FIRSTOTUS

does anyone who clerks for garland not go on to scotus?

Lat once called Garland "the Luttig of the Left."

What are the Bristow fellows up to (4 of them)? I know historically they've placed well.

I'm not sure about the latest crop of Bristows, but it seems that lately they haven't been doing as well as you'd expect in the SCOTUS clerk department.

Scalia is interviewing 2 in the next few weeks.

I thought we had one coming to my firm but I was mistaken. I also thought a Bristow from H nabbed a SCOTUS slot. I think the others were a girl from somewhere and then a guy from Penn? Dont know about the other. But I could be all wrong.

Sounds like a sweet job.

A fellow clerk and I would smoke joints during lunch behind the Courthouse.

What's happening to Chicago?

5:52, Chicago had fewer apps this year, so it stands to reason it will place fewer clerks with the supremes.

Kudos to Alito and Thomas for hiring tier 2 students. You really see what elitists the other judges are when you look at their HYS exclusive hiring.

Pepperdine? What a joke. It helps to be friends with Ken Starr.

Interesting. How about some OT 2007/2008 clerk profiles?

I met a couple of former Scalia clerks a while back, and I have to be honest, I can see why SCOTUS opinions are such nonsensical bullshit.

Justice Alito is the most down to earth and "regular guy" member of the entire judiciary let alone SCOTUS. He coached lillte league baseball in N.J. for christ sakes and was a well liked and approachable adjunct professor at an area law school. Take it to the liberals Sam! PARTICULARLY THAT PEDERAST KENNEDY.. ( as in Ted kennedy- yes I know he is in Congress- save it dorks- back to doc review).

Time to start naming-and-shaming the firms that aren't paying market bonus ($250,000) for the Supreme Court class of 2006? Most clerks get their bonuses with their first paycheck, which should be happening soon. Wall-o'-shame time!

Breyer and Ginsburg, the biggest proponents of affirmative action, take only Harvard, Yale, or Columbia grads. They are the definition of 'limousine liberals.'

6:50, it must really hurt to be passed over. Boo hoo.

I went to a top-3 law school, I know the clerk in question, and I can say without any reservations that he is one of the 5-10 most intelligent lawyers I have met. He also clerked for Alito pre-SCOTUS, so I would guess that it was his prior work for the Justice (rather than a dean who joined his law school a year AFTER he graduated) that got him the job.

8:02, you have got to be kidding me. SCT clerks don't add that much value: they can't work before the Court for two years, at which point most of them have fled the law firm, happily pocketing their quarter mil. They're a press release, that's all.

Thomas' hiring is kind of ridiculous. I understand where his excessive anti-elitism comes from; after all, he got screwed by his alma matter like no one else. But one would think that 15 years later he would at least limit his anger at the Yale administration and not at all HLS, SLS and YLS students.

By Yale administration I meant also the Yale faculty, obviously.

By the way, WTF is up with Stevens' clerk from Wisconsin??!!

Can someone explain to me why it is that not all SCOTUS clerks are from Harvard or Yale? I know a lot of Harvard or Yale students are not all that impressive, and a SCOTUS clerkship is far more selective than even getting into YLS. But still, since almost all law students who have a real shot at SCOTUS apply for it, SCOTUS clerks are more or less the 32 best law students in the country for their year. If they are that smart, why would any of them have been rejected from both YLS and HLS (which accepts 800 applicants every year, so it's not all that selective compared to SCOTUS)? Or are the SCOTUS clerks from other schools the type of people who could have got into YLS or HLS but chose not to attend? Might be true for 2 or 3 of them, but it looks like half of them didn't go to Y or H. I just don't get it.

10:47--

Three explanations to get things started:
1) As you correnctly note, it is wrong to assume that all the most talented students attend Harvard or Yale. And I'm not sure why you'd limit that to "2 or 3 of them."
2) It is wrong to assume that admission to Harvard or Yale is a failsafe predictor of intellectual development during the at least four years (law school plus clerkship) that precede a supreme court clerkship.
3) Justices and their clerks are people too and fit is an aspect of the selection process. Even if the justices could scientifically select the most qualified potential clerks, they wouldn't necessarily select them.

10:47, there's a few explanations. First, it's not true that nearly all law students who have a shot apply. There's plenty of highly qualified top students who don't clerk at all, let alone attempt to clerk for the multiple years having a SCOTUS clerkship would involve. Second, there may be 800 acceptances at YLS and HLS, but I think if you spoke to Admissions professionals at those schools they'd tell you that the pool of equally qualified (or, if you prefer, very nearly equally qualified) students is far higher. Many of those end up at other law schools and do extremely well. Third, the SCOTUS process involves other criteria than merely the statistical measures used by law schools in admissions, namely the opportunity to impress with an interview.

