Supreme Court Law Clerks Reflect Polarized Court, Ivy League Preferences
Once derided for hiring “third tier trash” as law clerks, Justice Clarence Thomas confined his hires this year to clerks from law schools ranked in the top 15 by U.S. News & World Report.
Still, Thomas still thinks outside the box created by his colleagues, the New York Times reports. About half of the Supreme Court law clerks hired since Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joined the court in 2005 attended just two law schools—Harvard and Yale. One-fourth of the clerks attended four other schools—Virginia, Stanford, Chicago and Columbia.
This term, Thomas’ clerks come from top 15 schools Duke, Texas, Virginia and Yale, the story says. In 2008, he hired clerks from lower-ranked Creighton, George Mason, George Washington and Rutgers.
Thomas is less inclusive when it comes to feeder judges, however. In his two decades on the court, all of his clerks came from appellate judges appointed by Republican presidents, the New York Times reports in a separate story.
The Times says Thomas’ reliance on GOP judges is indicative of a trend. Conservative justices on the court are more likely today to hire clerks who worked for Republican-appointed judges, while liberals are more likely to hire clerks who worked for Democratic appointees. “The recent divide in the selection of clerks amplifies the ideological rifts on a polarized court, one political scientists say is the most conservative in recent memory,” the story says.
At a Dallas luncheon 10 years ago, Thomas explained why he hires clerks from Republican judges, the story says. “I won’t hire clerks who have profound disagreements with me,” he said. “It’s like trying to train a pig. It wastes your time, and it aggravates the pig.”
More than half of the clerks on the Roberts court previously worked for just 10 appeals judges, according to the newspaper. A New York Times chart shows the top three clerk-feeder judges for justices on the Roberts court. They are Judge Merrick Garland of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson of the Richmond, Va.-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and Judge Alex Kozinski of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
