Clerkships, Feeder Judges, SCOTUS, Supreme Court, Supreme Court Clerks

Supreme Court Clerk Hiring Watch: To Know A Judge, Know Her Clerks

At least three of the nine justices are done hiring clerks for October Term 2018 (2018-2019).

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Supreme Court Clerk Hallway originalWhy am I so obsessed with law clerks and clerkships? The rest of the world is coming around to what I’ve known for quite some time: when trying to learn about a judge, clerkly clues can be revealing.

Take legal academia. Last year, a group of scholars at Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Chicago wrote a paper on the political ideologies of law clerks. They followed this up with a paper measuring judicial ideology using clerk ideology.

Or consider D.C.’s favorite parlor game: guessing when Justice Anthony M. Kennedy will retire from the Supreme Court. Earlier this month, Nina Totenberg had this report for NPR:

[I]t is unlikely that Kennedy will remain on the court for the full four years of the Trump presidency. While he long ago hired his law clerks for the coming term, he has not done so for the following term (beginning Oct. 2018), and has let applicants for those positions know he is considering retirement.

I had actually heard this a few weeks earlier, from a clerkship applicant (singular) to Justice Kennedy, so I wasn’t shocked. Some on #appellatetwitter (and beyond) got very excited about this report, but I think it might have been an overreaction.

It’s no secret that Justice Kennedy is considering retirement; the justice even made a sly joke about it at his recent clerk reunion. And there’s precedent for a justice giving a heads up to clerkship applicants about the possibility of his retiring, as Greg Stohr of Bloomberg noted on Twitter:

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Still, it’s a good example of how paying attention to something like clerk hiring can shed light on a justice’s plans — which brings us to the latest installment of Supreme Court Clerk Hiring Watch.

If you want more real-time information on Supreme Court clerk hiring, follow @SCOTUSambitions on Twitter. For example, this notable hire got tweeted back in May:

Clayton Kozinski’s hiring by Justice Kennedy should surprise no one. Clayton is (1) a Yale Law School graduate; (2) a law clerk to Judge Brett Kavanaugh, a top feeder judge and former AMK clerk; and (3) son of Judge Alex Kozinski, also a top feeder judge and former AMK clerk. (And Brett Kavanaugh clerked for Judge Kozinski before clerking for Justice Kennedy, making the Kennedy-Kozinski nexus even stronger.)

As I mentioned in an update appended to my “AMK is not retiring” post, Clayton’s hiring doesn’t mean Justice Kennedy is staying through OT 2018. Recall that a retired justice still gets one clerk, who helps that justice with various tasks — speeches, books, cases the justice hears while sitting by designation on circuit courts — and also gets to work with active justices on cases. So:

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Clayton Kozinski was a super-early hire for Justice Kennedy (but not surprising, given that AMK sometimes hires someone early from Judge Kozinski, to whom he’s very close). The justice typically hires in December or January for the following October Term. So if December 2017 or January 2018 rolls around and Clayton has no co-clerks, that would be a sign of possible retirement.

Two other quick observations. First, at least three justices — Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kagan — have completed their OT 2018 hiring. So don’t expect them to be leaving the Court anytime soon — which should come as no surprise, given how RBG and SGB presumably feel about DJT, and given the youth of EK. (For those of you who track SCOTUS clerk hiring so closely that you even follow what time of year the justices move, the Kagan hires are fairly recent — within the past three to four weeks.)

Second, note the continued rise of what I’ve dubbed the next generation of feeder judges, especially those based in the Southern District of New York, the nation’s most prestigious trial court. If you clerk for a high-powered S.D.N.Y. judge — e.g., Judge Jesse Furman, Judge Alison Nathan, or Judge Paul Oetken — and also clerk for a prominent (or even not-so-prominent) circuit judge, your chances of landing a SCOTUS clerkship get greatly enhanced.

(Speaking of Judge Furman, he recently officiated at a wedding that surely would have taken top honors if we still did Legal Eagle Wedding Watch. Congratulations to newlyweds Beatrice Franklin (Columbia 2014 / Furman (S.D.N.Y.) / Carney), an incoming RBG clerk, and Kevin Mead (Columbia 2014 / Jacobs)!)