10:47

Obviously the previous two commenters have hit the nail on the head. YLS and HLS have fewer spots than qualified people, and also are often less competitive financially than are comparable schools that are ranked slightly lower. This drives equally qualified people to other top-20 schools.

Also, some feeder judges (judges that regularly send their clerks to SCOTUS)are reluctant to hire from Yale due to the relatively poor quality of the legal, as opposed to jurisprudential, education received by Yale students. It turns out that to be a clerk it is actually helpful to know about legal technicalities, and not just about the human condition.

10:47

Since it's the US Open tennis season, let me give you a tennis analogy. 15 years ago every tennis experts was saying that Martina Hingis would be the greatest player ever. She had the perfect pedigree, had won all the "right" junior titles, was the #1 junior. Based on all the relevant criteria at the time, she looked to be miles ahead of her contemporaries. But what happened? These two sisters out of Compton, California showed up on the scene -- unrecognized and with no junior tennis tennis under their belts, let alone titles -- and blew Hingis off the court. Why? BECAUSE THEY WERE BETTER THAN HER.

Remember the lesson of Martina Hingis when you get passed over for a clerkship in favor of some Tier Two grad with less 'prestige' than you. Remember Martina Hingis when clients prefer to work with the Suffolk grad at your firm, or when a BU grad is elevated to partnership over you, or when you make partner the other partners want the 'Nova grad to be the Managing Partner. Chances are, they will get what you can't simply because they are better than you.

11:22 and 11:33 pretty much hit the nail on the head. As for 11:45's claim that some feeder judges don't hire from YLS because of their supposedly poor legal education, I'd like you to name some of the feeders. I have never heard of them. Is YLS warm and fuzzy? Sure, but I have never seen any evidence supporting the theory that people anywhere else "learn the law" any better. Yale's annual bar passage rate of 95%+ seems to suggest otherwise.

12:43

You have obviously never supervised a YLS summer associate or new associate. They're brilliant, but know nothing useful.

dude, not every one of the 5 million students that get admitted to HLS chooses to go there.

7:09,

"[B]rilliant, but know nothing useful" pretty much describes all summer associates from all schools everywhere, not just Yale.

12:43: Yale's annual bar passage rate of 95%+ seems to suggest otherwise.

Yeah, because bar passage rate is such a great predictor of legal ability...

However "soft" the legal education might be at YLS, the one thing that school does better than any other law school is teach students how to think about the law. And at the end of the day, that's what actually matters -- whether you're a blowhard law professor or a hardcore litigator. After years of practice, I can't think of a single case in which I have been asked to answer a question that had a clear right or wrong answer I had been forced to memorize in law school. Instead, clients are willing to pay $475 an hour for me to think creatively about their problems and find innovative solutions where the law is uncertain or otherwise looks--at first glance--to be squarely against them. No black-letter, by-the-book course is going to teach you how to do that. So if you went to a second-tier law school and want to console yourself because you managed to memorize the law against perpetuities in your property law class, congratulations. But let's not pretend that your legal education was half as valuable as the critical thinking skills YLS imparts in its graduates.

"By the way, WTF is up with Stevens' clerk from Wisconsin??!!

Posted by: HLS 2L | August 29, 2007 10:27 PM"

Dude, did you read Cecelia Klingele's bio? She's amazing, which I say with some reluctance, considering that she's also apparently a very pro-life... but I even have to admire her for that, because she walks the walk: she was a foster parent *during* law school.

Sooner or later, all you elitist brats are going to have to realize that while a certain amount of basic intellectual firepower is required to get you into the door of places like Harvard and Yale, in the end it's personal characteristics, like your work ethic and ability to get along with people, that determine success.

9:07, you sound like my YLS-grad co-clerk. If that is you, you were always a prick and nobody likes you. Take your sense of entitlement and shove it up your ass because you didn't get any SCOTUS interviews either.

I love 933...tell it like it is!!

You go, 9:33!!!

9:33 Prick: I'm not your YLS-grad co-clerk, because unlike the two of you, I not only got SCOTUS interviews -- but landed the job.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Scott Keller (Texas/Kozinski) hired - he's got what it takes.

