The Joy of Clerkship, Con't
A press release from Grove Press describes the forthcoming novel by Saira Rao (entitled "Chambermaid") this way:
The devil holds a gavel in this wickedly entertaining debut novel about a young attorney’s eventful year clerking for a federal judge. Sheila Raj is a recent graduate of a top-ten law school with dreams of working for the ACLU, but law school did not prepare her for the power-hungry sociopath, Judge Helga Friedman, who greets her on her first day. While her beleaguered colleagues begin quitting their jobs, Sheila is assigned to a high-profile death penalty case and suddenly realizes that she has to survive the year as Friedman’s chambermaid — not just her sanity, but actual lives hang in the balance. With Chambermaid, debut novelist Saira Rao breaks the code of silence surrounding the clerkship and boldly takes us into the mysterious world of the third branch of US government, where the leaders are not elected and can never be fired. With its biting wit and laugh-out-loud humor, this novel will change everything you think you know about how great lawyers, and great judges, are made.I haven't read the book (it's not going to be released until Spring), so I have no idea whether and how Ms. Rao "breaks the code of silence surrounding the clerkship" and I'm a tad skeptical that this book will "change everything I think I know about how great lawyers and great judges are made."
But what's particularly interesting about this is that Ms. Rao was herself a law clerk for Judge Dolores Sloviter of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals (according to the WSJ blog). Rumors have been circulating around Philadelphia for some time that Judge Sloviter has become, shall we say, a very difficult person to get along with (and to work for) in chambers. So my guess — and it is, to be sure, only a guess at this point &mdash is that this is a pretty thinly-disguised roman a clef, with Ms. Rao herself as the idealistic "Sheila Raj" and Judge Sloviter the "power-hungry sociopath, Judge Helga Friedman."
I suspect that this will cause quite a rumble in the rather insular and staid world of Philadelphia's legal establishment.
And not a moment too soon.
Is David Post *trying* to get bitch-slapped by Howard Bashman?
Unfortunately, Ms. Rao blames the law profession rather than herself. Her first tantrum is in the New York Post, in which she extrapolates an industrywide "brain drain" from Cleary's failure to entertain her when she was an associate.
I suppose this book is a more creatively written tantrum about her clerkship. While I'll admit to being a little curious, I don't think I'll be buying the book anytime soon.
That's an odd interpretation of the article, especially since she never once mentions her own experience or comes off as whiny.
I don't know enough about the new york big-law scene to know, but that NYP article seemed reasonable. Quoted some statistics, interviewed some people. Just like most other articles I read -- no idea if it's a one-sided hack job, but at least it doesn't seem egregious.
You have more data you'd like to share?
Just where does she do that?
Still, it's unsporting to take the clerkship, and all the career advantages it entails, and then write about one's benefactor like that.
contact grove and get a review copy.
The book sounds like the equivalent of 99% of blogs out there (VC excepted, of course) -- someone gracing the general populace with their particular gripes and not-especially-interesting commentary, not that anyone asked. And the "harried assistant" genre is getting a little tired.
Wake me when a Supreme Court clerk spills the beans. (Oh, wait, I guess some of them have.)
The latter.
Idle thoughts on a sunny Friday.
I'm merely suspicious of an article about a "brain drain" written by someone who is ostensibly one of the "brains." Perhaps it is unfair for me to lump her in with the whiny people, but there is a certain type out there, and I thought she had enough of the characteristics for me to make the call. The article struck me a certain way, and the consensus among 4 anonymous commenters seems to be that it shouldn't have.
I haven't changed my mind in the last hour or 2, but I have no additional information other than what's here and what's at Above the Law on this book.
Whom else would you expect to notice?
Recently Scott Turow had a multi-part story in the NYTimes Magazine about a gone-bad permanent clerk--it's been collected into a book as well.
I love how the non-legal trolls can't stay on topic because a) they're not sure what a clerk is, and b) they're so terrified of women this has to be about how they're bad, somehow. The only downside to the great Volokh Conspiracy--the maniac trolls.
Firm recruiting staff
Those left behind
B-school admissions committees
Art supply stores in NYC
Isn't seeking to undermine the conclusion of an article, which makes its case using statistics and interviews with the relevant professionals, by pointing out that its author might have had some ulterior motive a classic example ad hominem argumentation?
but it allows us the sublime pleasure of basking in your utter correctness.
have pity; where else could such unworthies find it?
Judge Sloviter is well-known among district court clerks within the Third Circuit for the stinging and unnecessarily harsh language she uses in opinions reversing or simply modifying lower court rulings (or at least that's what I've been told - wink, wink). She is considered something of a sadist who delights in inflicting paper-cut-precise digs without provocation. Her writing is intemperate and has the effect of demoralizing district judges who -- more often than not --work without the luxury of the lengthy periods of contemplation enjoyed by courts of appeals.
