When confirmed to the Supreme Court in 1962, Justice Byron White became the first justice ever to have clerked for a previous justice as White clerked for Chief Justice Vinson in 1946. This was more than 60 years after the first Supreme Court clerk was hired by Justice Gray in 1882 and more than 150…
Tag: Harvard Law School
Justice Filtered: Plans to Manage Diversity in the Federal Judiciary
Since Donald Trump’s inauguration in 2017, his administration has made major changes to the federal judiciary. This includes filling two Supreme Court seats along with a total of 146 confirmed Article III (federal district, appellate, Supreme Courts, and the court of international trade) judges. Democrats saw their last Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, fade away…
With a Little Help from Academic Scholarship
Judges’ citations tell a lot about their dispositions. We can glean relationships between cases, judges’ perspectives on these cases, and judges’ relationships with other judges based on case citations. For this reason, empirical scholars have spent much time and energy analyzing judges’ citation patterns. A slew of Supreme Court researchers have written fascinating pieces about…
Law Schools, Judges, and Government Attorneys
This post extends beyond the Supreme Court to look at which law schools have been most successful placing current government attorneys and sitting federal judges around the nation (thank you Jack Metzler / @SCOTUSplaces for the idea). The positions examined include United States Attorneys, sitting federal judges, and state attorney generals and solicitor generals (AGs,…
A Formula For Supreme Court Clerkships? Harvard and Garland
Is there a formula to becoming a Supreme Court clerk? Perhaps a certain pedigree? How about a prior federal clerkship? The short answer to all three questions is yes. At very least, going to a certain school and working for a specific judge significantly enhance your chances. Much of the discussion surrounding Supreme Court clerkships has centered…
Empirical SCOTUS 