Last week, New York Times reporter Adam Liptak caused a momentary firestorm across the legal community. Liptak reported that the Heritage Foundation had announced it was sponsoring a three-day Federal Clerkship Training Academy for graduating law students who would be clerking in the federal judiciary. It was not the idea that future law clerks would be trained prior to beginning their employment that caused the uproar; the outrage revolved around the type of training that would be provided as well as the secret nature around the training sessions.

According to the training academy’s application, the academy was designed to prepare participants “to excel as clerks in the U.S. federal court system.” Attendees would not focus, however, on such mundane matters as deciphering the federal sentencing guidelines or drafting jury instructions. Instead, the cornerstone of this preparation would be teaching attendees originalist and textualist judicial philosophies.