It is not surprising that she would behave in a manner that would induce a former clerk to pen a novel such as Roa's.
Nobody likes a bully.
You mean the vast majority of the book-purchasing public? You may be "all in" for this book, but as you point out here, it's unlikely many other people will care. It's subject matter that few people find interesting presented in the format of a really tired genre.
Why, no.
Sadly, most women are bitchy not because they are godesses but because they are incompetent losers elevated to a position they would not hold but for the triumph of that vacuous claptrap known as feminism.
Anon, is the good judge a godess or goober? Just wondering.
Are you serious? I am not a student of the genre, but I have seen a few books (incl. the one linked to by Anderson.)
Also, if you read through any number of legal blogs, they often contain the sort of heavy-breathing gossip that would embarass the cast members of The View. You need look no further than the WSJ law blog (Peter Lattman looks like a male in the pictures) and several times a week he clucks about oh-so-interesting personnel changes at some Important Big Firm or other trivia.
Didn't I see you at the gender roles seminar retreat last week?
I also love tax protestors. I have the same weird fascination with them that I have with creationists. A few months ago, I would have said that tax protestors are still overwhelmingly far-right nutjobs. The "America: Freedom to Fascism" documentary makes me think that they're reaching out to the far-left a little bit. For the most part, though, I think that movement is apolitical (at least in a practical sense). What ideological ties it has are more along the lines of separatist militias - so far removed from day-to-day politics that characterizing them is an exercise in arbitraryness. Fun, though.
I never heard any Judge Sloviter stories, but maybe that's because I was on the west coast.
Her book sounds like it may have been inspired by real events or characters, but I am not sure that it is particularly unfair to her former judge (I reserve judgment on that). She didn't purport to write a work of non-fiction tell-all on her former judge (like Ed Lazarus did about his experiences as a Supreme Court clerk).
As an example, I just read Professor Stephen Carter's book, The Emperor of Ocean Park. One can certainly see similarities between the judge depicted (posthumously) in his book and Clarence Thomas, but that doesn't mean he did a hit job on Thomas, just that Carter borrowed some aspects of his personality, legal predilections, and biography to create a fictional character. Of course, the publisher's marketing hype does create a "judicial tell-all" impression, but that may be just marketing hype.
It makes sense. The very best lawyers are people who love arguing and accusing people of other things, who have always been smarter and harder-working than their peers (usually because they're driven by an inferiority complex), and who strain their brains with the same concentration of a chess-pro. Piled on those fragile psyches are huge responsibilities, dealing with beligerant people on a daily basis, narcissitic supply from achievement and prestige followed by the threat crushing multi-million dollar defeats, and enough money to buy all the pill, powders, babes and booze you may crave. The result: the profession most responsible for maintaining an orderly society is replete with paranoia and megalomania.
It's a cynical take on life, but it seems more applicable day to day. I'm getting sick of living in a world full of people who either don't look at the world logically or who let their psychological hang-ups influence huge business/professional/political decisions. When they build spaceships, I may move to planet Vulcan.
"Sheila is assigned to a high-profile death penalty case and suddenly realizes that she has to survive the year as Friedman’s chambermaid — not just her sanity, but actual lives hang in the balance."
Shouldn't the clauses after the comma be reversed? Or perhaps another comma after "lives"?
Pedantry, indeed.
Considering that Judge Sloviter had another law clerk -- Lisa Scottoline -- who became a successful writer, but who did not find it necessary to destroy her former boss, perhaps some thought should be given to Ms. Rao's motives and her personality defects.
It is indeed true that no one likes a bully, but no one likes an ungrateful brat either.
I knew several people who clerked for Sloviter. Most hated her, but I was told she always kept a "favorite" clerk -- this was always a male, and usually a fairly attractive one at that. She would give the favorite clerk special treatment, while treating the others like absolute dirt (thereby doing wonders for relations between the clerks).
Is this guy attractive?
Probably, if you're Judge Sloviter anyway! (Think 98-yr old version of Bride of Frankenstein.)
Normally I'd think this book to be a breach of common courtesy, not to mention confidentiality, but respect is a two-way street. From what I heard, Judge Sloviter left that street a long time ago...
http://www.cardozo.yu.edu/faculty/estein/
Photo
It's pretty funny here, that this author clerked for someone who was not so great, and that even though she hasn't said this that I know of, the judge's reputation is such that this was immediately smoked out by lawyers . . .
/heads off to pull up some Sloviter opinions to see if she's as mean as some here have suggested
The claim is that the judge is mean, not the clerks!
I prefer provincial, incestous, and archaic but I guess it depends on the work-week I'm having.
The tax protestors I ran into when clerking were all uniformly far right wing nuts. Some skirted close to the militias. All threw out tired old lines about how Ohiop was not a state or wages were not income.
