Best and worst judges to clerk for Forum

[Anonymous User]

Anyone know anything about Sanchez, Mendoza, or H. Thomas (all 9th)?

Just want to jump in and say that H. Thomas has also fired a clerk this year

Obviously you probably don’t know, but I am very curious what a clerk does to get fired from an appellate clerkship. Unless the answer is that Thomas is a horrendous boss, which I haven’t heard.

The cases I know of appellate clerks being fired by good bosses involve so-crazy-it’s-hard-to-believe misconduct that would be identifying. There are some good stories out there though. Note that I don’t know anything about H Thomas one way or another.

The truth is that some people are not cut out for clerkships, especially K-JDs who have never had a full-time job before. Clerkships, especially at the district court level, are sink or swim environments. Some folks, at least without some more experience, can't handle that level of responsibility or independence. So you have very smart and usually capable people who just crumple at the job. And having a bad clerk in chambers hijacks the entire chambers' ability to function and causes resentment among clerks and between boss and employee. So sometimes a judge doesn't really have a choice but to find someone new.

I agree. Don't think it is insanely common (particularly for appellate courts, which are similar to law school), but there is a type of person who tends to be KJD that graduated top of class at college and law school and is very good at getting grades but has a hard time with other soft skills and general office life. You see this with law firms too, of course. Sometimes a first year associate gets fired 6 months in not because the law firm is bad or throwing them to the wolves but because the associate leave on the dot at 5 PM and believe cite checking to be beneath them.

[Anonymous User]

Anyone have the inside scoop on recent appointees to the Fifth or Sixth Circuit? (Douglas, Ramirez, Mathis, Davis, Bloomekatz)

Bump

Also interested

[Anonymous User]

Anyone know anything about Sanchez, Mendoza, or H. Thomas (all 9th)?

Just want to jump in and say that H. Thomas has also fired a clerk this year

Did Thomas fire them? They went to my school and were in a pretty prominent role on campus so there was a lot of speculation around what happened but consensus was the clerk left, largely because they went to a super prestigious firm after and it seemed unlikely the firm would take someone who just got fired from clerkship.

[Anonymous User]

Anyone know anything about Sanchez, Mendoza, or H. Thomas (all 9th)?

Just want to jump in and say that H. Thomas has also fired a clerk this year

Did Thomas fire them? They went to my school and were in a pretty prominent role on campus so there was a lot of speculation around what happened but consensus was the clerk left, largely because they went to a super prestigious firm after and it seemed unlikely the firm would take someone who just got fired from clerkship.

Tried to respond to an earlier post yesterday, but it didn't go through for some reason. Anyways, while I certainly don't know the specifics, I heard it was a missed deadline caused by some miscommunication, resulting in the clerk being fired. But yes, considering they're now at a prestigious firm, there clearly wasn't "so-crazy-it’s-hard-to-believe misconduct."

[Anonymous User]

Anyone know anything about Sanchez, Mendoza, or H. Thomas (all 9th)?

Just want to jump in and say that H. Thomas has also fired a clerk this year

Did Thomas fire them? They went to my school and were in a pretty prominent role on campus so there was a lot of speculation around what happened but consensus was the clerk left, largely because they went to a super prestigious firm after and it seemed unlikely the firm would take someone who just got fired from clerkship.

I don't know anything about the dynamics at issue, but it is very within the realm of possibility the clerk was fired but provided a face-saving excuse by the judge for employers.

[Anonymous User]

Anyone know anything about Sanchez, Mendoza, or H. Thomas (all 9th)?

Just want to jump in and say that H. Thomas has also fired a clerk this year

Did Thomas fire them? They went to my school and were in a pretty prominent role on campus so there was a lot of speculation around what happened but consensus was the clerk left, largely because they went to a super prestigious firm after and it seemed unlikely the firm would take someone who just got fired from clerkship.

I don't know anything about the dynamics at issue, but it is very within the realm of possibility the clerk was fired but provided a face-saving excuse by the judge for employers.

I know nothing about this situation, but it isn't unheard of for a judge to actively try to place a clerk he or she privately wants to fire in a new job. That way there's no damage to the clerk's career and the judge gets the clerk out of chambers.

[Anonymous User]

I have heard that HAT is a difficult boss- long hours and no flexibility around remote work (including when clerks are actively sick).

