Law Clerk Addict's Blog

Clerkship Series: Day 3 -- Ranking the T14 by all-time Supreme Court Clerk Placement
Category: Applications Process (2010 Cycle)

[Ed. Note: The Blackbook Legal Blog is teaming up with Law Clerk Addict in its coverage of the clerkship process by cross-posting its "Clerkship Series" posts on Law Clerk Addict. Our Day 3 posting appears below.]


For this edition of the Clerkship Series, I decided to rank the Top 14 law schools (the so-called "T14") by all-time Supreme Court clerk placement. I attempted to search the internet for information on the total number of clerks each law school in the T14 has ever placed on the Supreme Court, but was unable to find the precise statistics. It is true that Artemus Ward and David Weiden wrote Sorcerers' Apprentices, a resource that provides an extensive, detailed account of key issues relating to Supreme Court clerks, their duties, and the Court viewed from their perspectives. And of course, Wikipedia provides a fairly solid reference point (here) which lists the Supreme Court clerks of each Justice by law school dating as far back as 100 years. But I could not find an actual tally online.


While it is conceivable that such an online tally exists, I instead decided to draw on the Wikipedia list, and to do some independent research of my own to compile an unscientific ranking. As a preliminary matter, Wikipedia's numeric data differed slightly from the information I obtained from the administrative offices of various T14 law schools. Instead of precisely accounting for these minor differences, I decided to simply group each school within a defined range (i.e., 100-200 clerks total). The schools within the top four ranges are ranked according to their quantitative totals. Because of the numerical deficiencies in the data (the variance in information I obtained from the schools and Wikipedia), I could not rank schools within the last two ranges. In the fourth range at least, each school had very similar placement numbers (i.e., Wikipedia says Penn, NYU, and Northwestern have placed nearly the same amount of total clerks).


It is essential to emphasize that this ranking is not meant to be scientific, though it does shed some light into which schools do the best job of landing their students the most prestigious clerkship out there. Now on to the stats . . .


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The Defined Ranges:


400+


200-300


100-200


50-100


30-50


1-30


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The Rankings:


400+ (Harvard)


200-300 (Yale)


100-200 (1. Chicago, 2. Stanford, 3. Columbia)


50-100 (1. Virginia, 2. Michigan)


30-50 (Berkeley, Northwestern, NYU, Penn)


1-30 (Georgetown, Duke, Cornell)


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I know this list may draw some criticism because of my decision to limit the sample to T14 schools. Indeed, it is absolutely true that a few schools outside of the T14 have placed more clerks than some on this list. For example, the University of Texas has placed 30 clerks--substantially more than Cornell, which has only placed 7. My decision to exclude these schools was solely based on my desire to draw the line somewhere. After all, the Justices have employed hundreds of clerks since the early 20th Century, and many schools have at least one clerk represented in that number. Finally, it must again be emphasized that I was only able to conclusively gather the information from the schools themselves and from Wikipedia, so to the extent that there are any unlisted clerks or other problems, I apologize. I'll be pleased to make updates to this list as information trickles into our inbox.


Posted by Blackbook Legal Blog at October 13, 2009, 10:56 AM 13 Comments.

Comments for Clerkship Series: Day 3 -- Ranking the T14 by all-time Supreme Court Clerk Placement


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Date: 2010-09-03 19:20:57
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 silly list

Oct 13, 2009, 11:19 AM 
#1

Using the US News T14 is pretty silly. Why not a list of the top 10 or 20 (or 14) schools in terms of placement? Forget rankings, just look at placement. If Cornell doesn't make the list, too bad.

 – Anonymous (Unregistered)

 
 

 ?

Oct 13, 2009, 11:24 AM 
#2

Line has to be drawn somewhere...11:19

 – Anonymous (Unregistered)

 
 

 ??

Oct 13, 2009, 12:34 PM 
#3

11:24 - Non-reposnive. Top 20 in terms of placement is a line. Why use something that doesn't relate closely to placement to draw the line?

 – Anonymous (Unregistered)

 
 

 Responses to Problems with Methodology

Oct 13, 2009, 12:50 PM 
#4

12:34 & 11:19 -- If you follow the link into BBL, you will see that I've already responded to similar critiques. I think that they are well-founded, and would be happy to re-rank the Top 20 in a follow-up post if that would make our readers happy. Again, the reason I drew the line at the T14 was largely because we received specific requests from our readers to do as much. Also, feel free to see the numbers for yourself if you are interested; I provide the Wikipedia link. Cheers!

