From Law Prof to SCOTUS Clerk: Gorsuch Is Hiring From Academia
U.S. Supreme Court law clerks often become professors after their clerkships, but not usually before.
May 22, 2019 at 10:53 AM
4 minute read
Neil Gorsuch testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2017. Credit: Diego M. Radzinschi / NLJ
In his two-plus years on the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Neil Gorsuch has earned a reputation as someone who did not always follow court traditions or norms when it came to his oddly written opinions or his snippy questions at oral argument.
The law clerks he has chosen also display his outside-the-box approach, most notably Tobi Young, the first-ever enrolled citizen of an American Indian tribe to clerk at the high court. She is clerking with him this term. Among the 12 clerks Gorsuch has hired since joining the court in April 2017, two are Asian-American, two are women, and one has Hispanic roots.
Now comes a new Gorsuch trend in clerk hiring: In upcoming terms, at least three of his law clerks will be drawn from the ranks of legal academia, not the most common source of Supreme Court clerk talent. Clerks often become professors after their clerkships, but not usually before.
Here are the new hires, first identified in a tweet by Pepperdine University School of Law professor Derek Muller, a keen Supreme Court-watcher:
>> Stephen Yelderman, a professor since 2013 at the University of Notre Dame Law School, will move this summer to Gorsuch's chambers for the 2019-2020 term. Yelderman clerked for then-Tenth Circuit Judge Gorsuch in 2010. “I really enjoyed working for then-Judge Gorsuch, and am very excited for the opportunity to work with him again,” he said in a statement.
>> Mark Storslee, executive director of Stanford Law School's Constitutional Law Center since 2016, confirmed that after teaching at Pennsylvania State University School of Law for the next academic year, he will clerk for Gorsuch in the 2020-2021 term. He told NLJ, “I am very excited for this opportunity and I look forward to assisting the justice and the court in their important work.”
>> Stephanie Barclay, associate professor at Brigham Young University Law School, will clerk for Gorsuch in the 2021-2022 term. She joined the faculty after litigating First Amendment cases at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, and working as an associate at Covington & Burling. “I am excited and humbled that Justice Gorsuch would give me this opportunity, and I am indebted to many mentors and colleagues who helped me along this path,” she said in a press announcement.
Do law professors make good law clerks? Pepperdine's Muller backs that idea. “Law professors bring greater experience than those a year or two removed from law school, and they're accustomed to deep research on high salience legal topics,” he said.
Jamil Jaffer, who was head of the new National Security Institute at the Antonin Scalia Law School before clerking for Gorsuch in 2017, said, “He is not looking for law professors, but for lawyers with a combination of both academic excellence and experience.”
So it's not a surprise that Gorsuch would pick at least some law professors to join his clerk mix. “He wants a good conversation in his chambers, different points of view,” Jaffer said in an interview. “It's not just diversity for diversity's sake, but people with a broad range of backgrounds and histories absolutely generates the kind of dialogue that's important to him.”
Asked whether law professors would make Gorsuch's criticized writing style better or worse, Jaffer stated adamantly, “Not a word comes out of his chambers that is not his. Like it or criticize it, it's him.”
Read more:
Former SCOTUS Clerks Dominate the Ranks of Trump's Judicial Nominees
$400K for SCOTUS Clerks: A Bonus Too Far?
Shut Out: SCOTUS Law Clerks Still Mostly White and Male
Meet Justice Kavanaugh's Four Female SCOTUS Law Clerks
Gorsuch Hires Native American Law Clerk, Likely First in SCOTUS History
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