[Anonymous User]

She is, indeed, rumored to be an awful boss.

I know one of her former clerks who speaks extraordinarily highly of her, so I find it hard to believe that’s the case.

[Anonymous User]

She is, indeed, rumored to be an awful boss.

I know one of her former clerks who speaks extraordinarily highly of her, so I find it hard to believe that’s the case.

Either you haven’t clerked or you had a super nice judge. Bad judges will often mistreat one clerk while simultaneously be incredibly nice with the other. My co-clerk was often humiliated and ignored while my work product was praised and the judge would mentor me. Was I smarter than him? No. The only difference - I’m white and he was not. Not saying it was racially motivated, but man, did I feel awful for him!

[Anonymous User]

She is, indeed, rumored to be an awful boss.

I know one of her former clerks who speaks extraordinarily highly of her, so I find it hard to believe that’s the case.

Either you haven’t clerked or you had a super nice judge. Bad judges will often mistreat one clerk while simultaneously be incredibly nice with the other. My co-clerk was often humiliated and ignored while my work product was praised and the judge would mentor me. Was I smarter than him? No. The only difference - I’m white and he was not. Not saying it was racially motivated, but man, did I feel awful for him!

I'm a new poster. Your experience seems to be the one outside the norm. Not saying it didn't happen, but the average judge doesn't act like this. Sorry for your experience.

[Anonymous User]

She is, indeed, rumored to be an awful boss.

I know one of her former clerks who speaks extraordinarily highly of her, so I find it hard to believe that’s the case.

Either you haven’t clerked or you had a super nice judge. Bad judges will often mistreat one clerk while simultaneously be incredibly nice with the other. My co-clerk was often humiliated and ignored while my work product was praised and the judge would mentor me. Was I smarter than him? No. The only difference - I’m white and he was not. Not saying it was racially motivated, but man, did I feel awful for him!

I'm a new poster. Your experience seems to be the one outside the norm. Not saying it didn't happen, but the average judge doesn't act like this. Sorry for your experience.

Not the poster with the somewhat-racist judge, but I agree that judges often do pick favorites among clerks. And although not all judges are abusive/crazy, I've been surprised at how many of my friends/classmates seem to have had rough clerkship experiences - I don't think anyone knows enough to say how the "average judge" acts, to be honest.

And having sat with Holly Thomas, she seemed nice enough and her chambers was pretty quick/efficient in terms of circulating things and responding to what we circulated. She was definitely more moderate/conservative than I would've thought given her NAACP background though.

[Anonymous User]

Anyone know anything about Sanchez, Mendoza, or H. Thomas (all 9th)?

Just want to jump in and say that H. Thomas has also fired a clerk this year

Did Thomas fire them? They went to my school and were in a pretty prominent role on campus so there was a lot of speculation around what happened but consensus was the clerk left, largely because they went to a super prestigious firm after and it seemed unlikely the firm would take someone who just got fired from clerkship.

I don't know anything about the dynamics at issue, but it is very within the realm of possibility the clerk was fired but provided a face-saving excuse by the judge for employers.

I know nothing about this situation, but it isn't unheard of for a judge to actively try to place a clerk he or she privately wants to fire in a new job. That way there's no damage to the clerk's career and the judge gets the clerk out of chambers.

I dont think that those were the vibes because the clerk went to the firm they summered at - more seemed like they just went back early instead of going back after the clerkship. I take your point though that there's with respect to saving face and do think that the specific context made it such that both parties would benefit from quiet departure

[Anonymous User]

Did Thomas fire them? They went to my school and were in a pretty prominent role on campus so there was a lot of speculation around what happened but consensus was the clerk left, largely because they went to a super prestigious firm after and it seemed unlikely the firm would take someone who just got fired from clerkship.

I don't know anything about the dynamics at issue, but it is very within the realm of possibility the clerk was fired but provided a face-saving excuse by the judge for employers.

I know nothing about this situation, but it isn't unheard of for a judge to actively try to place a clerk he or she privately wants to fire in a new job. That way there's no damage to the clerk's career and the judge gets the clerk out of chambers.

