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Discuss.

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UVA: We're the best outside YHS!

I love the big vacant spots next to the Berk and Penn logos, where their clerks should go... except, wait, they didn't have any.

vanwinkle wrote:UVA: We're the best outside YHS!

I love the big vacant spots next to the Berk and Penn logos, where their clerks should go... except, wait, they didn't have any.

Be cool, Danny!

I'd be fascinated to that broken down into 2 categories for liberal justices vs conservative ones.


And how on earth do you get a SCOTUS clerkship from Creighton?

DerrickRose wrote:I'd be fascinated to that broken down into 2 categories for liberal justices vs conservative ones.


And how on earth do you get a SCOTUS clerkship from Creighton?

Creighton is more prestigious than Berkeley and Penn, didn't you know?

Two observations:

1. Columbia and NYU'd better step it up.

2. 10 of the 16 "other" clerks were hirded by Thomas and Alito.

Unemployed wrote:Two observations:

1. Columbia and NYU'd better step it up.

2. 10 of the 16 "other" clerks were hirded by Thomas and Alito.

cls basically had nothing extra, since ginsburg pretty much guarantees 1 cls clerk per year

This si stupid if it does not account for class size. The gap between Yale and Harvard for instance turns into a gulf if you look at things on a per capita basis. Suggesting things like UVa is "close" to Stanford and that Chicago and Columbia are seemingly "tied" is similarly not all that worthwhile. Thanks for the link, but this data really is not all that useful.

To the person who asked about the breakdown for Con v. Lib justices: here is a link that will give you the info you want if you want to comb through it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_la ... ted_States

That's so weird to me that neither Berkeley nor Penn has had a single SC clerk in three years. I mean, I know just how difficult they are to get, but still... you'd think that at least one would be chosen from such great schools. Bizarre.

eskimo wrote:That's so weird to me that neither Berkeley nor Penn has had a single SC clerk in three years. I mean, I know just how difficult they are to get, but still... you'd think that at least one would be chosen from such great schools. Bizarre.

It's capricious...#1 in your class from NYU with a clerkship with Kozinski, Garland or Tatel can still get no clerkship if you have an off-day interviewing with a Justice. These data are interesting, but non-determinative.

.

Berkeley has one for OT 2011.

showNprove wrote:

Rand M. wrote:This si stupid if it does not account for class size. The gap between Yale and Harvard for instance turns into a gulf if you look at things on a per capita basis. Suggesting things like UVa is "close" to Stanford and that Chicago and Columbia are seemingly "tied" is similarly not all that worthwhile. Thanks for the link, but this data really is not all that useful.

To the person who asked about the breakdown for Con v. Lib justices: here is a link that will give you the info you want if you want to comb through it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_la ... ted_States

Per capita rankings are useless when it comes to SCOTUS clerk hiring. There's such a limited number of spots, and the justices are going hire the top students only, no matter what school they hail from. I doubt very much that you'll see any difference in the qualifications between the Yale and Harvard grads.

So it's worth nothing that Yale went 29/600 and Harvard went 25/1500? I think that means something even if it is not the most useful of measures. I just think that this chart suggests that Y and H are similar w/r/t clerkships, when in fact they aren't really all that similar. Chicago and Georgetown have the same number of clerks, ostensibly suggesting that they are peers when it comes to SCOTUS clerkships. This just isn't the case though. Plus, its only a small sample when you limit it to 3 years. If you expand it out I think you start to get meaningful trends. Sure its not data on the whole class or anything, but its data that represents what its meant to represent, SCOTUS clerk placement.

Not surprising since 8 of the 9 justices went to Yale or Harvard (Justice Stevens, now retiring, went to Northwestern. I think those justices look out for their alma mater so Y and H are ridiculously over-represented.

You can't tell me that every single one of those Y and H clerks were better qualified than every Berkeley and Penn graduate.

Stuff like this just shows how determinative the LSAT is. High LSAT --> HYS --> Clerkship --> Easy Street. Bomb the LSAT and you might as well just forget about it. /self.

existenz wrote:You can't tell me that every single one of those Y and H clerks were better qualified than every Berkeley and Penn graduate.

It's not necessarily just about qualifications. Certain COA judges are feeders for SCOTUS clerkships and certain schools tend to feed in to certain COA clerkships. Just speculation, but I'm guessing that Berk and Penn tend to feed fewer into COA feeder judges/clerkships.

fortissimo wrote:http://visualizelaw.wordpress.com/2010/ ... nd-ot2010/

Discuss.

What I take from this is that Yale and Harvard dominate Supreme Court clerkships. After that, it's mostly statistical noise within the T14. Three years is too short of a snapshot to draw meaningful conclusions. In 2007, one year before the period that this chart covers, NU had three SCOTUS clerkships; they've had one since. UVA had a great year for clerkships in the 2009 term, with a total of 5. But UVA placed just one in each of the previous three years. Michigan had no clerks in 2007 (right before the chart started), but they had one or two a year during the 2008-2010 window.

