This year, hiring bonuses for former Supreme Court clerks at major law firms are expected to reach $250,000. That sounds like an extraordinary and unwarranted sum. In today's New York Times, however, Above the Law's David Lat argues that these gargantuan bonuses may be irrational for individual firms, but good for the legal system as a whole.

even if the astronomical Supreme Court clerkship bonuses may be dubious investments for law firms, they are good news for our legal system. Here's why: by promising clerks a financial windfall on the back end of their clerkships, firms encourage bright young lawyers — many of whom carry loads of educational debt — to render service to the court and country. The bonuses place clerks in a similar (or superior) position financially to their classmates who went directly into private practice instead of clerking for two years (the first with a lower-court judge, the second with a Supreme Court justice). The bonuses can be viewed as an after-the-fact supplement, paid for by the private sector, to comparatively modest clerkly wages (less than $65,000 a year).

The financial freedom supplied by these bonuses can allow the clerks who decide against a corporate career to move on more quickly to what truly interests them — academia, government practice or public-interest law. Law firms end up in effect subsidizing less wealthy precincts of the profession.