Courts

Latest Trump Judicial Nominee Clerked LAST YEAR

They're just trolling the country at this point.

By  
on

Almost exactly two years ago, Donald Trump nominated Allison Rushing to the Fourth Circuit even though she’d only graduated law school in 2007 and spent about a third of her career clerking. Many saw the nomination as a low water mark for the administration’s cynical approach to the judiciary and willingness to install ideologues with the longest possible career runways ahead of them. I wasn’t so sure that we’d seen the most egregious nomination. At the time I quipped:

Before this administration is over, a 3L serving as FedSoc Treasurer at Ole Miss could get a district court nod and not a single goddamned one of you will be shocked.

And as it turns out I wasn’t far off.

Kathryn Mizelle was just nominated for a life-tenured position on the Middle District of Florida. It’s not all that surprising to learn that a judicial nominee has featured in the Above the Law pages before as a Supreme Court clerk. It is, on the other hand, surprising to learn that she was a clerk last f**ing year.

What record is the Judiciary Committee supposed to question her on? Her Torts exam?

Mizelle has been out of law school for eight years and she’s spent four of those years clerking — most recently for Justice Thomas, serving prior stints with appellate judges William Pryor and Gregory Katsas and her probably-soon-to-be colleague James Moody of the Middle District of Florida. And when the comically inexperienced Judge Rushing graduated law school, Mizelle probably hadn’t even taken the LSAT yet! Indeed, Professor Carl Tobias of Richmond Law notes that, if confirmed Mizelle could be “the youngest person appointed to the federal bench since Reagan appointed Alex Kozinski to the Court of Claims one month after he turned 32 and to the Ninth Circuit at age 35.” And that turned out well!

Honestly, imagine looking at a resume in 5 years and getting excited to see a candidate with a federal clerkship and then realizing it’s with a judge having next to no practical experience. Anyone telling you all federal clerkships are worth it is lying — maybe even to themselves — because employers are more savvy than “derp, clerkship!” and we’re going to see a lot more careful scrutinizing of those resume lines as these classes of Trump clerks pile up.

Sponsored

“The Not So Marvelous Mrs. Mizelle” is an unfortunate moniker to carry into confirmation hearings but this is the burden the administration (or more accurately the FedSoc puppet masters behind it) has dumped on this young lawyer. She might well have had a great legal career ahead of her that would chalk up to a sterling application in a dozen years or so, but we’ll never know because she’s getting called up from junior varsity now. It’s not her fault that she has to say yes to this farce — there are no guarantees this will come around again.

And that’s assuming she even gets to the committee. Professor Tobias notes that the calendar doesn’t necessarily work in her favor:

It is very late in the term of a President who may lose in November, Ms. Mizelle would have to leapfrog many nominees ahead of her in the queue and the Senate has moved very slowly all year on confirmations, the Senate is poised to recess today until after Labor Day and will only return for a few weeks until it recesses to campaign.

So this may not even end with her getting her day in front of the Senate? Given the schedule, this almost feels like a stunt. And unfortunately, either way, she gets to be the punchline for the cruel joke Trump and McConnell are playing on the judicial branch.

Earlier: Trump’s Latest Circuit Nominee Graduated Law School In 2007
Supreme Court Clerk Hiring Watch: Justice Kavanaugh’s History-Making Class Of Clerks
Donald Trump’s Devaluation Of The Federal Clerkship

Sponsored

HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

Topics

, , , ,