Those that are questioning the Wisconsin Clerk are the true fools. Let's see, she went to a state school, paid 1/10 the tuition all of the apparent HLS and YLS posters here did, and landed a SC clerkship. I would venture to say that makes her smarter than the idiots who are knocking a person they know nothing about. Maybe she chose NOT to go to HLS or YLS despite being admitted because Wisconsin offered her a full ride. Maybe she wanted to stay close to family. Maybe a lot of things, but one thing is for certain, she is smarter than anyone posting here. (Also, remember, George Bush went to Yale. Attending Ivy League schools is more about who you know than what you know.)

But let's not pretend that your legal education was half as valuable as the critical thinking skills YLS imparts in its graduates.

Dont kid yourself douche- Went to a t2 school in NJ where professors included current SCOTUS Justice Alito and former Cheif judge of the 3rd Cir. John Gibbons. In what manner do you think the intellectual liberals at yale provided a better legal education than the likes of these guys?

11:07...you got one thing correct....the "Posted by:" Nice work.

Honestly, I have absolutely had it with the HLS, YLS, SLS snobbery. A large portion of their admittees went to idiotic undergraduate institutions where it's impossible to get anything other than an A. These admittees have 3 golden hours on a standardized test and suddenly they think life should be made for them? Dream on, folks. There's a lot more to being a good lawyer (or a good clerk, for that matter) than an LSAT score. For instance, I'd rather have a candidate who had demonstrated a life-long love of learning, excelling at excellent institutions from Day 1. All over the country, students from "bad law schools" are taking your jobs, making you look foolish, and beating you silly in the courtroom. The difference is that the non-Ivy League lawyers are damn hungry. I would give up anything to succeed. I'm not going to start whining just because the magical, famous partner doesn't give me enough attention. Go Wisconsin girl! Go Thomas clerks! There's more to life than an LSAT score.

"Critical thinking skills YLS imparts in its graduates."

You mean . . . like one kid I knew who graduated in 2005 . . . who took a FILM REVIEW class where they watched bad movies all day. This kid joked about the fact that he actually got credit for this crap.

Why don't you come and spend a day in one of our classrooms, 11:07?

Critical thinking comes from questioning assumptions. Your post clearly reveals you've never questioned the assumption that your skills are better just because you went to Yale. Or Yale must have given you a better education because . . . well, it's Yale.

I'm happy to make fun of YLS same as the next person, but does anybody have any actual updates on clerkship hiring?

i've seen some vague stuff on the clerkship notification blog about Roberts and Scalia. somebody must know something.

I am not sure this is an update, and maybe I have my terms wrong, but I know there was an article about Carter Phillips's daughter getting a clerkship. I don't see her name listed. I want to say the clerkship was with Alito. Anyone else?

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1179270996116

looks like you're right about Carter Phillips' daughter.

Yes, but she is this term. We knew about her for a while now.

Some of the elitist attitudes expressed here are stunning in their naivete. There are plenty of good law schools besides the top three, and there are many good reasons why someone may choose to attend them. One clear reason is merit aid. If you got one of the full-ride scholarships to Chicago, NYU, Duke, Michigan, Virginia, or Penn, it would be perfectly understandable for you to go to one of those excellent schools even if you were also admitted to HYS, none of which (to my knowledge) offers merit aid of that caliber.

Still waiting for the names of those feeders who supposedly refuse to hire from YLS....

I heard that one of Judge Dyk's (Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit) clerks just got hired as a SCOTUS clerk - this would be the first time the Fed Circuit has fed to the Supreme Court. Could someone please verify this.

Good to see a GW grad on the SCOTUS clerk list. Yay!

4:47, do you know which Justice?

4:47 and 5:24--

The clerk in question is Ruthanne Deutsch, for OT 2007--that is, she's there now. She's clerking for Justice Ginsburg.

Nothing new to see here.

I'm an associate at a big NYC law firm. This past summer I worked with two summer associates on one of my cases, one from Yale and one from NYLS. The one from Yale was obviously pretty smart, but couldn't write a memo if her life depended on it. Whenever I asked him/her to perform research for me, I got back a document of quotes cut and pasted from Westlaw opinions. The student from NYLS, however, gave me an almost perfect product on the first round. It's good to be able to "think about the law," but when I'm paying good money for lawyer I wan't one who knows how to work with the law too.

BTW, I asked a friend who went to Yale why he tought this person couldn't write a basic legal memorandum. He told me that Yale students aren't even required to take a legal writing class.

"The one from Yale was obviously pretty smart, but couldn't write a memo if her life depended on it"

Don't you mean if "his or her" life depended on it?

YLS does legal writing as part of one of the first-semester classes. Most of the time, memos or briefs are required. But it's not standardized, of course, because nothing at Yale is.