Where are they now? Supreme Court clerks, OT2003
Who isn't fascinated with any story about Supreme Court clerks, "The Elect"?
Several years ago, David Lat followed up on the lives of Supreme Court clerks a few years removed from their clerkships. I thought a ten-year retrospective examining where clerks have gone might be of interest. His caveats then are as true as mine are today: this list is probably unreliable and has not been fact-checked in any way, except for the links provided (and these links often aren't the best source material).
Without further ado, the clerks from the Supreme Court, October Term 2003:
Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist
Leon F. DeJulius (Notre Dame 2002 / O’Scannlain), partner at Jones Day
Courtney Gilligan Saleski (George Washington 2002 / Magill), partner at DLA Piper
Aaron M. Streett (Texas 2002 / Sentelle), partner at Baker Botts
Justice John Paul Stevens
Leondra R. Kruger (Yale 2001 / Tatel), Acting Principal Deputy Solicitor General, DOJ
Amanda C. Leiter (Harvard 2000 / Tatel / Gertner (D. Mass.)), professor at American
Margaret H. Lemos (NYU 2001 / Lipez), professor at Duke
Benjamin C. Mizer (Michigan 2002 / J. Rogers), counsel in the Office of Legal Counsel, DOJ
Justice Sandra Day O’Connor
Janet R. Carter (NYU 2001 / Posner), counsel at WilmerHale
Sean C. Grimsley (Michigan 2000 / H. Edwards), partner at Bartlit Beck
RonNell A. Jones (Ohio State 2000 / W. Fletcher), professor at BYU
Sambhav N. Sankar (Berkeley 2000 / W. Fletcher / L. Pollak (E.D. Pa.)), counsel at GE
Justice Antonin Scalia
Benjamin L. Hatch (Harvard 2002 / Luttig), AUSA, EDVA
C. Scott Hemphill (Stanford 2001 / Posner), professor at Columbia
Robert K. Kry (Yale 2002 / Kozinski), partner at MoloLamken LLP
Kevin C. Walsh (Harvard 2002 / Niemeyer), professor at Richmond
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy
Bertrand-Marc Allen (Yale 2002 / Luttig), President, Boeing China
Edward C. Dawson (Texas 2002 / Carnes), fellow at LSU
Orin Kerr (Harvard 1997 / Garth), professor at George Washington
Chi T. Steve Kwok (Yale 2002 / Kozinski), AUSA, SDNY
Justice David H. Souter
Julian D. Mortenson (Stanford 2002 / Wilkinson), professor at Michigan
Samuel J. Rascoff (Yale 2001 / Leval), professor at NYU
Jeannie C. Suk (Harvard 2002 / H. Edwards), professor at Harvard
Gregory G. Rapawy (Harvard 2001 / Lynch), partner at Kellogg Huber
Justice Clarence Thomas
Richard M. Corn (Chicago 2002 / Luttig), associate at Proskauer
John A. Eisenberg (Yale 2002 / Luttig), partner at Kirkland & Ellis
Diane L. McGimsey (Berkeley 2002 / Wilkinson), partner at Sullivan & Cromwell
Hannah Clayson Smith (BYU 2001 / Alito), counsel at The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Abbe R. Gluck (Yale 2000 / R. Winter), professor at Yale
Aziz Z. Huq (Columbia 2001 / Sack), professor at Chicago
Anne Joseph O’Connell (Yale 2000 / S. Williams), professor at Berkeley
Neil S. Siegel (Berkeley 2001 / Wilkinson), professor at Duke
Justice Stephen Breyer
Ariela M. Migdal (NYU 2001 / H. Edwards), counsel at the ACLU
Pratik Shah (Berkeley 2001 / W. Fletcher), assistant to the Solicitor General, DOJ
Alexandra M. Walsh (Stanford 2001 / Garland), partner at Paul Weiss
Davis J. Wang (Harvard 2002 / Boudin), partner at Sullivan & Cromwell
A few thoughts:
Suppose we divide these justices among "conservative" (Rehnquist, O'Connor, Kennedy, Scalia, Thomas) and "liberal" (Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer). (These are, of course, imperfect terms.) Suppose we further divide the clerks into three practice areas: private practice, academia, and government/public interest.
That gives us 35 clerks, 19 clerking for "conservative" justices and 16 for "liberal justices."
In private practice, the decisive edge goes to clerks to "conservative" justices, with 11 to just 3 of the clerks to "liberal justices." Chief Justice Rehnquist (3 for 3) and Justice Thomas (3 for 4) clerks lead the way.
For academia, an outright majority of clerks to "liberal" justices took that route (9 of 16), compared to just 5 for the clerks to "conservative" justices. Justice Ginsburg's clerks lead the way: not only did 4 for 4 enter academia, but all 4 are teaching at so-called "top 14" schools. The same "top 14" standard holds true for the 3 former clerks to Justice Souter, too.
In government or public interest, it's 4 for clerks to "liberal" justices, 3 for clerks to "conservative" justices.
Obviously, this anecdata for a single year's set of clerks is not worth much of anything except, perhaps, confirmation bias, rampant extrapolation, and so on. But isn't that what the Internet makes so amusing, even when meaningless?