Law clerk

In the United States and Canada, a law clerk is a person who provides assistance to a judge in researching issues before the court and in writing opinions. Those unfamiliar with court operations often incorrectly assume that a law clerk is a court clerk, essentially a secretary for the court. To the contrary, a law clerkship is one of the most prestigious and highly-coveted jobs in the legal profession.

Working as a judicial law clerk at any level of government is generally considered to be a prestigious occupation within the legal field. It tells others in the legal profession that an individual came out of law school with enough competence and legal intelligence to earn a judge's trust and heavily influence his or her decisions. Working as a law clerk generally opens up vast career opportunities.

United States

The hiring of law clerks is particularly prevalent among federal judges and state appellate judges. Federal district judges traditionally have two law clerks, who are generally hired for either a one- or two-year term. Judges on the United States Court of Appeals are allotted up to three clerks, who typically serve only for one year. Some judges, based on personal preference, may hire one or more of their clerks on a permanent basis; this is the exception, however, not the norm. Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States are entitled to hire four law clerks for each term of the court. The Chief Justice is allowed five law clerks. The first Supreme Court law clerk was hired by Justice Horace Gray in the 1880s. Most applicants for clerkship to the Supreme Court have worked previously as clerks for judges on the federal courts of appeals.

Qualifications

Most law clerks are recent law school graduates who were at the very top of their class, or who graduated from the most prestigious law schools. Judges often require that applicants for law clerk positions have experience with law review or moot court.

Because of the selection criteria, many notable legal figures, professors, and judges were law clerks before achieving greatness in other areas of the law.

Five Supreme Court Justices previously clerked for other Supreme Court Justices. Associate Justice Byron White clerked for Chief Justice Frederick M. Vinson. Associate Justice John Paul Stevens clerked for Associate Justice Wiley Rutledge. Associate Justice Stephen Breyer clerked for Associate Justice Arthur Goldberg and Chief Justice John Roberts clerked for Chief Justice William Rehnquist when Rehnquist was still an Associate Justice. Rehnquist himself had previously clerked for Associate Justice Robert H. Jackson.

Some judges seek to hire law clerks who not only have excelled academically but also share the judge's ideological orientation. However, this occurs mostly at the level of some state supreme courts and the United States Supreme Court. Law clerks can have a great deal of influence on the judges with whom they work.

Upon completing a judicial clerkship, a law clerk can expect that elite law firms will pay a handsome premium to hire him or her.

Exceptions

The Supreme Court of California and the various districts of the California Court of Appeal have generally avoided using law clerks since the late 1980s.Itir Yakar, “Unseen Staff Attorneys Anchor State’s Top Court: Institution’s System of Permanent Employees Means Workers Can Outlast the Justices,” San Francisco Daily Journal, 30 May 2006, 1.

Instead, California has largely switched to using permanent staff attorneys at all levels of the judiciary; a few judges do use law clerks, but they are quite rare. For example, the Supreme Court of California has over 85 staff attorneys, of whom about half are attached to particular justices and the rest are shared as a central staff. The California system has been heavily criticized for denying young attorneys the chance to gain experience, and low turnover has resulted in a lack of ethnic and gender diversity among the staff attorneys.Yakar, 1. But most California judges prefer it because it avoids the problem of having to bring new law clerks up to speed on pending complex cases (particularly death penalty cases).Yakar, 1.

Outside the United States

In some countries, including the United Kingdom, the position of law clerk does not exist.

In Canada, judicial clerkships are available to students graduating law school in most courts. Most Superior and Appellate courts, including the Federal Court, hire at least one clerk for each judge. The term typically lasts a year. Like in the US, the most prestigious clerkship available is at the Supreme Court of Canada. Since the beginning of the clerkships in 1967, each judge hires three clerks for the year.

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Legal occupations