SCOTUS Clerks Are Fair Game

Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places? A Craigslist ‘Missed Connection’ at the SCOTUS

By David Lat

Supreme Court 6 Above the Law blog.jpgOur obsession with Supreme Court clerks is longstanding, dating back to our blogging for Underneath Their Robes (where we used to profile SCOTUS clerks). And it seems we’re not alone in lusting after the Elect.

Apparently oral argument makes people think of other oral activities. Check out this “Missed Connection” from Craigslist:

Law clerk at SCOTUS honest services argument – w4m (Supreme Court Building)

We were both there to hear the honest services arguments, which were fascinating. You were siting with the law clerks, I think, so I’m wondering if you’re one of them. You looked slightly older and more mature than the rest of the people you were sitting with. You’re quite handsome and I enjoyed watching you as you followed the arguments. Too bad you left at the case break–I’d been trying to catch your eye. (I was sitting in the front row of reserved seating.) I promise that if you agree to meet me for dinner that I won’t mention Black or Weyhrauch. What say you?

If you’ll forgive the quibbling, this posting is subpar; it’s missing some information. First, the poster has omitted her age (which typically goes after the “w4m”). Second, she offers little identifying information about herself (e.g., “I was wearing a red scarf”).

Third, she offers little identifying information about the clerk, other than that he’s “more mature” and “quite handsome.” We suspect that every male Supreme Court clerk fancies himself “more mature” and “quite handsome.”

Typically a missed connection involves, well, a “connection.” The lack of identifying information suggests that no such connection was forged here. But we admire the poster’s effort.

This is not, by the way, the first time a CL “Missed Connection” has arisen out of a Supreme Court argument.

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SCOTUS Clerkship Bonus Watch: Still at $250K?

By Elie Mystal

Supreme Court hallway Above the Law Above the Law Above the Law.JPGThe National Law Journal suggests that the down economy could be hitting the pockets of the Elect. Some firms are suggesting that the $250,000 bonus to hire a former Supreme Court clerk is just too expensive in today’s economy:

At firms that have been shaken by the downturn, however, a $250,000 bonus will be hard to sell, some practitioners say. “Intuitively, it doesn’t feel right to pay that kind of bonus when you are trying to make economies wherever you can at the firm,” said veteran advocate Carter Phillips, managing partner at Sidley Austin’s Washington office. Thomas Goldstein of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, where there have been cuts, agrees that it’s tough to justify a $250,000 bonus when a firm is considering letting go a staff person paid $50,000. Because of that juxtaposition, he predicted bonuses will shrink — though he said it’s too early in the hiring season to say how much. “The number of firms willing to pay that amount of money will be down.”

But surely these firms aren’t talking about collusion, are they? SCOTUS clerks command top dollar, and firms that are struggling can’t artificially deflate the price for this top talent — even if they want to:

Firms won’t be sorry to wave goodbye to what Goldstein calls the “incredible escalation” that the $250,000 bonus represents. Even before the recession, firms were grumbling about it because of a recurring pattern: Some clerks grab the bonus, work at the firm for a year or three, then skip off to academia with loans paid off and kids’ tuition in the bank. “Firms are going to be more interested in clerks staying around and practicing law,” [former solicitor general Paul] Clement said.

While some firms might be priced out of the Elect market, we are still talking about a “recession-proof” set of credentials.
More after the jump.

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Supreme Court Clerk Hiring Watch: New Term, New Hires

By David Lat

Supreme Court hallway Above the Law Above the Law Above the Law.JPGOur last round-up of Supreme Court clerk hiring was published back in August, before the start of October Term 2008. Now that the justices are back in the country and back on the bench, they’re back to interviewing clerkship applicants.

Over at the Clerkship Notification Blog, there was buzz about Justice Stephen Breyer interviewing and hiring clerks for October Term 2009. That intelligence was correct. Here are his hires:

1. Christopher Fonzone (Harvard 2007 / Wilkinson)

2. Jennifer Nou (Yale 2008 / Posner)

Fonzone appears to be the “2007 Harvard grad” referenced in the comments. With Chris Fonzone and Jen Nou on board, Justice Breyer is all done for OT 2009. (We also hear that he’s started to hire for October Term 2010, but we have no details.)

Update (3:40 PM): We now know one of SGB’s hires for OT 2010:

Erika Myers (Stanford 2008 / Kozinski)

Interesting — although Chief Judge Kozinski is a big-time feeder, he tends to feed more to the right side of the Court. So he may be expanding his range as a feeder judge.

