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