Courts

Glassdoor For Judges: Clerkship Transparency Effort Gains Momentum

The Legal Accountability Project has embraced a high-risk, high-reward strategy: using disruptive tactics to increase transparency in the courts and improve the clerkship experience for thousands of clerks each year.

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“What do judges think of The Legal Accountability Project’s Centralized Clerkships Database?”

It’s the question I field most often from law schools, law students, and other stakeholders since I first floated the concept of a national clerkships database, legal technology to democratize information about judges, 18 months ago, when I launched a nonprofit to correct injustices I experienced as a law student and law clerk. The typical follow up question is, “They’re opposed, right?”

In fact, I’ve been impressed with the positive response from many federal and state court judges to The Legal Accountability Project’s (LAP) work. Of course, I haven’t spoken with all the judges. And I don’t know whether those willing to speak with me are representative of the judiciary generally. But LAP has embraced a high-risk, high-reward strategy: using disruptive tactics to increase transparency in the courts and improve the clerkship experience for thousands of clerks each year, while collaborating with judges to broaden their hiring beyond established pipelines.

The narrative that judiciary policies are antithetical to transparency originates from several places. The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (AO) and Judicial Conference of the United States have continued to oppose transparency efforts, including the Judiciary Accountability Act (JAA), legislation that would extend Title VII protections to the federal judiciary, impose data collection requirements, and mandate some outside oversight over the Third Branch. They also refuse to publicly report the results of a workplace culture assessment of the federal judiciary, Employee Dispute Resolution (EDR) complaint data, demographic information about law clerk and federal public defender hiring, or more robust information about the outcomes of judicial complaints. To be clear, those are leadership decisions: they don’t necessarily represent the views of many rank and file judges, who tell me privately they support the JAA or at least its components.

The anti-transparency narrative is also purveyed by too many law schools – some more explicitly than others. Law schools don’t want the public to know about their clerkship resources or advising practices: whether they conduct post-clerkship surveys and maintain them in internal clerkships databases accessible to students, whether they keep blacklists of judges who mistreat their clerks, or whether they steer applicants away from abusive judges, for example. Law schools generally discourage mistreated clerks from documenting negative experiences in writing, advising clerks that they should fear retaliation by the judges who mistreated them and reputational harm in the legal profession for speaking ill of powerful judges. They certainly have not implemented guardrails that would empower clerks to safely, candidly, and anonymously share negative clerkship experiences and warn prospective clerks to avoid abusive judges.

This is because some law schools care more about maintaining their relationships with judges — even those known to mistreat clerks — than they do about their duty of care to thousands of students and alumni. They fear that documenting evidence of mistreatment or poor management practices will piss off some judges (who have monopolized clerkship feeder networks at top law schools), which they’re loathe to do. Yet law schools are uniquely empowered to change the industry standard of silence, fear, and impunity for judges who mistreat clerks, to one that incentivizes judges to be better managers and more transparent employers.

LAP is the solution for legal academia and the judiciary, two institutions that have been historically slow to change but have shown willingness to engage with a neutral third party offering common-sense, achievable solutions. LAP offers law clerks and law schools a platform to candidly share the full range of clerkship experiences — positive, nuanced or neutral, and negative. We’re the best solution offered so far to the lack of transparency in clerkship hiring.

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I’ve been speaking with judges about LAP’s Clerkships Database for over 18 months. Behind the scenes, they’ve been circulating LAP’s post-clerkship survey, which asks questions about judges as managers, chambers culture, and clerkship experiences, to their current and former clerks; encouraging deans and clerkship directors to participate in LAP’s Clerkships Database; and joining me at law school events. They’ve also been working with me behind the scenes to implement best practices to improve their managerial styles and update their law clerk handbooks. I’m heartened that several judges I spoke with were inspired to meet with their clerks to ask how they can improve. Some have been sufficiently emboldened to tweet their support for LAP and encourage their peers to do the same. Every judge has room to grow, and many want to — but they need guidance, considering the lack of managerial training they receive.

Despite all this, some very fearful law schools are skeptical, purveying a ridiculous narrative that judges will “blackball” law schools for participating in LAP’s database. Perhaps this fear was engendered by last year’s conservative judge boycott of certain law schools. These fears are unfounded. We’ve seen no evidence that judges oppose LAP’s Clerkships Database. Plenty of judges openly support it.

Furthermore, it should be a red flag for any law school clerkship director or dean, or for a clerkship applicant, if a judge opposes the concept of reviews, thinks their chambers culture should not be known to applicants, or rejects the basic value of transparency. Schools should not encourage students to clerk for judges who oppose transparency in hiring and chambers culture. Right now, opacity and secrecy are the self-inflicted costs of doing business at many top law schools and within the judiciary. It doesn’t have to be this way.

I don’t expect judges to oppose this initiative — let alone boycott law schools for participating — because this would raise a red flag about their own conduct. Why wouldn’t some judges want applicants to know more about their chambers culture and management style before applying?