The updated list of Supreme Court clerks, with Fonzone and Nou and Myers added, appears after the jump.

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Supreme Court Clerk Bonuses to $250K?

By David Lat

100 dollar bills clerk clerkship bonuses Abovethelaw Above the Law legal tabloid.jpgIn our recent New York Times op-ed piece praising lavish signing bonuses for Supreme Court clerks, we wrote that the bonuses “are expected to reach $250,000 this year — paid on top of starting salaries approaching $200,000.”
Some people have inquired into the factual basis for our statement. As it turns out, we did some actual reporting to support it. The reporting never made it into the final op-ed piece, but we’re happy to provide the details here.
If you’re curious, read the rest of this post, after the jump.

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Update on Supreme Court Clerks: Where Are They Now?

By Billy Merck

Supreme Court hallway Above the Law Above the Law Above the Law.JPGA few more updates from tipsters:
Edward C. Dawson, who clerked for Kennedy in OT 2003, is with Yetter & Warden, and according to our tipster is in the new Austin office.
Marc Allen, also a former Kennedy clerk, has reportedly gone in-house with Boeing, working for his old boss, Judge J. Michael Luttig.
Leondra Kruger, who clerked for Stevens in OT 2003, is a visiting assistant professor at the University of Chicago Law School.
The pattern of about half in private practice appears to be holding.

Supreme Court Clerks: Where Are They Now?

By David Lat

Supreme Court hallway Above the Law Above the Law Above the Law.JPGIn our recent New York Times op-ed piece on Supreme Court clerkship bonuses, we argued that “[f]rom a narrowly economic point of view — focusing on the actual work the clerks will perform, and setting aside the law firms’ quest for prestige and bragging rights — it is difficult to understand why firms fight for the right to shower 26-year-olds with cash.”
One of the contentions we thought about offering in support of this claim was that Supreme Court clerks don’t stick around their law firms for very long after getting their huge bonuses. This was our sense of things, based admittedly on “anec-data.” It seemed to us that SCOTUS clerks go to law firms, stay for maybe two years, and then leave to become law professors, or government or public interest lawyers.
But then we decided to go back and look at the data. We thought it would be interesting to see how many Supreme Court clerks from October Term 2002 and October Term 2003 are still in private practice. The OT 2002 and OT 2003 clerk classes were ideal for the purpose of assessing the effect of bonuses because (1) law firms were offering gargantuan bonuses by this point in time, and (2) enough years have passed to allow for meaningful assessment of the clerks’ career paths.
We undertook this research, and it ended up showing that a reasonably high percentage of clerks — about 50 percent — are in private practice, a few years down the road. It’s not an overwhelmingly high percentage (in which case our argument that the firms effectively subsidize other quarters of the profession would be undermined). But it’s also not as low as we expected. We revised our argument accordingly, omitting any suggestion that a majority of clerks “take the money and run.”
Anyway, having done all this research, we felt like we should put it to some use (since it ended up not being reflected in the final version of the op-ed piece). Posting it on ATL seemed worthwhile enough.
Are you curious about what Supreme Court clerks from a few years ago are up to nowadays? Check out the lists, after the jump.
The Supreme Court’s Bonus Babies [New York Times]

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Supreme Court Bonus Babies: We’re on the List!

By David Lat

O happy day! Our New York Times op-ed piece, praising the lavish bonuses bestowed upon Supreme Court clerks, has made the Most Emailed Articles list:
Supreme Court 2 bonus babies Abovethelaw Above the Law blog.jpg
Thanks to all of you who have visited the NYT homepage and emailed this article to your friends and loved ones. And thanks to the bloggers who have linked to our piece and shared their thoughts. E.g.:

1. Jonathan Adler, In Defense of Clerkship Bonuses [Volokh Conspiracy]

2. Ann Althouse, “Harnessing irrational law firm egotism” for the public good. [Althouse]

3. Howard Bashman, The Supreme Court’s Bonus Babies [How Appealing]

To all the curious Althouse commenters, yes, we are of “Philipino [sic]” ancestry.
Hopefully we’ll climb higher than #21. The top ten would be great. We’ll keep you posted!
The Supreme Court’s Bonus Babies [The New York Times]

The Supreme Court’s Bonus Babies

By David Lat

A more detailed (but equally shameless) plug will follow tomorrow. For now, please check out this article:
supreme court bonus babies Abovethelaw Above the Law blog.jpg
Then email it to, say, fifty of your closest friends. We are desperately trying to crack the NYT’s “Most Emailed Articles” list.
Much thanks. See you tomorrow!
The Supreme Court’s Bonus Babies [The New York Times]

Welcoming New Members of the Elect

By David Lat

Supreme Court hallway Above the Law Above the Law Above the Law.JPGIn addition to our ATL work, we write freelance pieces for print publications. In the current issue of Washingtonian magazine, we have a short write-up about the incoming class of Supreme Court clerks. Here’s the lede:

After the Supreme Court enters its summer recess this month, a new wave of eager young legal scholars in training will arrive. The Supreme Court’s 37 law clerks—the brilliant legal minds who assist the justices in selecting cases for review, preparing for oral argument, and drafting opinions—will hand over their duties to a new crop of clerks.

