As expected, the Judicial Conference voted Tuesday to head off the pricey trend of federal judges stacking their chambers with multiple long-haul clerks. One judge, one career law clerk. That’s the new rule.
Chief Judge Thomas Hogan, chairman of the conference’s executive committee, told reporters that tens of millions of dollars would be saved over the next decade by managing the career clerk population. Currently, there are 291 career clerks, each with an annual salary of around $100,000, in chambers where another career clerk is employed. They’ll be grandfathered into the new system, of course.
