Recent Supreme Court clerk placement into the legal academy
On the heels of my recent annual survey of where Supreme Court clerks end up 10 years after their clerkships, I thought I’d look at the data a different way. I’ve done this survey for seven years and have a good chunk of placement data for Supreme Court clerks. I thought I’d look at the 56 clerks who ended up as law professors 10 years after their clerkships, and where they’d landed in that time. Of course, clerks may have moved on to other schools after 10 years, some may have left the academy by 10 years, or others may enter the academy after 10 years. But looking at the same 10-year window of similarly-situated clerks across several years was of interest (ed.: or more likely serves as a Rorschach to confirm priors…).
I’ve sorted below by justice and then by school, among those who clerked OT 2003 to OT 2009, and where they were 10 years out.
Ginsburg (11): Yale, Harvard, Chicago (x2), Duke, Michigan (x2), Berkeley, Fordham, Wisconsin (x2)*
Stevens (11): Columbia (x3), Michigan, Penn, Duke, Wisconsin, Florida, Cardozo, Georgia State, American
Souter (10): Harvard, NYU (x2), Columbia, Virginia, Michigan, Northwestern, UCLA, William & Mary, Pepperdine
Kennedy (7): Harvard, Washington University in St. Louis, George Washington, Notre Dame (x2), Ohio State, Hastings
Breyer (4): Harvard, Chicago, Columbia (x2)
O’Connor (4): Yale, Chicago, Emory,** BYU
Roberts (3): Chicago, Duke, Missouri
Scalia (3): Columbia, Virginia, Richmond
Sotomayor (2): Georgetown, Wisconsin*
Thomas (2): Notre Dame, George Mason
Alito (1): Emory**
*Clerked for both Ginsburg and Sotomayor in different terms
**Clerked for O’Connor and later Alito in the same term
Columbia (7): Stevens (x3), Breyer (x2), Scalia, Souter
Chicago (5): Ginsburg (x2), Breyer, O’Connor, Roberts
Harvard (4): Breyer, Ginsburg, Kennedy, Souter
Michigan (4): Ginsburg (x2), Souter, Stevens
Duke (3): Ginsburg, Roberts, Stevens
Notre Dame (3): Kennedy (x2), Thomas
Wisconsin (3): Ginsburg, Ginsburg/Sotomayor, Stevens
NYU (2): Souter (x2)
Virginia (2): Scalia, Souter
Yale (2): Ginsburg, O’Connor
American (1): Stevens
Berkeley (1): Ginsburg
BYU (1): O’Connor
Cardozo (1): Stevens
Emory (1): O’Connor/Alito
Florida (1): Stevens
Fordham (1): Ginsburg
George Mason (1): Thomas
George Washington (1): Kennedy
Georgetown (1): Sotomayor
Georgia State (1): Stevens
Hastings (1): Kennedy
Missouri (1): Roberts
Northwestern (1): Souter
Ohio State (1): Kennedy
Penn (1): Stevens
Pepperdine (1): Souter
Richmond (1): Scalia
UCLA (1): UCLA
Washington University in St. Louis (1): Kennedy
William & Mary (1): Souter