Without further ado, here’s the updated list of clerk hires for October Term 2018. (If you’re looking for the October Term 2017 clerks — the ones starting this summer, along with Beatrice Franklin — see here.)

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!

UPDATE (10:26 p.m.): The original version of this post listed Justice Gorsuch’s OT 2017 clerks as his OT 2018 clerks (copy/paste error). Those names have been removed, and one name has been added: Paul Mezzina, who continues NMG’s trend of hiring older, experienced clerks. Mezzina, a 2008 Harvard Law grad, is a partner at King & Spalding.

UPDATE (11:04 p.m.): Added Cole Carter to the list of clerks to Chief Justice Roberts. JGR is almost done.

UPDATE (7/20/2017, 11:39 a.m.): Orin Kerr points out an interesting trend: the high percentage of OT 2018 clerks who will arrive at SCOTUS with two prior clerkships, rather than the more traditional one. Taking into account the two updates above, the figure right now seems to be 81 percent (17 out of 21 clerks).

OCTOBER TERM 2018 SUPREME COURT CLERK HIRES (as of July 19, 2017)

Chief Justice John G. Roberts
1. Evelyn Blacklock (Harvard 2016 / Sullivan (S.D.N.Y.) / Kavanaugh)
2. Cole Carter (Harvard 2016 / Sutton / Feinerman (N.D. Ill.))
3. Julie Karaba (Northwestern 2014 / Feinerman (N.D. Ill.) / Kavanaugh / Bristow)
4. ?

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy
1. Clayton Kozinski (Yale 2017 / Kavanaugh)
2. ?
3. ?
4. ?

Justice Clarence Thomas
1. Kathryn Kimball (U. Florida 2012 / W. Pryor / Moody (M.D. Fl.))
2. Christopher Mills (Harvard 2012 / Sentelle)
3. ?
4. ?

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
1. Katie Barber (UVA 2015 / Brinkema (E.D. Va.) / Owens)
2. Rachel Bayefsky (Yale 2015 / Rakoff (S.D.N.Y.) / Katzmann)
3. Rebecca Lee (Yale 2016 / Wilkinson / Moss (D.D.C.)
4. Matt Rubenstein (Yale 2014 / Gwin (N.D. Oh.) / Tatel)

October Term 2019:

1. Alyssa Barnard (Columbia 2015 / Nathan (S.D.N.Y.) / Katzmann)
2. Marco Basile (Harvard 2015 / Watford / Barron)
3. Susan Pelletier (Harvard 2016 / Garland)
4. Michael Qian (Stanford 2016 / Garland / Bristow Fellow)

Justice Stephen G. Breyer
1. Will Havemann (Stanford 2013 / Motz)
2. Jo-Ann Karhson (Harvard 2014 / K.B. Jackson (D.D.C.) / Kavanaugh)
3. Janine Lopez (Harvard 2014 / Garland)
4. Alec Schierenbeck (Stanford 2015 / Oetken (S.D.N.Y.) / Tatel)

Justice Samuel Alito
1. ?
2. ?
3. ?
4. ?

Justice Sonia Sotomayor
1. ?
2. ?
3. ?
4. ?

Justice Elena Kagan
1. Robert Niles (Harvard 2016 / Oetken (S.D.N.Y.) / Tatel)
2. Ashley Robertson (Stanford 2016 / Srinivasan / Boasberg (D.D.C.))
3. Zach Savage (NYU 2013 / Scirica / Furman (S.D.N.Y.))
4. Reema Shah (Yale 2015 / Srinivasan / Bristow Fellow)

Justice Neil M. Gorsuch

1. Paul Mezzina (Harvard 2008 / Kavanaugh / Scalia)
2. ?
3. ?
4. ?

Justice John Paul Stevens (retired)
1. Sarah Sloan (Columbia 2016 / Friedland / Nathan (S.D.N.Y.))

Justice David H. Souter (retired):
1. Sundeep Iyer (Yale 2016 / Kavanaugh)

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!

Justice Neil Gorsuch Votes 100 Percent Of The Time With Most Conservative Colleague [NPR via New York Magazine]
The Political Ideologies of Law Clerks [SSRN]
Measuring Judicial Ideology Using Law Clerk Hiring [SSRN]
Supreme Ambitions [Amazon (affiliate link)]

Earlier:

DBL square headshotDavid 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.

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