Demographically, the incoming class looks like those of past years—mostly white, mostly recent law-school graduates, with impressive academic records earned from the nation’s top law schools.

With eight clerks apiece, Harvard and Yale dominate the list, as they typically do. But there are some surprises. Northwestern, with three clerks, ties with Stanford and the University of Chicago for third place. Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law claims its first clerk since 1981.

Fourteen of the 37 incoming law clerks are women, twice the number during the previous term, when the low number of female clerks—seven of 37—generated controversy.

You can read the whole piece by clicking here.
P.S. Can you help us fill in the blanks for the October Term 2008 law clerks? Please check out this post; if you see missing info, please email us (subject line: “Supreme Court clerk hiring”). Thanks!
Women Gaining in Court-Clerk Contest [Washingtonian]

ATL Week in Review: December 18-22

By David Lat

kwanzaa happy kwanzaa kwanza candles.gifThe week before a major holiday is usually pretty slow. And the Friday before the holiday weekend is usually dead — the perfect time for Mike Nifong to announce he’s dropping the rape charges against the Duke lacrosse team defendants.
Other highlights from the past week in legal news and ATL:
* Get to know this year’s Alito clerks!
* And help us get to know the current Breyer clerks.
* Dean Harold Koh’s Christmas gift to Yale Law School conservatives: newfound warmth and friendliness.
* Speaking of Yale Law School, YLS grad Yul Kwon just won Survivor. Congrats, Yul!
* Stuff you knew already: Supreme Court clerks are cooler than you. Lawyers have mediocre sex lives. Pro se litigants are insane.
* Last week dragged in a few more law firm bonus announcements, but nothing exciting. To skim the coverage, click here, then scroll down through the headlines.
* On the subject of bonuses, Biglaw associates: Please take our 2006 bonus poll (first announced here):

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pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"
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HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

Justice Breyer’s Clerks: Tidbits, Please

By David Lat

stephen breyer justice.jpgIn case you missed it, yesterday we profiled the four current clerks to Justice Samuel Alito. Click here to read that post.
Moving up the seniority chain brings us to Justice Stephen G. Breyer. According to Wikipedia, these are Justice Breyer’s four law clerks for October Term 2006 (please notify us of any errors you see):

1. Jaren Casazza (Columbia ’04 / Jacobs / Wood(S.D.N.Y.))

2. Tacy Flint (Chicago ’04 / Posner)

3. Stephen Shackleford (Harvard ’05 / Boudin)

4. Thiru Vignarajah (Harvard ’05 / Calabresi)

To profile the SGB crew, we need a little help from you. Please send us interesting tidbits, fun facts, or amusing anecdotes about these members of the Elect, by email. We also welcome any photographs you might have. Please be sure to include the clerk’s full name somewhere in your message (because we often locate messages relevant to drafting a specific post by running searches in our inbox).
We note that Amber Taylor has already profiled this foursome. We therefore implore you to send us information that is especially salacious and scandalous quirky, so we don’t simply repeat what’s in her write-ups. Thanks!
List of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States [Wikipedia]
The Breyer Clerks [Prettier Than Napoleon]
A Law Clerk Hiring Update: Alito’s Experienced Hands, Breyer’s Hires, and More [Underneath Their Robes]
Earlier: Justice Alito’s OT 2006 Law Clerks

Justice Alito’s OT 2006 Law Clerks

By David Lat

michael lee mike lee christopher paolella chris paolella matthew schwartz matt schwartz gordon todd.JPGsamuel alito jr samuel a alito jr justice alito.jpgSorry it has taken us so long. As promised months ago, we now begin our series profiling current Supreme Court clerks (aka the “October Term 2006″ or “OT 2006″ law clerks).
We’ll be going chambers by chambers, starting with the most junior justice. Here are the four law clerks to Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr.:

