University of San Diego lawprof Michael Rappaport follows up his earlier post on his judicial clerkship from hell with an addendum to my suggestions on ways clerkship applicants can identify judges who abuse their clerks:
Ilya raises the question of how information about judicial tyrants can be publicized. One possibility is simply to list whenever a law clerk quits his or her job. While one or two quits might be innocent, a pattern would be revealing, especially when supplemented with gossip. One Volokh commentator mentions that many clerks resigned from their clerkship with Judge Irving Kaufman of the Second Circuit. At law school, I knew that about Kaufman – everyone did – but I had no knowledge about [Judge] Sloviter [the oppressive judge Rappaport clerked for]. (Interestingly, my two co-clerks did know that she had a reputation for being a very tough boss, but they took the clerkship anyway, because their wonderful interview with her (mistakenly) convinced them that the reputation was undeserved.) As I remember it, when I started the clerkship in 1985, three Sloviter clerks had quit in the six years she had been a judge. My co-clerk made it 4 in 7 years.
Michael's suggestion is a good one. On rare occasions clerks resign for reasons of their own that are no fault of the judge's; sometimes, a judge will have no choice but to force a clerk to resign because the latter is simply too lazy or incompetent to do the job. Even so, a pattern of repeated resignations does indeed suggest that there's something wrong with the judge in question.
Michael's idea is only a partial solution to the information problem. Even if their judge is an oppressive tyrant, clerks will hesitate to resign early because of the very high costs of doing so. Because prospective future legal employers will almost always contact the judge an ex-clerk served under, alienating the judge by leaving the clerkship early is likely to be a major career setback. Still, Michael's proposal would certainly provide valuable information about those (probably very few) judges who are so bad that large numbers of their clerks are willing to pay the high cost of resigning in order to be rid of them.
David Lat at Above the Law has his own proposal for increasing the availability of information about hellish clerkships:
Never fear, Above the Law is here! We're happy to serve as a clearinghouse for your clerkship horror stories.
Email us with your tales of clerkship woe. We will confirm that you actually clerked for the judge in question (or were otherwise properly situated to acquire such dirt). We will then post your horror story, but without identifying you as our tipster, per our standard procedure. (Of course, if you for some bizarre reason WANT to be credited, we can do that too.)
Judges are public figures, and they're used to being criticized. But sometimes even judges sue for libel. So — and this should go without saying — only send us stories that are TRUE.
I should mention that David is himself a useful font of information about judges and their clerkship policies, since he has a virtually encyclopedic knowledge of the various denizens of the federal judiciary. If you want the real dope on what it's like to work for a particular judge, he's often one of the best people to ask.
Finally, I want to emphasize that I am NOT suggesting that applicants should automatically forego clerkships with judges who treat their staff badly. Sometimes, the educational and career benefits of clerking for a nasty judge will outweigh the pain and suffering involved. Some mean judges are also outstanding and highly respected jurists whom clerks can learn a lot from. Others are major figures in the legal profession who can do a lot for a clerk's career prospects. Applicants will have to decide for themselves whether the benefits of clerking for a particular judge are worth the costs. I simply hope that such decisions will be taken with the benefit of as much accurate information as reasonably possible.
Related Posts (on one page):
- More Ways to Identify Judicial Clerkships from Hell:
- Judicial Clerkships From Hell:
I think the problem is confirming who worked for the judge, a service Lat is offering to provide.
I took away a lot of positive things from that year, especially an awareness of all the external BS you sometimes have to put up with that has nothing to do with practicing law or doing your job. The experience was very valuable to me and I have no regrets.
As for warning systems-- I think few people getting into practicing law really have much idea what it is going to be like. Warning them about bad judges and bad firms will have little effect.
I think rather little of his judicial output, also.
Part of the problem in locating horror stories about judges is that most judges are pretty reasonable human beings, and most clerks enjoy their clerkships. While its certainly true that clerks have an incentive to talk up their experience, the large majority of people who claim they loved their clerkship are telling the truth. So without careful verification, unsubstantiated rumors and gossip are likely to very quickly drown out the relatively small number of legitimate complaints.
I'm wondering if there should also be (or already is) a clearinghouse of information regarding, shall we say, "difficult to deal with" authors who submit articles to law reviews. I'm an outgoing member of an editorial board of a top 25 school, and, while the vast majority of the authors we dealt with were perfectly decent and professional people, there were a few whose arrogance and rudeness simply flew off the charts and exceeded any normal bounds of professional behavior. And, lest anyone think that it's easy to predict the big offenders, the few problem authors came from across all levels of seniority, insitutional affiliation, gender, and ideology.
I'm going to create a little file for our own law review, but perhaps it would be nice if law reviews could somehow come together on this.
I'm not saying this will necessarily happen; it's just that in my experience, the a-holes don't stop being a-holes when rules are put in place to report on them. They just try to use them to their advantage, projecting righteous indignation the whole way.
Also, as I think Prof. Somin notes, not all resignations should be blamed on the judge.
It’s harder with district judges, since much of their work is clerk written (although you can get a good sense of Chief Judge Barbara Crabb from her opinions).
Oh, and Judge Susan Dlott’s (S.D. OH) clerks have been seen walking her dogs (a pair of King Charles spaniels) during the day. (Who knows what says that about her.)
First, some assumptions.
Objectively speaking, clerks are taken from the better law students, judged generally by school and ranking within that school. The demand, I assume is relatively high.
And clerkships are sought after, I assume. Therefore, they are in short supply.
One can imagine that the best students from the best schools get, if they want, whatever clerkship is available. One can imagine that there are a bunch of students who do not even qualify (the great majority). And there there is a group of students on the bubble, so to speak. One would think there is a way to rank all of the eligible students.
So, if there is a way to rank the students, one can look to see which judges get the best applicants, consistently, and which get the ones who are nearer the bubble.
This sounds like an interesting study. And, it might help. If judges realize that they are getting lower quality workers because they are bad bosses, perhaps they will change their ways. Or, perhaps not.
Second, I think using a similar system for clerks would be even more skewed. Someone who wants to trash a judge may be willing to assert first hand knowledge in an anonymous forum when he or she has no such knowledge. I doubt someone who wants to praise a judge has the same level of incentive. In short, very upset people are more prone to do stupid things then very content people.