My experience was great as was the experience of most of my co-clerks. In fact, it probably was the most rewarding portion of my legal career.
What would have been a good way to get revenge, burn down her house?
The claim is that the judge is mean, not the clerks!"
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If you intend to imply that any sharpness in Judge Sloviter's written opinions is a mere product of the word choices of her clerks, you are quite wrong.
Contrary to the widely believed fiction, many (indeed, most) federal appellate judges write all or substantially all of their own opinions. Even for judges who allow their clerks to author first-drafts and more, if there is any sharp language to be found in an opinion, it has either been added by, or at least approved by, the judge.
Clerks like people to believe that they possess a bit more power than they actually do. However, a clerk penning the dissent in Bowers v. Hardwick is the exception, not the rule.
The district judge for whom I clerked deleted any critical comments that I or my fellow clerk put into drafts of his opinions. He said that it was a tough job being a lawyer and we shouldn't be too harsh on the lawyers, even when they advance frivolous arguments, at least not in writing. Having been a lawyer for 17 years, I now appreciate how mature and wise he was about such things.
Judge? Is that you?
I have no first-hand experience with the appellate courts (and I don't know from your comment whether you do), but I can say that, at least at the district court level, it is not unusual for memos written by clerks to become the written opinion with relatively little modification by the judge, especially in civil matters. That, at least, has been my experience and the experience of many other district court clerks with whom I have discussed the issue.
Tired old line? I looked it up - Ohiop is not a state.
Everything else you said was right on.
The district judge for whom I clerked deleted any critical comments that I or my fellow clerk put into drafts of his opinions. He said that it was a tough job being a lawyer and we shouldn't be too harsh on the lawyers, even when they advance frivolous arguments, at least not in writing. Having been a lawyer for 17 years, I now appreciate how mature and wise he was about such things.
James and 001 -- the Tax Court is a hybrid between district and appellate courts in that there are trials, but also everything was briefed and reviewed by the court (well almost everything, the tax protestors generally were ignored). Procedure depended on the judge. My judge let us write the first draft and then he would write and rewrite it. Often he came out differently from how his clerks did. Other judges reviewed things but generally let the clerks write the opinions. A few judges simply told their clerks how to decide and that they should write the opinion accordingly.
I suppose in all courts it is like that -- the procedure depends on the judge depends on the judge.
This is (perhaps) true for published opinions. Unpublished decisions, however, particularly those written without oral argument, are usually written by clerks.
It absolutely depends on the judge. However, I can tell you for certain that there is a non-negligible number of opinions - including published appellate opinions - that are written mostly by the clerks.
IMO, with a good judge it is a collaborative effort. A published opinion should go back and forth between the judge and clerk many times.
It can vary from opinion to opinion, too. Some opinions need a lot more back-and-forth than others, even if one is just talking about precedential appellate opinions.
Heck, some judges will write some of their first drafts themselves and publish them with little more than a quick read-through by the clerks, while publishing other opinions that their clerks wrote with hardly any modification.
The one constant, at least among halfway decent judges, is that the judge has carefully read and approved everything that goes out the door.
001:
I think the claim that "most" appellate judges do their own first drafts is overstated. Some regularly do, however.
Opus:
What you say about unpublished opinions being written by clerks is certainly the norm in a lot of appellate courts. In some, though--the Fourth Circuit comes to mind--the staff attorney's office does a lot of the run-of-the-mill ones.
A ludicrous plot -- as if anyone would take the chance that the clerk wouldn't just mention to the Justice, "Hey, I got a call from John Smith," and then the whole scheme would have been exposed.
David Balducci is also a writer.
When she hit her self-determined debt limit in 1991 and there was no publishing deal in sight, Scottoline applied for a clerk position she had heard the Hon. Dolores K. Sloviter (L’56, Chief Judge of the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals) had open for a woman or man in a career transition.
“I begged her for the job. When she gave it to me I had to keep myself from bursting into tears. Judge Sloviter saved my butt. I was a single mother – I couldn’t work full-time. She changed my life. She’s done so much for women that I don’t think people know enough about.”
One month later Scottoline sold her first book to a publishing house. But it would take two years before she would believe the success of that novel was here to stay and she quit her job in order to write full-time. “Everywhere That Mary Went” was nominated in 1994 for a prestigious Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for best original paperback. But it would be her second novel, “Final Appeal” that would garner her the award.
“Final Appeal” is set in the Third Circuit. Judge Sloviter hosted a signing party at her chambers to celebrate that book’s publication. She invited all the judges of the Third Circuit and ordered that they had to buy the book if they attended. “I was signing books for Third Circuit Court justices!” Scottoline exclaims with remaining awe at the change in her fortunes. “The first book signing of my life was in that court!”