1. Michael S. Lee (BYU ’97/Benson (D. Utah)/Alito)

2. Christopher J. Paolella (Harvard ’99/Alito)

3. Matthew A. Schwartz (Columbia ’03/Alito)

4. Gordon D. Todd (UVA ’00/Beam)

As a member of the Alito extended family explained to us, here’s the key to understanding the Alito chambers: 3:1. This golden ratio perfectly captures the demographics of the OT 2006 Alito clerks. Consider:

1. Familial status: three are married with children, one is not (Chris Paolella — married, but no kids yet).

2. Undergraduate institution: three are Princetonians, one is not (Michael Lee — BYU).

3. Prior Alito clerkship: three previously clerked for then-Judge Alito on the Third Circuit, one did not (Gordon Todd).

4. Religious affiliation: three are Christian,* one is not (Matthew Schwartz — he’s Jewish).

5. College debate: three were gods of the parliamentary debate circuit, and former presidents of the American Parliamentary Debate Assocation (APDA); one was not (Michael Lee).

But we wouldn’t want such commonalities to overshadow the individuality of these gents. Check out our profiles of Messrs. Lee, Paolella, Schwartz, and Todd — after the jump.
* Mitt Romney footnote: Michael Lee is Mormon, which we consider to be Christian. Presidential candidate Romney hopes that evangelical Christians voting in the Republican primaries will agree with us.

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The Messy Love Lives of Supreme Court Clerks

By David Lat

supreme court with heart above the law atl.JPGNormally we might think twice about posting an e-mail like this, since it’s somewhat personal in nature. But it has been making its way around the D.C. law firm email circuit, and we’ve received it from multiple sources.
By now, dozens of Biglaw associates in Washington have a copy of this email in their inbox. If we don’t post it, some other blogger will. This message has been read by hundreds of people. So what’s a few more thousand?
The author of the e-mail, we’re told, is a current Supreme Court clerk. Here it is:

Hey guys,

I have a short, quasi-junior-highish, but sincere and meaningful request.

A [student from a top law school] named [X] is interviewing at your firm. It would take too long to explain the full story, but the short of it is this: she and I have become fairly close in the last couple of months. I would like to date her. She has a long-term, long-distance boyfriend that she is not totally into. She has expressed interest in me, but she’s not able to break things off in her current relationship. I am willing to be patient because I think she’s really amazing.

Now to the junior-highish but sincere request. If you end up interviewing her or taking her to lunch, please please please, in the very unlikely event that the opportunity arises and it’s not contrived, say really great things about me. [Ed. note: Emphasis added.]

That’s all. I can’t imagine the opportunity would arise, and I won’t be so presumptuous to think that somehow my name would ever come up (I gave her a tour of the Court, so if she mentions that, maybe there’s an opportunity…), but in the very slight chance that it does, I would really appreciate any glowing review you could provide on my behalf.

Specific positive attributes available upon request. Yeah, I know this is pathetic, but those of us still in the single world need all the help we can get — you remember what it was like. Thank you so much.

Supreme Court Clerks: They’re just like us. Sometimes they get lonely, even desperate. And when they do, they enlist their friends — and friends of friends, and friends of friends of friends, and the readers of a popular legal gossip site — in the effort to win over the object of their affection.
We have some advice for the young lady in question. If you read this post, and figure out that you’re the subject, please: Throw the long-term boyfriend overboard, and go with the SCOTUS clerk.
This is a no-brainer, honey. First, he’s a Supreme Court clerk. Second, he’s going to be $200,000 richer in a year. Third, given the extent to which he’s willing to embarrass himself in pursuing your affections, he is clearly VERY into you.
And did we mention that he’s a Supreme Court clerk? What more could a girl ask for?
(We were not an original recipient of this message — we received it as the inevitable email forward — so we can’t vouch for its authenticity. Nor can we tell you the names of the individuals involved. But we found it somewhat amusing, assuming that it’s true, so we thought we’d put it up here — and save everyone the trouble of continued email forwarding.)

Last Year’s Supreme Court Clerks: Where Are They Now?

By David Lat

supreme court 1.jpgIf you’re wondering where your favorite October Term 2005 Supreme Court clerk wound up — like, for example, this Kathryn Judge groupie — the National Law Journal has the answers. Check out this juicy article (free access):

Latham & Watkins is the “in” spot this year for recent U.S. Supreme Court clerks leaving the rarified atmosphere of the highest court in the land for the hands-on practice of law.

The firm, home to more than 1,900 attorneys in 22 offices in the United States and abroad, hired six clerks from the October 2005 term — the largest number of hires from a single term by a single law firm in recent years.

