New phrase in hiring SCOTUS clerks: the "Full Kagan"
Following "The Elect" is a hobby of many, including, on occasion, me. And we have something new to report.
As far as I can tell from a reading of this Wikipedia page, this is one of the rare times in Supreme Court history that a justice has selected all four of her clerks from the D.C. Circuit--and the first time a justice has selected four D.C. Circuit clerks from four different D.C. Circuit judges.
Other justices have hired all their clerks from the D.C. Circuit before (consider some terms for Justice Brennan), but never when they hired four clerks.
And others have hired three D.C. Circuit clerks before (consider Justice White's October Term 1978, or Thurgood Marshall's October Term 1987).
Still others have hired four clerks from the D.C. Circuit before, but multiple came from the same judge. Justice O'Connor hired four from the D.C. Circuit in October Term 1983 (J. Skelly Wright x2, R.B. Ginsburg, Bork). Justice Scalia brought all of his clerks from the D.C. Circuit with him in 1986, which isn't quite the same. But he also had four D.C. Circuit clerks in October Term 1988 (S. Williams x3, Bork), not counting an additional D.C. Circuit clerk he shared with Justice Burger.
Last year, three of Justice Kagan's four clerks came from District of Columbia Circuit clerkships (Garland x2, Rogers), the fourth coming from the Tenth Circuit (Gorsuch).
But this year, according to Above the Law, it would be the first time that Supreme Court justice hired four clerks from the D.C. Circuit, from four different justices. Justice Kagan has selected a Kavanaugh, a Srinivasan, a Tatel, and a Garland clerk for October Term 2014.
In homage of the "Full Ginsburg," I thought I'd call this move the "Full Kagan." Sure, it's not "full" in the sense that she's selected a clerk from every D.C. Circuit judge, but it's close enough for the phrase to work.
Now a justice that selected four D.C. Circuit clerks from four different judges appointed by four different presidents... that's for another day (but, perhaps, the "Full Kagan, Squared"?).
I welcome factual corrections if it turns out Justice Kagan is not the first to have performed this maneuver. But even then, I still think naming the hiring cycle after her would work nicely.