I dont think that those were the vibes because the clerk went to the firm they summered at - more seemed like they just went back early instead of going back after the clerkship. I take your point though that there's with respect to saving face and do think that the specific context made it such that both parties would benefit from quiet departure

I've definitely heard of clerks reaching out to their summer firms partway through a clerkship and saying, hey, can I start now? and the firm being happy to oblige. I'm sure it depends on a bunch of factors, including how much credit the clerk had with their firm, how much work the firm has to go round, and reputation of the judge in question.

[Anonymous User]

Not the poster with the somewhat-racist judge, but I agree that judges often do pick favorites among clerks. And although not all judges are abusive/crazy, I've been surprised at how many of my friends/classmates seem to have had rough clerkship experiences - I don't think anyone knows enough to say how the "average judge" acts, to be honest.

Yeah my judge, although I liked him as a person and felt he was an extraordinarily skillful legal thinker, was, let's say, a "challenging boss" at times. Thankfully my coclerks and I all got the business pretty much equally, or else it would have been a tough year to get through. And yeah, I've heard way, way more "clerkship from hell" stories than I would have expected based on the impression you get in law school.

[Anonymous User]

Not the poster with the somewhat-racist judge, but I agree that judges often do pick favorites among clerks. And although not all judges are abusive/crazy, I've been surprised at how many of my friends/classmates seem to have had rough clerkship experiences - I don't think anyone knows enough to say how the "average judge" acts, to be honest.

Yeah my judge, although I liked him as a person and felt he was an extraordinarily skillful legal thinker, was, let's say, a "challenging boss" at times. Thankfully my coclerks and I all got the business pretty much equally, or else it would have been a tough year to get through. And yeah, I've heard way, way more "clerkship from hell" stories than I would have expected based on the impression you get in law school.

My judge is nice and very lax on things like remote work, but there are a lot of things that made my clerkship difficult. For instance, while I'm held to an incredibly tight deadline she will frequently push things off to the last minute and leave myself scrambling. She also, like most people, clearly has a clerk whose insight she places more weight on.

One of the issues with clerkship offices is they portray these judges as some sort of superman-type figure. Having the great intellect and infallibility of these judges played up drastically made it quite a culture shock when I realized a lot of these judges are not actually that great and have quirks like other human beings. It is entirely possible (and likely), given the number of circuit/district/state supreme/insert another court, that a lot of these judges aren't going to be the smartest, most competent, and best managers.

I suspect this is different for SCOTUS, though, of course as, for the most part, those Justices are probably a lot closer to the superman-type aura.

It is what you make of it, though. Even if you don't have the best boss I'd encourage those clerking to realize that there is more to the work then just your boss. You still get to see a lot of the inner machinations of judging and that is valuable even with a boss from hell or—more commonly—a "normal" boss from purgatory,

[Anonymous User]

Not the poster with the somewhat-racist judge, but I agree that judges often do pick favorites among clerks. And although not all judges are abusive/crazy, I've been surprised at how many of my friends/classmates seem to have had rough clerkship experiences - I don't think anyone knows enough to say how the "average judge" acts, to be honest.

Yeah my judge, although I liked him as a person and felt he was an extraordinarily skillful legal thinker, was, let's say, a "challenging boss" at times. Thankfully my coclerks and I all got the business pretty much equally, or else it would have been a tough year to get through. And yeah, I've heard way, way more "clerkship from hell" stories than I would have expected based on the impression you get in law school.

I suspect this is different for SCOTUS, though, of course as, for the most part, those Justices are probably a lot closer to the superman-type aura.

Agree with everything in the above post except this part - SCOTUS justices are political appointees who are chosen for their ideology/age, so there's no reason to believe that they're better bosses/"closer to the superman-type" than any other judge (or partner at a firm, to be honest). And being smart =/= being a good manager (if anything, it might be the opposite - my personal experience is that individuals who are very smart/bookish/intellectual tend to be worse at the interpersonal stuff that is a big part of managing people).

[Anonymous User]

I suspect this is different for SCOTUS, though, of course as, for the most part, those Justices are probably a lot closer to the superman-type aura.

Agree with everything in the above post except this part - SCOTUS justices are political appointees who are chosen for their ideology/age, so there's no reason to believe that they're better bosses/"closer to the superman-type" than any other judge (or partner at a firm, to be honest). And being smart =/= being a good manager (if anything, it might be the opposite - my personal experience is that individuals who are very smart/bookish/intellectual tend to be worse at the interpersonal stuff that is a big part of managing people).

