Gorsuch graduated cum laude, not magna cum laude or summa cum laude, from Harvard Law School. The striking thing about both men’s academic credentials is that they fit right within the zone of twilight where they are credible applicants for a feeder clerkship, but neither man was a standout applicant. If Republicans push forward with this confirmation, we will all reap the whirlwind. To the contrary, feeder judges typically receive hundreds of qualified applicants, dozens of whom could do the job with rare distinction.īrett Kavanaugh is an existential threat to the Supreme Court “Feeder judges,” the handful of ultra-prominent judges who routinely send their clerks on to clerk for a Supreme Court justice, do not typically hire clerks who are obviously better suited than anyone else who applied for the job. The important thing to understand about this rat race is that it is a game of very small distinctions. But for the young lawyers whose rare combination of brilliance, diligence, ambition, and luck allows them to compete credibly for a Supreme Court clerkship, their ability to claim that prize could decide whether they go on to become one of the most powerful people in the nation. Former court of appeals clerks may very well make partner and get to spend the bulk of their career arguing appeals for well-paying clients, but former Supreme Court clerks are overwhelmingly more likely to become Supreme Court litigators themselves - or potentially even Supreme Court justices.Īsking most lawyers to distinguish between the career opportunities available to court of appeals clerks, and the opportunities available to Supreme Court clerks, is a bit like asking whether Wonder Woman could win a fight against Superman. Law firms pay signing bonuses as high as $105,000 for young lawyers exiting a lower court clerkship, but they offer bonuses up to $350,000 to outgoing Supreme Court clerks. But a nearly identical lawyer who clerked on the Supreme Court is much more likely to start out in a handful of the federal government’s most prestigious jobs for young lawyers - The Office of Legal Counsel, a political aide to the attorney general, or even the White House Counsel’s office - all of which are often stepping stones to a federal judgeship. A lawyer who “only” clerks for a federal appellate judge might begin their career as a Justice Department litigator in Washington, DC. The difference between a Harvard law graduate who gets to clerk on the Supreme Court and one who merely clerks for a court of appeals judge can hinge on the fact that the second graduate had the flu during one of their exams and only received an A- because of that illness.īut these small differences matter a great deal in terms of career outcomes. The marginal differences between these competitors can be vanishingly small. The editors compete for clerkships, and the clerks for the most prestigious judges compete to clerk for the Supreme Court. Students who already made it to law review compete to become those editors. The best students at these schools compete for jobs on the law review, student-run academic journals where the highest editors often work full-time, unpaid jobs on top of their studies. College students compete for slots at the top law schools. There’s an old joke that the practice of law is a pie-eating contest and the prize is more pie.
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