Supreme Court Clerk Hiring Watch: October Term 2017 Is Done; Let's Turn To 2018
Don't count on any justice retiring before the end of next Term.
In today’s press conference, President-elect Donald Trump said to expect a Supreme Court nominee in the two weeks after inauguration. Here’s what he said: “Supreme Court judge. So, you know, I have a list of twenty. I’ve gone through them. We met with numerous candidates.”
I thought there were 21 contenders — 11 from the first list, 10 from the second list — but who’s counting? Anyway, it’s interesting to note Trump’s reference to meetings with nominees that have already taken place. We haven’t seen potential SCOTUS picks making pilgrimages to Trump Tower (with the exception of Senator Mike Lee, who probably spoke to Trump about other matters, and Senator Ted Cruz, who’s not on the shortlist (although maybe he should be)). If you know of possible meetings between Team Trump and a SCOTUS shortlister — perhaps you’ve heard through the clerk grapevine about a shortlister who recently had a mysterious absence from chambers, like Judge Christina Wong Stinson in Supreme Ambitions — please feel free to email or to text (646-820-8477).
As I noted in my attempt to handicap the Trump shortlist, it’s likely that President Trump with get more than one SCOTUS appointment. On inauguration day, Justice Ginsburg will be 83, Justice Kennedy will be 80, and Justice Breyer will be 78. One or more of them might want to retire in the next few years.
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But don’t count on anyone retiring from the Court this Term or next (various rumors notwithstanding). All nine justices have hired four law clerks apiece for October Term 2017, which is a good sign that they’re planning on sticking around, at least through the end of OT 2017 in June 2018. As we’ve explained before, “Retired justices get just one clerk each while active justices get four, and justices with retirement on their minds typically hire just one clerk until they’re sure they’ll be sticking around.”
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy was the last to hire up, and the final clerk hired by AMK was Geoff Shaw (Yale 2016 / Reinhardt). Since he’s the last clerk to be revealed, we will, consistent with our little tradition here at ATL, give him more detailed coverage than the other clerks. (This is the SCOTUS clerk version of the NFL draft’s Mr. Irrelevant.)
Remember October Term 2014, the term that AMK “libbed out”? (When I clerked, my conservative co-clerks and I referred to the phenomenon of a generally conservative judge going leftward as “libbing out.”) That was the Term when AMK not only penned Obergefell v. Hodges, which created a constitutional right to gay marriage out of whole cloth made marriage equality a nationwide reality, but also cast key votes in support of affirmative action and abortion.
Who were the elves helping Santa Kennedy deliver gift-wrapped constitutional rights to good little boys and girls that year? Meet AMK’s four OT 2014 clerks:
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1. Andrew Bentz (UVA 2012 / Kozinski)
2. James Crooks (Columbia 2013 / Kozinski)
3. Joshua Matz (Harvard 2012 / Oetken (S.D.N.Y.) / Reinhardt)
4. Caroline Van Zile (Yale 2012 / Kavanaugh / Boasberg (D.D.C.))
Justice Kennedy generally draws his clerks from right-of-center judges like Judge Alex Kozinski (9th Cir.) and Judge Brett Kavanaugh (D.C. Cir.), who gave AMK three out of his four clerks in OT 2014. Conservative lawyers and judges play a big role in the “screening process” that reduces AMK clerkship candidates to a smaller group of finalists who meet Justice Kennedy himself, and the screeners tend to favor Federalist Society types.
But note the fourth clerk that Term: Joshua Matz, from the chambers of Judge J. Paul Oetken (S.D.N.Y.) and Judge Stephen Reinhardt (9th Cir.). Judge Oetken is progressive, but smart and sane; Judge Reinhardt, on the other hand, is the frequently reversed, “reigning liberal lion” of the Ninth Circuit, itself one of the most liberal appeals courts in the country (although note that it’s drifting toward the center).
Some judges hire from across the ideological spectrum, but Judge Reinhardt generally hires clerks in his own image: very smart, and very liberal. Matz fits the bill. Recognized in 2015 as one of Forbes’s top 30 lawyers and policymakers under 30, Matz is nothing short of a legal genius (even by SCOTUS clerk standards). How many young lawyers can claim the honor of co-authoring a critically acclaimed book on constitutional law (affiliate link) with Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe, an intellectual leader of the legal left?
