2. Kenton Skarin (Northwestern 2009 / Wilkinson)
3. ?
4. ?

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
1. Martine Cicconi (Stanford 2010 / Garland / Bristow Fellow)
2. Joshua Johnson (Yale 2009 / Tatel / Gertner (D. Mass.))
3. Julie Kobick (Harvard 2010 / Saylor (D. Mass.))
4. Thane Rehn (Columbia 2009 / Posner)

Justice Stephen G. Breyer
1. Kwaku Akowuah (Harvard 2004 / Garaufis (E.D.N.Y.) / Katzmann)
2. Joshua Geltzer (Yale 2011 / Kozinski)
3. ?
4. ?

Justice Samuel Alito
1. ?
2. ?
3. ?
4. ?

Justice Sonia Sotomayor
1. Scott Grinsell (Yale 2009 / Pooler)
2. Charlotte Taylor (NYU 2008 / Rakoff (S.D.N.Y.) / Katzmann)
3. ?
4. ?

(We believe these two hires by Justice Sotomayor are for October Term 2012, but it is possible that one or both are for October Term 2013.)

Justice Elena Kagan
1. Samantha Bateman (Stanford 2010 / Brinkema / Garland)
2. Brad Garcia (Harvard 2011 / Griffith)
3. Zach Schauf (Harvard 2011 / Garland)
4. David Zimmer (Harvard 2010 / W. Fletcher)

(Justice Kagan has also hired Sophia Brill (Yale 2011 / Garland) for October Term 2013.)

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor (retired):
1. ?

Justice David H. Souter (retired):
1. ?

Justice John Paul Stevens (retired)
1. Eduardo Bruera (Cornell 2011 / C. King (5th Cir.))

Do you have a hire we haven’t reported yet, or an addition or correction to any of this information? Please email us (subject line: “SCOTUS clerk hiring”). Thanks.

Supreme Court Law Clerks – October Term 2011 [Supreme Court of the United States]

Earlier: Supreme Court Clerk Hiring Watch: The Changing of the Guard
Prior ATL coverage of Supreme Court clerks (scroll down)