Michigan and UVA could place no SCOTUS clerks in 2011 while NU and Penn each place two. When the sample sizes are so small, a lot can appear to change.

I want to echo what everyone has said about sample size. Outside of the fact that, obviously, Harvard and Yale (and maybe Stanford) are going to dominate the Supreme Court Clerking process (of course, H and Y dominate the Court itself), the sample size is way too small to determine whether any school 4-14 has a distinct advantage over another.

It's like the Master's. Tiger or Phil will probably always be in contention, but they won't always win. Some years a Zach Johnson, a Mike Weir, an Angel Cabrera, or a Trevor Immelman will win. Harvard and Yale are always going to get some clerks, but there's no way to tell which law school will be this or that term's Zach Johnson. Recently, it looks like UVA has won the Masters. Next year it could be Georgetown. Penn and Berkeley are on a drought right now, but they could come back with one apiece next term, while UVA or Duke get shut out entirely (a la Jim Furyk at this year's Masters).

Cliff Notes:

I heart golf analogies...

Not to change the course of the discussion but what I am curious about is why some schools like Chicago place extremely well with the Court of Appeals but not so great in the Supreme Court and why other schools like Virginia place extremely well (relatively speaking) in the Supreme Court but have fairly unimpressive Court of Appeals numbers.

First off, where did you find COA numbers? Law Clerk Addict? Second, it could be that one of the feeder judges to SCOTUS is wilkinson (think thats how it is spelled) and he is a UVA law grad

bauerahl wrote:Not to change the course of the discussion but what I am curious about is why some schools like Chicago place extremely well with the Court of Appeals but not so great in the Supreme Court and why other schools like Virginia place extremely well (relatively speaking) in the Supreme Court but have fairly unimpressive Court of Appeals numbers.

Its a combination of the fact that the sample size is small and the fact that Chicago is half the size of the schools to which it is being "compared."

Even though this only runs up to a couple of years ago, this is better:

http://www.leiterrankings.com/jobs/2000 ... erks.shtml
Chicago is doing alright.

jnorsky wrote:First off, where did you find COA numbers? Law Clerk Addict? Second, it could be that one of the feeder judges to SCOTUS is wilkinson (think thats how it is spelled) and he is a UVA law grad

Hmmm I think that's his name, I know of another feeder judge (for another school), but I can't remember who he is right now...

bauerahl wrote:Not to change the course of the discussion but what I am curious about is why some schools like Chicago place extremely well with the Court of Appeals but not so great in the Supreme Court and why other schools like Virginia place extremely well (relatively speaking) in the Supreme Court but have fairly unimpressive Court of Appeals numbers.

Feeders. Michigan and Virginia typically put the most numbers wise (and percentage wise for that matter) outside of HYS into clerkships. Due to the higher number working in clerkships, they will more than likely put more into SCOTUS.

Totals from the last 10 years (i.e., adding up Leiter's 2000-2007 figures to the OP's):

1. Harvard 99
2. Yale 84
3. Chicago 33
4. Stanford 27
5. Columbia 20
6. Virginia 19
7. NYU 16
8. Michigan 13
9. Berkeley 11
10. Northwestern 7
10. Georgetown 7
12. Texas 6
13. Duke 5
14. Penn 3
14. Cornell 3
14. BYU 3
14. Georgia 3
14. George Washington 3
14. Notre Dame 3

Now adjusted for class size:

1. Yale: .42
2. Harvard .18
3. Chicago .17
4. Stanford .15
5. Columbia .05
5.. Virginia .05
7. NYU .04
7. Berkeley .04
9. Michigan .03
9. Northwestern .03
11. BYU .02
11. Georgia .02
11. Notre Dame .02
14. Penn .01
14. Georgetown .01
14. Texas .01
14. George Washington .01

So, Yale destroys everyone else; Harvard, Chicago, and Stanford place comparable numbers; and Columbia and Virginia edge past the rest.

johnstuartmill wrote:Totals from the last 10 years (i.e., adding up Leiter's 2000-2007 figures to the OP's):

Now adjusted for class size:

1. Yale: .42
2. Harvard .18
3. Chicago .17
4. Stanford .15
5. Columbia .05
5.. Virginia .05
7. NYU .04
7. Berkeley .04
9. Michigan .03
9. Northwestern .03
11. BYU .02
11. Georgia .02
11. Notre Dame .02
14. Penn .01
14. Georgetown .01
14. Texas .01
14. George Washington .01

So, Yale destroys everyone else; Harvard, Chicago, and Stanford place comparable numbers; and Columbia and Virginia edge past the rest.

Thanks for this. These are pretty much the most important numbers.

bauerahl wrote:Not to change the course of the discussion but what I am curious about is why some schools like Chicago place extremely well with the Court of Appeals but not so great in the Supreme Court and why other schools like Virginia place extremely well (relatively speaking) in the Supreme Court but have fairly unimpressive Court of Appeals numbers.

Huh? Chicago's SCOTUS placement per capita is surpassed only by Yale and Harvard, and the latter not by very much.