For real. They are just people, and not even the most upright role models—the magic of the court is in its final say.

[Anonymous User]

Not the poster with the somewhat-racist judge, but I agree that judges often do pick favorites among clerks. And although not all judges are abusive/crazy, I've been surprised at how many of my friends/classmates seem to have had rough clerkship experiences - I don't think anyone knows enough to say how the "average judge" acts, to be honest.

Yeah my judge, although I liked him as a person and felt he was an extraordinarily skillful legal thinker, was, let's say, a "challenging boss" at times. Thankfully my coclerks and I all got the business pretty much equally, or else it would have been a tough year to get through. And yeah, I've heard way, way more "clerkship from hell" stories than I would have expected based on the impression you get in law school.

I suspect this is different for SCOTUS, though, of course as, for the most part, those Justices are probably a lot closer to the superman-type aura.

Agree with everything in the above post except this part - SCOTUS justices are political appointees who are chosen for their ideology/age, so there's no reason to believe that they're better bosses/"closer to the superman-type" than any other judge (or partner at a firm, to be honest). And being smart =/= being a good manager (if anything, it might be the opposite - my personal experience is that individuals who are very smart/bookish/intellectual tend to be worse at the interpersonal stuff that is a big part of managing people).

It's indisputably the smartest and most accomplished court on average. That doesn't mean it is necessarily a collection of the nine best judges in the country, though. Probably the overall quality would go up if you replaced Sotomayor with Srinivasan or Alito with Sutton, for example.

[Anonymous User]

"There are something like 1.2 million American lawyers, some of whom are extremely smart, fair minded, experienced, etc. I sometimes ask myself: whether the nine current Supreme Court justices (I’m restoring Scalia to life for this purpose) are the nine best-qualified lawyers to be justices. Obviously not. Are they nine of the best 100? Obviously not. Nine of the best 1,000? I don’t think so. Nine of the best 10,000? I’ll give them that."

- Richard Posner

[Anonymous User]

"There are something like 1.2 million American lawyers, some of whom are extremely smart, fair minded, experienced, etc. I sometimes ask myself: whether the nine current Supreme Court justices (I’m restoring Scalia to life for this purpose) are the nine best-qualified lawyers to be justices. Obviously not. Are they nine of the best 100? Obviously not. Nine of the best 1,000? I don’t think so. Nine of the best 10,000? I’ll give them that."

- Richard Posner

But Posner himself? The number one best-qualified lawyer (by his own criteria of course).

[Anonymous User]

Sarah Isgur is a moronic nepo baby (her dad was a judge) so her opinion is irrelevant.

Her dad is a random bankruptcy judge no one has ever heard of, what are you on lol

Isgur is one of the most important bankruptcy judges in the country.

[Anonymous User]

Sarah Isgur is a moronic nepo baby (her dad was a judge) so her opinion is irrelevant.

Her dad is a random bankruptcy judge no one has ever heard of, what are you on lol

Isgur is one of the most important bankruptcy judges in the country.

*most important judges in the country.

[Anonymous User]

Sarah Isgur is a moronic nepo baby (her dad was a judge) so her opinion is irrelevant.

Her dad is a random bankruptcy judge no one has ever heard of, what are you on lol

Isgur is one of the most important bankruptcy judges in the country.

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/bankruptc ... dopted-son

[Anonymous User]

Sarah Isgur is a moronic nepo baby (her dad was a judge) so her opinion is irrelevant.

Her dad is a random bankruptcy judge no one has ever heard of, what are you on lol

Isgur is one of the most important bankruptcy judges in the country.

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/bankruptc ... dopted-son

A months long obsession with Sarah Isgur of all people is classic TLS

[Anonymous User]

Anyone know anything about Sanchez, Mendoza, or H. Thomas (all 9th)?

Just want to jump in and say that H. Thomas has also fired a clerk this year

Obviously you probably don’t know, but I am very curious what a clerk does to get fired from an appellate clerkship. Unless the answer is that Thomas is a horrendous boss, which I haven’t heard.

Take this with a grain of salt because it's just law school gossip, but I've also heard that H. Thomas fired a HLS clerk with a very prestigious gold star on campus over some minor thing and made a huge scene doing it. I have friends who won't apply to her because of what they've heard