Did Joshua Matz perhaps nudge Justice Kennedy to the left in OT 2014? Probably. One shouldn’t overstate Matz’s sway; law clerks are not young svengalis who control their bosses’ minds (although some will claim as much, especially after a few drinks). But at the same time, AMK is known as a justice who values his clerks’ views, draws them into the decisonmaking process, and gives them substantive work (as opposed to a judge who treats clerks like glorified research assistants). So when a brilliant liberal is in chambers, don’t be surprised to see Justice Kennedy drift leftward.
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Geoff Shaw (via Twitter)
Which brings us to Geoff Shaw. He is undoubtedly brilliant (and very cute too; see photo). Online bios show that he graduated from Yale College, earned a D. Phil. from Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, and graduated from Yale Law School. He has worked at some of the nation’s most impressive employers: Palantir Technologies, the mysterious, privately held, multibillion-dollar technology company founded by Peter Thiel (among others); Susman Godfrey, the elite litigation boutique; and Munger Tolles & Olson, one of the finest law firms in the nation. The Note that Shaw wrote for the Yale Law Journal on class ascertainability is already getting cited by courts and legal academics, even though Shaw is just a law clerk, not even one year out of law school. (To see some of the citations, follow Shaw on Twitter: @wahsffoeg.)
UPDATE (1/12/2017, 8:58 a.m.): A source adds, “In his 1L fall semester, he published an article in the Harvard Law Review.” You can access that Essay, about a “lost” paper by the late H.L.A. Hart that Shaw discovered in the archives of the Harvard Law School Library, here.
What are Shaw’s politics? They’re actually not as obvious as those of the typical Reinhardt clerk. During college, he chaired the Independent Party of the Yale Political Union, which is pretty middle of the road. If you look at his Note, you could perhaps read left-of-center politics into it, to the extent that Shaw is arguing against making class certification more difficult. But the Note is not as liberal as it could have been; Shaw rests much of his argument against the ascertainability requirement on the notion of enforcing Rule 23 as written, as opposed to waving around the access-to-justice banner and railing against how cruel conservatives are closing the courthouse doors to aggrieved underdogs.
Still, if I had to guess, I’d expect Shaw to be well to the left of his fellow Kennedy clerks. After all, he’s clerking right now for Judge Reinhardt, and there’s a certain amount of self-selection in that. Also, the other AMK clerks seem right of center. There’s Nick Harper, who clerked for the conservative Judge Kavanaugh and was originally hired by the late Justice Antonin Scalia; Matt Gregory, who clerked for a prominent conservative judge (and Trump shortlister), Judge Raymond M. Kethledge (6th Cir.); and Krista Perry, who clerked for an even more prominent conservative judge (and top-tier Trump shortlister), Judge William Pryor (11th Cir.). So if Justice Kennedy goes rogue again in OT 2017, Geoff Shaw is the likely culprit.
And with that, I give you the law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States for October Term 2017. Everyone is done hiring OT 2017 law clerks except for retired Justice David H. Souter (who hired late even when he was still active). And Justice Breyer has hired two for OT 2018.
UPDATE (4/3/2017, 7:15 p.m.): We now know the identity of Justice Souter’s clerk, and we’ve added him to the list.
(I suspect that Justice Kagan isn’t far behind, assuming she hasn’t made some OT 2018 hires of her own already; EK likes to move early on clerks, on the theory that it gives her better talent. Justice Thomas also tends to hire far in advance — but I wonder whether CT might hold off a bit, in case he might want to retire during the Trump Administration. Justice Thomas is only 68, a spring chicken by SCOTUS standards, but part of me can’t help thinking that he’d rather be driving around the country in his RV with his beloved bride, Ginni Thomas.)
Many of these hires were previously tweeted by @SCOTUSambitions. If you want real-time information on Supreme Court clerk hiring as opposed to these periodic updates, follow that feed.
If you have any corrections to the information appearing below, or if you have any hiring news we have not yet reported, please reach out by email or text (646-820-8477). Please include the words “SCOTUS Clerk Hiring” in your email or text message, perhaps as the subject line of your email or the first words of your text, because that’s how I locate these tips in my (overwhelmed) inbox. Thanks!
