Am I first?

It's been said before, and I'll say it again: TTT clerks for a TTT Justice

Michigan's streak is in jeopardy.

Sure, bc Koz, Posner and Kavanaugh are loser judges who attract loser clerks. Get real.

Can someone explain why O'Connor still gets a clerk?

551, hang your head in shame. You are too stupid to post on any board RELATED to SCOTUS.

Ashley Keller is SMOKING hot!!!

She still sits by designation on courts of appeals. But the clerk ends up spending most of his time as a 5th for Stevens, I think.

Clerk also helps SOC with speeches, books.

Kansas?

I thank 5:56 and 5:59 for the info.

I pity 5:55 for having nothing better to do than checking if SCOTUS clerks are hot.

Ashley Keller is fabulous!

What exactly does a clerk for a retired SC justice do? Do firms pay the clerkship bonus for such clerks?

555, what does she look like?

Keller is a dude, right? Need pics!

Yes, a dude. 1st in class at Chicago law and he grabbed an MBA with highest honors too.

5:50, I was referring to Thomas

Not clear from your post, but a harder argument to refute.

wilkinson clerks have gotten pwnd thus far this year

Sorry ladies, Ashley is married.

OMGWTF Chicago has the same number of clerks as Wisconsin, Pepperdine, and Kansas?!?!?!??!?!

Why the hate? Has the socially retarded factor finally started getting to the justices?

Rock Chalk, Jayhawk.

Where the hell are all of the Michigan grads? Everyone knows that Michigan Lawyers are the best. Wake up SCOTUS!

I too am surprised by the dearth of Michigan Law grads. They are usually pretty consistent with one or two a year.

7:04, I think you're mistaking intellectual engagement for social retardation. Most law students are vacuous, money-oriented douchebags. I'd prefer a Chicago nerd any day.

Is it me or does Porter Wilkinson's b-lline to the Roberts chambers seem more and more like nepotism? Not to begrudge her intelligence, but Roberts' later hiring schedule for every *other* clerk seems to suggest that she got special treatment and unfair advantage.

Souter will come through for Michigan

Souter's hired 3 Mich grads ever. Not the best odds.

Is this Ashley Keller the guy who dropped out of Harvard to found why.com?

9:51, your information is wrong. He's hired 5 grads UMich since 1995 , including one in 2004 and one in 2006.

8:10, lol. I went to Chicago. Trust me, in addition to the brilliant minds it has more than its fair share of legitimate social retards.

It is kind of interesting that Mr. Keller wasn't on Law Review. I wonder what the breakdown of clerks who were on law review is? It doesn't seem like it is much of a help.

10:57, was Keller a brilliant mind, a social retard, both, or neither?

strong nyu showing

11:21, very smart, friendly, charismatic. A bit arrogant but far from the worst offender at Chicago. I went to his wedding and was genuinely happy to attend, which is more than I can say for a decent percentage of people I met in law school. I am pretty sure he didn't do the writing competition for law review (which you have to do even if your grades are high enough to grade on) because he just plain didn't want to be on law review. Apparently foregoing it didn't hurt him any.

The retard reference was to the school population in general (not to Ashley specifically) -- particularly the undergrads, but definitely not excluding the law students. If you've never spent time at Chicago it might be tough to really "get" what I'm talking about. But it has its reputation for a reason.

how do you apply for a scotus clerkship? what's the timing? i know - i'm a douche.

i graduated from hofstra in the top 50% i dew insurance defense work now in parsippany.

i applied for to clerk for souter....i think im a shoe in.

Not the first time Keller has been mentioned on a Lat blog. See point 8 here:

http://underneaththeirrobes.blogs.com/main/2005/05/judicial_sighta.html

Keller and his teammate won the competition.

Ashley was on Law Review, he just wasn't an editor. Had better things to do, I guess. He's actually a very nice guy to boot, although he as an unnatural attachment to the WSJ op-ed page.

Nice to see that NYU is still scoring a goose egg on clerkships this year. Maybe if we did not have students who thought it was okay to ask a justice if he sodomizes his wife and actually had some diversity of viewpoints we would do better. It seems our ass kissing of Justices Breyer and Ginsburg have not paid dividends.

The fourth best law school should be doing better than Creighton.

ashley definitely wasn't on law review. instead he spent the extra time with his family and destroying all of his classes. looks rational to me.

Yes to Creighton baby! I went there (and while I'm amazed anyone from my school made i to SCOTUS), it's awesome.

