Clerkships, Feeder Judges, SCOTUS, Supreme Court, Supreme Court Clerks

Supreme Court Clerk Hiring Watch: An Analysis Of The October Term 2016 Clerk Class

Which law schools and feeder judges produced the most SCOTUS clerks for the upcoming Term?

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At the U.S. Supreme Court (photo by David Lat).

Last month I shared with you a list of the Supreme Court clerks for October Term 2016 — both an official list, from the Court’s Public Information Office, and an unofficial list, featuring law school and prior clerkship information (pasted below for ease of reference). Now, as promised, I’d like to offer some commentary on the list.

Actually, Leigh Jones of Law.com beat me to it. Let’s start with her seven observations:

1. Nineteen clerks are men and 15 are women.

In percentage terms, that’s a 55-45 gender split, meaning that OT 2016 could feature a record percentage of women clerks (see Figure 1 on page 271 of this Marquette Law Review article; the percentage of female SCOTUS clerks almost always falls below 40 percent). We won’t have the final stats until we get a successor to Justice Scalia (whether that’s President Obama’s nominee, Chief Judge Merrick Garland, or a nominee from President Clinton or President Trump). Of course, it’s sad that breaking 40 percent would be a record for women clerks.

2. The outlier feeder law school this year is the University of Hawaii. Graduate Kamaile A.N. Turcan will clerk for Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

You can read all about Turčan, the first University of Hawaii grad and first Native Hawaiian to be hired as a SCOTUS clerk, in this article by Tony Mauro.

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3. Yale provided the most clerks—12, according to Above the Law’s list. Seven came from Harvard, four from Stanford, three from the University of Virginia. Georgetown and NYU delivered two each. Penn, Duke and Columbia sent one clerk each.

It should come as no surprise that YLS is the top generator of SCOTUS clerks, given its prowess at producing federal law clerks generally.

4. There are a total of 34 Supreme Court clerks, which include four for each of the eight justices. Retired Justices John Paul Stevens and David Souter have one clerk each.

As noted earlier, Justice O’Connor has stopped hiring clerks (why is not clear).

5. Three clerks have the first name “Alex.”

6. Justice Anthony Kennedy has all male clerks.

7. Three of Sotomayor’s clerks are women.

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The justices vary quite a bit when it comes to the gender of their law clerks. The late Justice Scalia had a fair number of Terms during which he had no women clerks. Justice Breyer, in contrast, tries to follow a “Noah’s Ark” approach to clerk hiring: “They entered the [chambers] in pairs, male and female, just as God had commanded.” (Justice O’Connor had a similar philosophy back when she hired four clerks.)

What other observations can be made? Let’s look at the Term’s top feeder judges (any judge with more than one clerk in OT 2016):

Garland (D.C. Cir.): 3
Katzmann (2d Cir.): 3
Rakoff (S.D.N.Y.): 3
Fletcher (9th Cir.): 2
Gorsuch (10th Cir.): 2
Griffith (D.C. Cir.): 2
O’Scannlain (9th Cir.): 2
Sutton (6th Cir.): 2
Tatel (D.C. Cir.): 2
Thapar (E.D. Ky.): 2

Congrats to my former boss, Judge O’Scannlain, on preserving his place as a top-ten feeder judge (and also on his thirty years on the federal bench as of September; see you in Portland in September, Judge).

Interestingly enough, some of the biggest feeders around — including Judges Kavanaugh, Wilkinson, Kozinski, and Reinhardt, all on this list of leading feeder judges — have just one clerk apiece in OT 2016. But remember that more feeder-judge glory will be dispensed when a successor to Justice Scalia is confirmed.

Congratulations once again to all the new SCOTUS clerks, and congrats also to their law schools and their lower-court judges. When it comes to producing a Supreme Court clerk, I’m reminded of the title of Hillary Clinton’s famous book: It Takes A Village (affiliate link).