OCTOBER TERM 2017 SUPREME COURT CLERK HIRES (as of January 11, 2017)
Chief Justice John G. Roberts
1. Usha Chilukuri Vance (Yale 2013 / Thapar (E.D. Ky.) / Kavanaugh)
2. Charlie Dameron (Yale 2015 / Kethledge)
3. Caroline Flynn (Michigan 2013 / Flaum / Srinivasan)
4. Aaron Rizkalla (Harvard 2016 / Wilkinson)
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy
1. Matt Gregory (Michigan 2014 / Kethledge)
2. Nick Harper (Chicago 2015 / Kavanaugh)
3. Krista Perry (Chicago 2016 / W. Pryor)
4. Geoff Shaw (Yale 2016 / Reinhardt)
Justice Clarence Thomas
1. Gilbert Dickey (Chicago 2012 / W. Pryor)
2. Brittney Lane (Pepperdine 2012 / O’Scannlain / Sutton)
3. Greg Miller (Berkeley 2012 / Thapar (E.D. Ky.) / Carnes)
4. Cameron Norris (Vanderbilt 2014 / W. Pryor / Henderson)
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
1. Beatrice C. Franklin (Columbia 2014 / Furman (S.D.N.Y.) / Carney)
2. Karim Kentfield (Berkeley 2012 / Fletcher / Srinivasan)
3. Mary Schnoor (Harvard 2016 / Posner)
4. Emma Simson (Yale 2015 / Boasberg (D.D.C.) / Tatel)
Justice Stephen G. Breyer
1. Cynthia Barmore (Stanford 2015 / Griffith)
2. Carlton Forbes (Yale 2014 / Lohier / Pillard)
3. David Fox (GW 2012 / Barron)
4. Maggie Goodlander (Yale 2016 / Garland)
Hired for OT 2018: Janine Lopez (Harvard 2014 / Garland) and Jo-Ann Karhson (Harvard 2014 / K.B. Jackson (D.D.C.) / Kavanaugh).
Justice Samuel Alito
1. Sean Mirski (Harvard 2015 / Kavanaugh)
2. Kevin Neylan (Harvard 2015 / O’Scannlain)
3. Stephen Petrany (Yale 2014 / W. Pryor)
4. James Saywell (Ohio State 2014 / McKeague / Sutton)
Justice Sonia Sotomayor
1. Elizabeth Graber Bentley (Harvard 2013 / Rakoff (S.D.N.Y.) / Katzmann)
2. Carmen Iguina Gonzalez (NYU 2010 / Matsumoto (E.D.N.Y.) / Reinhardt)
3. Ray Tolentino (Georgetown 2012 / McKeown / Matsumoto (E.D.N.Y.) / Pillard)
4. Julie Veroff (Yale 2015 / Berzon / Boasberg (D.D.C.))
Justice Elena Kagan
1. A. Zoe Bedell (Harvard 2016 / Kavanaugh)
2. Lena Husani Hughes (Columbia 2012 / Cote (S.D.N.Y.) / G. Lynch)
3. Jeremy Kreisberg (Harvard 2014 / Reinhardt)
4. Ephraim McDowell (Harvard 2016 / Garland)
Justice John Paul Stevens (retired)
1. Donald Goodson (NYU 2013 / Nathan (S.D.N.Y.) / Katzmann)
Justice David H. Souter (retired):
1. Adam Goodman (Harvard 2013 / Rakoff (S.D.N.Y.) / Katzmann)
Do you know about a hire not previously reported, or do you have an addition or correction to any of this info? Please share what you know by email or text (646-820-8477). Please include the words “SCOTUS Clerk Hiring” in your email or text message, as the subject line of your email or the first words of your text, because that’s how I locate these tips in my inundated inbox. Thanks!
Supreme Ambitions [Amazon (affiliate link)]
Earlier: Handicapping Donald Trump’s Supreme Court Shortlist
Supreme Court Clerk Hiring Watch: October Term 2017 Is Filling Up Fast
David Lat is the founder and managing editor of Above the Law and the author of Supreme Ambitions: A Novel. He previously worked as a federal prosecutor in Newark, New Jersey; a litigation associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; and a law clerk to Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. You can connect with David on Twitter (@DavidLat), LinkedIn, and Facebook, and you can reach him by email at dlat@abovethelaw.com.