 – Nima @ BBL (Unregistered)

 
 

 Dumb

Oct 13, 2009, 1:04 PM 
#5

Dumb in many degrees. First, total placement is silly, given that Harvard is 3x as large as Yale. (And, of course, class sizes fluctuate heavily over time, making this a difficult metric.) Second, there are other schools at the beginning of the 20th century that placed at a vastly different rate than later schools, which makes the metric problematic. Third, it's silly to say that a "line must be drawn," when the marginal cost of adding schools is extremely low. Just require a minimum of 10 clerks or something, and then rank them all. That will eliminate most of the non-T14 schools, but keep a few relevant schools left out. Why leave UCLA off this list, for instance? Pretty dumb all around.

 – Anonymous (Unregistered)

 
 

 Response to "Dumb"

Oct 13, 2009, 1:18 PM 
#6

1:04 -- Again, if you read my comment and the post itself, you will understand that this list was compiled from reader requests. And I must again note--as I strongly emphasized before, and consistent with our commitment to interactivity--that I am willing to re-rank the schools according to top 20 in placement. ------- Finally, I have to say that these rankings essentially depict what the actual total placement numbers look like--at least with regard to the top 5 ranges. Some of the dozens of other schools who have clerks represented have only 1 or 2. That would make all those schools fall within the 6th defined range. However, feel free to parse through the 1,000+ names on wikipedia, call the schools themselves, and do other independent research to rank all of those schools. "Low" marginal cost is still an issue, particularly when you are a busy law student trying to blog. Cheers again!

 – Anonymous (Unregistered)

 
 

 a similar list by Brian Leiter

Oct 13, 2009, 1:32 PM 
#7

http://www.leiterrankings.com/jobs/2000_08_scotus_clerks.shtml Though it only contains data from 2000 to 2008, and then a separate link for 1991-2005 data. This list does not filter only Top 14. I think the original post author takes a "cop out" approach in her "It was based on reader requests," but that's just personal opinion...


 – Anonymous (Unregistered)

 
 

 Fair

Oct 13, 2009, 1:36 PM 
#8

Nima, fair enough. As long as its being used solely as an informative measure.

 – Anonymous (Unregistered)

 
 

 5 is correct

Oct 13, 2009, 2:01 PM 
#9

Absolute placement, as opposed to per capita placement (with normal 1L class size as the denominator) is the better measure. The sheer size advantages of a large school like HLS over smaller schools like YLS or SLS make the absolute count very misleading.

 – Anonymous (Unregistered)

 
 

 Class size

Oct 13, 2009, 2:11 PM 
#10

Harvard law has changed its class size numerous times over the years

 – Anonymous (Unregistered)

 
 

 Duh

Oct 13, 2009, 2:13 PM 
#11

But everyone knows about the relative size and the statistics can be viewed in that light. They're still helpful, raw numbers.

 – Anonymous (Unregistered)

 
 

 Important Point to Consider

Oct 13, 2009, 11:12 PM 
#12

See my post from a few weeks ago: Who you did your COA clerkship with can be much more important than where you went to law school when you are applying to SCOTUS. For example, Thomas's recent clerk from Rutgers also clerked for Sentelle and his current clerk from Utah clerked for McConnell. Having Rutgers --> Sentelle or Utah --> McConnell on your resume gives you a better shot than having Yale --> "insert random non-feeder COA judge." Same is true with Kansas --> Kavanaugh --> Kennedy. I bet we are going to start seeing some Ohio State SCOTUS clerks coming from Sutton within the next few years.


 – WoWoWoWo (Unregistered)

 
 

 Forgetting U Texas

Dec 24, 2009, 8:04 PM 
#13

silly list has a good point. With the University of Texas's recent Kennedy placement, the school has now placed 31 Supreme Court clerks. The list should be updated to reflect the fact that Texas has placed more clerks than Cornell, Georgetown, or Duke. UCLA has also placed more SCOTUS clerks than Duke, so should be on the list as well. Basing a SCOTUS ranking on arbitrary USNews criteria ignores the fact that the placement of non-T14 schools may be better than T14 placement.

 – Anonymous (Unregistered)