OCTOBER TERM 2016 SUPREME COURT CLERK HIRES (as of July 22, 2016)

Chief Justice John G. Roberts
1. Thomas S. Burnett (Harvard 2014 / Livingston)
2. Marguerite B. Colson (Yale 2015 / Kavanaugh)
3. Rachel G. Miller-Ziegler (Harvard 2015 / Garland)
4. Conor M. Reardon (Duke 2014 / Cabranes / Chatigny (D. Conn.))

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy
1. Alex Harris (Harvard 2015 / Gorsuch)
2. William Perdue (Yale 2011 / Katzmann / Rakoff (S.D.N.Y.))
3. J.J. Snidow (Yale 2014 / Kethledge / Thapar (E.D. Ky.))
4. Thomas Sprankling (Columbia 2012 / Kozinski)

Justice Clarence Thomas
1. Andrew N. Ferguson (UVA 2012 / Henderson)
2. Kasdin M. Mitchell (Yale 2012 / W. Pryor)
3. Austin L. Raynor (UVA 2013 / Wilkinson)
4. Jacob T. Spencer (Harvard 2012 / J. Smith / O’Scannlain)

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
1. Subash S. Iyer (NYU 2013 / Rakoff (S.D.N.Y.) / Katzmann)
2. Hajin Kim (Stanford 2014 / Watford)
3. Beth C. Neitzel (Stanford 2013 /D. Motz (4th Cir.) / Tatel)
4. Parker A. Rider-Longmaid (Penn 2013 / Scirica / Pratter (E.D. Pa.) / Bristow Fellow)

Justice Stephen G. Breyer
1. Daniel E. Herz-Roiphe (Yale 2015 / Garland)
2. Denise Lambert Drake (Stanford 2013 / Higginbotham / C. Breyer)
3. Brian M. Richardson (Yale 2011 / Rakoff (S.D.N.Y.) / Katzmann)
4. Rachel G. Shalev (Yale 2014 / Fletcher / Pillard)

Justice Samuel Alito
1. Joel Alicea (Harvard 2013 / O’Scannlain)
2. Benjamin J. Cassady (Yale 2013 / Griffith)
3. Nicole C. Frazer (UVA 2015 / Sutton)
4. Alex Potapov (Yale 2008 / S. Williams)

Justice Sonia Sotomayor
1. Kirti Datla (NYU 2012 / Thapar (E.D. Ky.) / Sutton )
2. Alex C. Hemmer (Yale 2014 / Fletcher / Moss (D.D.C.))
3. Kamaile A.N. Turčan (Hawai’i 2008 / Ezra (D. Haw.) / Clifton)
4. Tiffany Wright (Georgetown 2013 / Lamberth (D.D.C.) / Tatel)

Justice Elena Kagan
1. Elizabeth Bewley (Harvard 2015 / Griffith)
2. Gerard Cedrone (Harvard 2014 / Gorsuch)
3. Ben Eidelson (Yale 2014 / Garland)
4. Betsy Henthorne (Georgetown 2014 / G. Woods (S.D.N.Y.) / Srinivasan)

Justice John Paul Stevens (retired)
1. Teresa Reed (Stanford 2015 / Millett)

Justice David H. Souter (retired)
1. Edwina B. Clarke (Yale 2013 / Reinhardt / Oetken (S.D.N.Y.) / Barron)

7 Takeaways from New SCOTUS Clerks Roster [Law.com]
Supreme Ambitions [Amazon (affiliate link)]

Earlier: Supreme Court Clerk Hiring Watch: The Official List
The Best Law Schools For Getting Federal Clerkships
Prior ATL coverage of Supreme Court law clerks

David Lat is the founder and managing editor of Above the Law and the author of Supreme Ambitions: A Novel. You can connect with David on Twitter (@DavidLat), LinkedIn, and Facebook, and you can reach him by email at dlat@abovethelaw.com.

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