Judges benefit from increased transparency in clerkship hiring because it will increase access to clerkships for applicants and empower them to become informed consumers. LAP is transforming the clerkship marketplace from a monopoly rife with informational asymmetries to a free market with empowered applicants. Additionally, increasing the quality of clerkship information provides insights relevant to diverse applicants with unique considerations, thereby increasing the overall number of clerkship applicants interested in applying — a net benefit for all parties in the clerkship market.

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The same is true for judges: information about certain “high-demand” circuits and judges will be redistributed to include information about more, and lesser known, circuits and judges — benefiting more judges by increasing the number of judges who law students can apply to, and benefiting all judges by increasing applicant awareness. Many judges are excited about being featured in LAP’s Clerkships Database. They’ve told us that access to more information about more judges will empower both judges and clerks to robustly compete for clerkships.

Because we know many judges support our work, LAP recently announced the LAP Pledge, our new initiative to signal judiciary support for LAP’s Clerkships Database. We’re formalizing what judges are already doing informally — circulating our survey and committing to the transparency, diversity, and accountability principles that motivate LAP. Judges are publicly pledging to circulate LAP’s survey to their current and former clerks and committing to send it to future clerks at the end of their clerkships. They’re listed on our website and in LAP’s database as pledge takers, so students can search for judges particularly committed to transparency and diversity in hiring and chambers culture.

As pledge taker Justice Elizabeth Welch of the Michigan Supreme Court explained, “Clerkships offer an important career path for so many attorneys. We want to ensure that clerks have a positive experience and that we, as judges, take ownership of that experience. One of the best ways to ensure we receive excellent applications for future openings is for past and present clerks to share their experiences. Clerks can then understand which judges will offer them the work environment they are seeking.” She added, “my office has worked proactively to seek a broader applicant pool that better represents the profession. LAP is an excellent resource that will help offices with that goal.”

We’re already seeing that the positive reinforcement of judges taking the pledge is encouraging some of their colleagues to do so as well. Through this initiative, judges can ensure their clerks’ perspectives are included as students read reviews in LAP’s database and apply this clerkship hiring cycle.

Judges have also been speaking with their clerks about this initiative. It’s no surprise to us that the response has been positive.

“Because my values generally track what LAP is trying to achieve, taking the Pledge was a pretty easy call,” explained pledge taker Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster of the Delaware Court of Chancery. He added, “plus, when I talked about it with some of my former clerks, I found out that a couple of them had already filled out surveys on me! So, I figured if it was happening anyway, there was no downside.”

LAP’s database doesn’t just benefit law students and law schools: it benefits judges, too. It serves as a comparative market advantage for judges, spotlighting good managers and good mentors, and helping some judges get more, better, and more diverse applicants. It also enables students to broaden the range of judges they can learn about and consider applying to, beyond those in their geographic regions and those with whom their law schools have existing relationships.

Over the next few weeks, LAP will reach out to more federal and state judges to invite them to take the pledge. Pledge takers are reaching out to their colleagues to encourage them to join the effort. And we encourage law clerks — current and former — to encourage the judges you clerked for to join this clerkship transparency movement.

The overwhelmingly positive response to LAP’s Clerkships Database before its official launch this year — from hundreds of clerks nationwide submitting surveys; students hosting LAP programming and advocating to their administrations to subscribe to the database; judges taking the pledge, circulating LAP’s post-clerkship survey, and encouraging their colleagues to do the same; and many law schools seriously considering making changes — is evidence of what I’ve said all along: there’s a real hunger in the legal profession for clerkship transparency. Some just needed the right resource to fill that void.

LAP is the largest independent repository of clerkship information in the U.S. We’ve done what no one dared try before and few thought possible: centralized hundreds of candid and nuanced post-clerkship surveys about the full range of federal and state clerkship experiences in a single clearinghouse of information, with a user-friendly interface for law students and clerkship advisors.

LAP’s database is a tool for schools — and for law students. This year, we’ll supplement law schools’ existing resources. Within the next two years, we’ll supplant them, becoming the go-to resource for clerkship information.

Beyond that, I hope LAP’s database will become the benchmark for law school applicants, law students, law schools, and judges, as they decide where to attend law school, whom to clerk for, which judges to send applicants to and which to steer them away from, and which law schools to engage with in their clerkship hiring. Clerkship transparency benefits everyone, by ensuring better matching between judges and clerks. It’s happening right now at law schools and in courthouses nationwide.

More-informed clerkship applicants securing better and more-fulfilling clerkships will have positive implications for new generations of lawyers, who emerge from their clerkships invigorated to practice law. Prelaw and law students, as well as attorneys at all stages of their careers, have numerous resources to assist with job-searching. Glassdoor for judges is a common-sense resource, and we encourage more judges to join the effort.

IMG_1719Aliza Shatzman is the President and Founder of The Legal Accountability Project, a nonprofit aimed at ensuring that law clerks have positive clerkship experiences, while extending support and resources to those who do not. She regularly writes and speaks about judicial accountability and clerkships. Reach out to her via email at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter @AlizaShatzman.

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