Here are the six Lathamites:

Three of the six clerks hired by Latham are going to Washington: Lori Alvino (Ruth Bader Ginsburg), Dan Kearney (Roberts) and Jeff Pojanowski (Anthony M. Kennedy). Two are going to San Francisco: [Benjamin] Horwich (O’Connor / Alito) and Kathryn Judge (Stephen G. Breyer). And Dan Lenerz (John Paul Stevens) is going to San Diego.

As any owner of an NBA team can tell you, talent doesn’t come cheap. You could buy a nice house with the bonus money bestowed upon those six clerks:

[Latham partner] Richard Bress said that his firm paid the market-level hiring bonus for U.S. Supreme Court clerks — about $200,000 [per clerk] — and considers the money well spent. “We’ve found they can come in and immediately operate at a very high level,” said Bress.

High enough to earn out that bonus, plus the standard six-figure salary paid to an associate of the relevant seniority level? We have our doubts.
But let’s not look at this through an economic lens. The ability to boast of having a SCOTUS clerk at your firm — plus, of course, the ability to boss around said SCOTUS clerk — is priceless.*
(We recommend the full NLJ article to you. It also reports on clerks who have gone to other firms, legal academia, and government posts.)
* Of course, you can’t really abuse that power too much. If you force Supreme Court clerks to sully their hands with, say, document review, they may spread the word among the Elect that you’re a horrible place to work — and you’ll never bag another SCOTUS clerk again.
Latham is the ‘in’ spot for high court clerks [National Law Journal]

Supreme Court Clerks Are Fair Game: Part 5

By David Lat

Usually we respond to reader comments — which we always welcome, whether good, bad, or indifferent — in the comments. But some comments merit fuller treatment, like this one:

I still find it hard to fathom how gossip about these clerks adds to the public discourse. Given that the clerks are not going to be standing for an election, revealing details of their personal life seems completely unhelpful. Why don’t you consider getting a life of your own and stop harassing people.

Or, maybe you should “put your money where your mouth is” and post information about your law school grades, family background and net worth on your site. Yes, it’s a challenge (although none of us would honestly care)…

Our response to this idiocy, for those of you who care — if you don’t, just skip ahead to the next post, no one’s forcing you to read this — appears after the jump.

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Supreme Court Clerks Are Fair Game: Part 4

By David Lat

Here’s the fourth post in our continuing series about why there’s nothing wrong with writing about Supreme Court clerks. Prior installments are available here (Part 1), here (Part 2), and here (Part 3).
We’d also like to direct your attention to this excellent comment by a reader — replete with an eloquent quote from Schopenhauer. It’s like the metaphysical version of “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”
The balance of this post, making the fourth point in our multi-part argument, appears after the jump.

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Supreme Court Clerks Are Fair Game: Part 3

By David Lat

This is the third post in a series defending the propriety of writing about Supreme Court clerks. The first two installments are available here and here. The rest of this post, making the third point in our multi-part argument, appears after the jump.

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Supreme Court Clerks Are Fair Game: Part 2

By David Lat

This is the second post in our continuing manifesto, started this morning, as to why it’s okay to write about former Thomas clerk Chantel Febus’s appreciation for Lenny Kravitz.
Most of you probably have no interest in the rest of this post; if you’re visiting a site like this one, you probably enjoy rather than condemn gossip about Supreme Court clerk clerks. But if you’d care to read our ramblings on the subject, they’re after the jump.

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Supreme Court Clerks Are Fair Game: Part 1

By David Lat

supreme court 1.jpgWe understand that some of you have been upset by our recent coverage of a certain future Supreme Court clerk. As we mentioned over the weekend, we are instituting a moratorium on coverage of this clerk, at least for the time being. So all of you irate commenters can unwad your panties, spray Febreze on them, and toss them into the dryer.
But we WOULD like to defend, as a general proposition, the propriety of writing about Supreme Court clerks. The Elect should not be viewed as an off-limits or taboo topic. To those of you who object to our coverage of SCOTUS clerks — and rest assured, more is on its way — we have some points for your consideration. (If you have no problem with such coverage, then just ignore all of these posts.)
We’re going to spread our arguments out over a series of posts, so as not to tire you. We’re giving this series of posts a tag — “SCOTUS Clerks Are Fair Game” — so you can click on all the posts discussing this topic.
We apologize in advance if you find our arguments unpersuasive. Substantive analysis is not our forte, which is why we generally stick to gossip (and why our own interviews for Supreme Court clerkships ended badly). As you review our points, please remember that we are but humble members of The Great Unwashed.
The first point we’d like to make appears after the jump.

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