10:57/12:34, I agree with you that Chicago has more than its fair share of socially geeky students, but most are pretty normal by lawyer standards. I don't think the Justices have all of a sudden hit their tolerance for nerdiness. Chicago is having a below average year because a below average number of students applied for jobs at the high court. Chicago only had 4 applicants, 2 of whom had high honors or better. Even if Ashley ends up being the only clerk (and there is still time for another to land a job) Chicago would have still placed 25% of its applicants. Not a horrible percentage, even if the raw number is low.

Yes to Creighton baby! I went there (and while I'm amazed anyone from my school made it to SCOTUS), it's awesome.

None of these clerks are hedge fund managers; ergo, they are losers.

It's good to see that Justice Thomas still believes in the affirmative action program that got him his current position in the first place.

9:23 -

The vast majority of hedge fund managers fail and end up as stock brokers or worse; ergo, they are losers.

9:10 - I'm not surprised Creighton has a clerk with Thomas. I believe Thomas's wife is a graduate of that law school.

9:23 uses the word ergo, therefore he is a loser.

I have the highest respect for Thomas as a Justice and I agree with most of his opinions, but he is being truly ridiculous by hiring unqualified clerks year after year. It seems to get worst with time, too. I know he wants to get back at his alma matter and that is understandable given how Yale treated him, but nothing stops him from taking most or all of his clerks from HLS. HLS is friendlier toward non-liberals anyway.

I was in a couple of Ashley's classes in law school, and he was a very nice guy, not to mention super sharp. Not only did he graduate first in his class from law school, he was getting an MBA at the same time. I heard he and his wife just had a baby.

While I know nothing about Justice Thomas' other 3 clerks, everything I have heard anecdotally about Claire Evans indicates she is highly qualified.

Of course, no Rutgers Law grad is going straight to SCOTUS upon graduation, and rarely straight to the COA.

But, individuals who excel in District Court and then the COA have now put in 5+ years to reach where the Ivy '07 class got in 4. Same for Klingele, apparently.

Credit to them.

10:07 --

Something does stop Thomas from taking most or all of his clerks from HLS -- the fact that there are a host of superior candidates from other schools. HLS doesn't have a monopoly on legal genius.

9:10: Why was the raw number of applicants low? Is it because Chicago is placing fewer feeder clerks?

Anyone know if Roberts has started interviewing for his other three slots?

9:10--

Where are you getting your data on the number of Chicago applicants? I'm not sure how even the school would necessarily know. I think most applicants send their applications themselves.

I bet 9:10 is a faculty member.

Why hasn't Justice Souter hired anyone for OT '08? I hope it's not an ominous sign. Please, Justice Souter - do not retire until after Bush leaves the White House.

12:32--

Justice Souter always hires late. His chambers has publicly announced that he will be hiring for this year; he imposed an application deadline of Nov. 30 and announced (in a form letter to applicants) that he would begin considering applications in December.

I was in the class of 07. It isn't that hard to figure out who has applied for a supreme court clerkship, and once you know the names, it's similarly easy to check what level of honors they achieved.

9:10--

You may be missing people, then. I don't know who applied in my class ('05, not Chicago), and I know a lot of people who applied (some for the first time, some again) a year or two out. It's not uncommon for such people to get clerkships, either; most if not all of the Justices appear likely to have at least one clerk in the OT '08 class who graduated from law school before '07.

Also, don't underestimate the number of long-shots who apply (and usually get nowhere). I'd be stunned if there really are only 4 Chicago JDs who have submitted Supreme Court applications this year.

11:27, I may be missing people who graduated in prior classes and reapplied, that's a good point. And it's true there may be longshots who applied that I am overlooking. So let me modify my point. Of the people in the 07 class who got high honors or above (7 or 8 people, I forget) only 2 applied. Honors isn't the sole determination of an applicant's talents, but I think this is a pretty good indication that Chicago didn't submit all of its strongest applicants, for whatever reason.

Keller is a really nice guy.

Keller is a really nice guy.

keller was picked up by the pistons in the draft in '99. never played but was a heck of a good shooting guard.

keller was picked up by the pistons in the draft in '99. never played but was a heck of a good shooting guard.

9:10--

Thanks for the clarification, and that's interesting info--I didn't realize Chicago had such a small number of graduates with high honors.

(At my law school, there are usually 1-2 summas and pots of magnas, and it's often a little hard for an outside observer to tell who was the 3rd-in-class magna with a fighting chance at a SCOTUS clerkship and the 40th-in-class magna with no prayer.)

Hopefully Souter will retire.

I think the low number of Chicago applicants this time around is a self-selecting response to the fact that the class of 2006 didn't do that great in SCOTUS clerkship hiring. (That's the word on the proverbial street, anyhow.)

This thread is long dead, but Roberts has finished hiring.