'Orphaned' Scalia Clerk Breaks His Silence On Finding A New Home With Justice Thomas

What was it like for clerks after Justice Scalia passed away?

 (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, Pool)

(AP Photo/Susan Walsh, Pool)

I am forever grateful to Justice Thomas. He was very adamant that when Taylor and I joined his chambers, we were absolutely 100 percent Thomas clerks. Justice Thomas thought it was a blast to have six clerks.

— Jonathan Urick, now of McGuireWoods and one of Justice Scalia’s final clerk hires, reflecting on getting ‘adopted’ by Justice Thomas after Scalia’s unexpected death earlier this year. With the benefit of an expanded clerk bench, Justice Thomas wrote the most opinions this term. Urick also dished on the clerks’ reaction when the normally quiet Thomas asked a series of questions during oral arguments a few weeks after Justice Scalia’s death: “We were as shocked as everybody else.”

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