Politics, SCOTUS, Supreme Court, Supreme Court Clerks

A New Trend Among Supreme Court Clerks?

Why are so many former SCOTUS clerks flocking to Capitol Hill?

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Where do brilliant young lawyers with Supreme Ambitions (affiliate link) wind up working after their clerkships? Professor Derek Muller recently looked at the October Term 2005 class of Supreme Court clerks to see where they are now. Many are working for the usual suspects: leading law schools, top government offices, and Biglaw firms (although, as noted by Muller, a surprisingly high number haven’t made partner yet).

When Professor Muller undertakes this project in future years, might he find some ex-SCOTUS clerks working on Capitol Hill? At least three members of the Elect now serve as United States Senators: Senator Richard Blumental of Connecticut (OT 1974/Blackmun), Senator Ted Cruz of Texas (OT 1996/Rehnquist), and Senator Mike Lee of Utah (OT 2006/Alito). And a growing number of clerks are heading over to the Hill as staffers, as reported by Mike Sacks in the National Law Journal:

[I]n recent years, the election to Congress of two former Supreme Court clerks — Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, in 2010, and Ted Cruz, R-Texas, in 2012 — has increased hiring traffic among the senators’ fellow conservatives between One First Street and Capitol Hill.

“I think the Hill has not seemed like an obvious option to Supreme Court clerks in the past,” said Lee’s chief counsel, Will Levi, who clerked for Justice Samuel Alito during the 2011-12 term. “Now, because there are senators who clerked on the court who are involved in Federalist Society, who are involved in different legal circles [that] we have a lot more exposure to, … it seems like a path.”

The trend started in 2013 when Cruz hired Scott Keller as his first chief counsel. Keller, a former clerk for Justice Anthony Kennedy, left Cruz’s office in December, when he was appointed Texas solicitor general, a position Cruz held from 2003 to 2008. That’s when Ryan Newman, Keller’s University of Texas School of Law classmate, got a call.

“When [Keller] left to take his new job, he called me up and said, ‘Hey, I’m leaving, are you interested in replacing me?’ So I jumped at the opportunity,” Newman said.

It sounds like a game of musical chairs within the clubby confines of ex-SCOTUS clerk circles. Here’s how Will Levi landed his job:

Several months after Newman started in Cruz’s office, Matt Owen, Lee’s chief counsel at the time, told Levi he was leaving for the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

“I had no intention of leaving my law firm, but this was too good of an opportunity to turn down,” said Levi, who was then an associate at Bancroft. Owen had clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia during the 2010-11 term.

What’s the draw of these Capitol Hill jobs? It’s certainly not the pay, far lower than the six-figure bonuses and salaries that former SCOTUS clerks enjoy at law firms. And with the trend being a new one, I’m not sure the prestige is there just yet — it’s universally prestigious to be a United States Senator, but staffer positions are inconsistently prestigious, and one needs to be a bit of a D.C. insider to know which posts are prestigious and which are not.

According to the clerks on the Hill, the draw is the opportunity to serve:

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Levi credits Justice Alito in large part for his decision to work on the Hill. “I came into [the law] with a commitment to public service, but it was confirmed by [Alito],” he said.

Newman also cited Alito as a role model, but said his interest in public service dates to his boyhood dream of being a soldier. He graduated from West Point and was deployed to Iraq for part of his five years with the U.S. Army. Newman said that when he told his commander he was leaving the Army for law school, “he told me, ‘I’d be very disappointed if you went out and just made a lot of money and didn’t get back into the fray in some capacity serving the country.'”

Serving the country instead of serving one’s pocketbook? It’s a novel concept for some lawyers, but it shouldn’t be surprising coming from folks who have already served the country for at least two years as law clerks (a year or more in a lower-court clerkship or clerkships, and a year at the Supreme Court).

Congratulations to these clerks on their positions on the Hill, which give them a chance to affect public policy in ways that many of their former co-clerks can’t claim, and good luck to them as they navigate the corridors of power — different from those at One First Street, but no less important.

P.S. We are still looking for additional information about (1) signing bonuses for the outgoing crew of SCOTUS clerks (we have a few tips already), and (2) hires that didn’t make it into our last Supreme Court clerk hiring round-up. We have almost enough for a fresh update, so please email us (subject line: “SCOTUS Clerk Hiring”) or text us (646-820-8477) with hiring news. We keep our sources confidential. Thanks!

UPDATE (8/20/2015, 9:00 p.m.): Some former SCOTUS clerks argue that this trend really isn’t that new. See, e.g., Orin Kerr and Ed Whelan.

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Former Supreme Court Clerks Find Conservative Home on Hill [National Law Journal]
Where are they now? Supreme Court clerks, OT2005 [Excess of Democracy]
Supreme Ambitions [Amazon (affiliate link)]

Earlier: Supreme Court Clerk Hiring Watch: Who Is NOT Retiring From SCOTUS?

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