A Closer Look At Justice Neil Gorsuch's Current Clerks
Let's learn more about this formidable foursome.
Jamil Jaffer (via C-SPAN) and Jane Nitze (via Judicial Crisis Network)
On April 7, the Senate confirmed Justice Neil M. Gorsuch’s nomination to the Supreme Court by a vote of 54-45. That afternoon, I revealed the identities of his four clerks for the rest of the current SCOTUS Term (October Term 2016), plus his clerks for the Term to come (October Term 2017). The Court’s Public Information Office subsequently confirmed the correctness of my information (as noted in the UPDATE to my original post).
After a quick review of their credentials, I summed up Justice Gorsuch’s clerks as being “like their boss: brilliant, well-credentialed, and (seemingly) conservative.” But just how well-credentialed? Tony Mauro has taken a closer look at NMG’s first four clerks, and here are some highlights:
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Janie Nitze: After noting Jane Nitze’s star turn in the Judicial Crisis Network’s pro-Gorsuch ad, in which she (convincingly) played a liberal (“former Obama Administration attorney”), she worked at the Department of Justice, spending four years in the (super-prestigious) Office of Legal Counsel. A 2008 Harvard Law graduate, she previously clerked at SCOTUS for Justice Sotomayor (another “liberal” credential). Fun fact about Nitze: “If her last name sounds familiar, that’s because her husband’s grandfather was Paul Nitze, secretary of the Navy under President Lyndon Johnson.” (If her last name doesn’t sound familiar, that’s because like most people on the planet you have no clue who served as secretary of the Navy under Lyndon Johnson.)
Michael Davis: Like his boss, Mike Davis has heartland appeal: he graduated from Iowa Law in 2004 and served as managing partner of his own small Denver firm, MRDLaw, which he’s now wound down (as reflected in the dead link at http://www.mrdlaw.co/mrdlaw/). Like Nitze, he also worked to advance his boss’s confirmation, stumping for then-Judge Gorsuch in St. Louis. And now Davis has been rewarded for his support, with the plum position of a Supreme Court clerkship. (He’ll be able to call himself a former SCOTUS clerk for the rest of his legal career (and life) — and nobody will really notice that his clerkly tenure amounted to just a few weeks.)
Jamil Jaffer: Jaffer, a 2003 graduate of U. Chicago Law, was launching the new National Security Institute at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School when his former boss’s nomination heated up. Like his co-clerks, Jaffer enthusiastically went to bat for then-Judge Gorsuch, testifying to the Senate Judiciary Committee in support of Gorsuch (and diverging from his written testimony in a way that might have backfired). Working on SCOTUS nominations is old hat for Jaffer; while in the DOJ’s Office of Legal Policy, he helped bring the nominations of Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel Alito Jr. to their successful conclusions.
Matthew Owen: Matt Owen, a 2008 Michigan law grad, will wind up having clerked during three different Terms of the Supreme Court. He clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia in October Term 2010, and will now clerk for Justice Gorsuch from OT 2016 through OT 2018 (he’s the one clerk who will be staying on after this Term ends). Owen brings experience on Capitol Hill to chambers, having served as chief counsel and staff director of the Senate’s permanent subcommittee on investigations, under Senator Rob Portman (R-Ohio). Owen also served in the Solicitor General’s Office as a Bristow Fellow.
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There you have them: the fantastic four now assisting Neil Gorsuch in his early weeks as a SCOTUS justice. Do you know of other folks who have been hired to clerk for Justice Gorsuch, or any of his colleagues, in future Terms? We might soon do another Supreme Court clerk hiring round-up, so if you have info to share, please email us (subject line: “SCOTUS Clerk Hiring”).
P.S. What about people who were hired by then-Judge Gorsuch for the Tenth Circuit and are now “orphaned” by his elevation? Typically those individuals get hooked up with clerkships for other great circuit judges, and they often then clerk for the Court for the justice who originally hired them for circuit duty. If you know about the fate of these displaced NMG Tenth Circuit clerks, please email us (subject line: “Gorsuch Clerks”).
Meet Neil Gorsuch’s 4 New Law Clerks [Supreme Court Brief / American Lawyer]
Watch a Gorsuch Defender Say a Dead Victim of Gun Violence Would Support Gorsuch [Slate]
Earlier: Supreme Court Clerk Hiring Watch: Meet Justice Neil Gorsuch’s Clerks
Liberals And Gays For Gorsuch? (Or, The Virtues Of Non-Ideological Clerk Hiring)
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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.
