Are Feeders Dead? Forum

[Iowahawk]

Not sure this is quite the thread for this, but it looks like Garland is quite likely gonna be AG, which would be a major shakeup on the future of feeders front. It’d also be pretty surprising if Fletcher and Tatel are still active by the midterms.

[Anonymous User]

Not sure this is quite the thread for this, but it looks like Garland is quite likely gonna be AG, which would be a major shakeup on the future of feeders front. It’d also be pretty surprising if Fletcher and Tatel are still active by the midterms.

I’d heard rumors that Tatel was going to post for 2022 in the “late fall” and that never materialized. I do wonder if he’s been waiting on GA to decide whether to go senior.

[Anonymous User]

Haven't posted in a long time, so idk if this is proper use of the anon function, but I worked on a case with Kovner while she was with the SG. She is by far the most thorough attorney I have ever seen, and nothing gets past her (i.e., the final work product is both spotless and has as close to an error-proof argument as it could).

I'm sure that reputation preceded her even before her nomination/confirmation, so that may be the reason she is so hyped. Based upon her clerk(s) that I know of, she hires quality people. I can't speak to much else, but if I were in law school and wanted a "district feeder," I'd put Kovner right there with Friedrich and Pacold.

[Anonymous User]

Haven't posted in a long time, so idk if this is proper use of the anon function, but I worked on a case with Kovner while she was with the SG. She is by far the most thorough attorney I have ever seen, and nothing gets past her (i.e., the final work product is both spotless and has as close to an error-proof argument as it could).

I'm sure that reputation preceded her even before her nomination/confirmation, so that may be the reason she is so hyped. Based upon her clerk(s) that I know of, she hires quality people. I can't speak to much else, but if I were in law school and wanted a "district feeder," I'd put Kovner right there with Friedrich and Pacold.

Friedrich is clearly on a tier of her own because she's already fed several times and has a particularly close relationship with Kavanaugh. Kovner seems somewhat likely to become like that as well. I somewhat doubt both she and Pacold will regularly feed because they're on-plan and most conservative students do double COA rather than COA+DC, though.

On the other hand I know of students doing Kness + Pryor, Pacold + Thapar, Cronan + Park, Cronan + Bress, and Kovner + Willett, though, so maybe the introduction of high-profile conservative district judges on high-profile district courts--Pacold, Kness,* and Seeger on NDIL, Friedrich and Nichols on DDC, Cronan on SDNY, Kovner on EDNY--will lead to more conservative students doing district courts.

* Based on his background I'd be pretty surprised if Kness regularly attracts feeder-y students, but he's clearly connected to Pryor, as is Manasco on ND Alabama

[Anonymous User]

Friedrich is clearly on a tier of her own because she's already fed several times and has a particularly close relationship with Kavanaugh. Kovner seems somewhat likely to become like that as well. I somewhat doubt both she and Pacold will regularly feed because they're on-plan and most conservative students do double COA rather than COA+DC, though.

On the other hand I know of students doing Kness + Pryor, Pacold + Thapar, Cronan + Park, Cronan + Bress, and Kovner + Willett, though, so maybe the introduction of high-profile conservative district judges on high-profile district courts--Pacold, Kness,* and Seeger on NDIL, Friedrich and Nichols on DDC, Cronan on SDNY, Kovner on EDNY--will lead to more conservative students doing district courts.

* Based on his background I'd be pretty surprised if Kness regularly attracts feeder-y students, but he's clearly connected to Pryor, as is Manasco on ND Alabama

Why do most conservative students do double COA? For experience and value-add to career it seems odd to double on COA (almost like a waste of a year if you don't end up at SCOTUS and SCOTUS is already a low chance). District courts give you more of the litigating aspect that would be useful to firms and gov. Maybe I'm missing something because I'm conservative and doing COA+DC.

[Anonymous User]

Friedrich is clearly on a tier of her own because she's already fed several times and has a particularly close relationship with Kavanaugh. Kovner seems somewhat likely to become like that as well. I somewhat doubt both she and Pacold will regularly feed because they're on-plan and most conservative students do double COA rather than COA+DC, though.

On the other hand I know of students doing Kness + Pryor, Pacold + Thapar, Cronan + Park, Cronan + Bress, and Kovner + Willett, though, so maybe the introduction of high-profile conservative district judges on high-profile district courts--Pacold, Kness,* and Seeger on NDIL, Friedrich and Nichols on DDC, Cronan on SDNY, Kovner on EDNY--will lead to more conservative students doing district courts.

* Based on his background I'd be pretty surprised if Kness regularly attracts feeder-y students, but he's clearly connected to Pryor, as is Manasco on ND Alabama

Why do most conservative students do double COA? For experience and value-add to career it seems odd to double on COA (almost like a waste of a year if you don't end up at SCOTUS and SCOTUS is already a low chance). District courts give you more of the litigating aspect that would be useful to firms and gov. Maybe I'm missing something because I'm conservative and doing COA+DC.

You're definitely right that for the vast majority of purposes, COA+DC is more useful than COA+COA. The direction of cause and effect on these is hard, but here are some speculative possible reasons:
1. Unlike the liberal SCOTUS justices, the conservatives *seem* to have no preference for clerks who've done a district court, and overwhelmingly hire double COA or just COA clerks
2. There are no established conservative district-court feeders or semi-feeders besides Friedrich, while there are a bunch of liberal ones--Rakoff, Oetken, Furman, Chhabria, Feinerman, Boasberg, Brinkema
3. Very few judges on top districts hire off-plan, but many top conservative students lock up two COA clerkships in the summer after their first year and aren't looking to add a third in their second summer
4. A much higher proportion of top conservative students are realistic SCOTUS candidates than top liberal students due to the supply-demand mismatch so more chase SCOTUS to the detriment of what otherwise makes career sense
5. The top, feeder-resume-esque Trump judges generally ended up on COAs because of a mix of supply-demand mismatch and blue slips, while in places like CA, NY, and DC, there are so many feeder-resume-esque liberal lawyers that lots end up on district courts and there aren't blue slip problems. Cronan, Kovner, and Pacold got confirmed to top districts and got blue slips, but they're somewhat unusual--Pacold was a commission/deal nominee, Cronan was in leadership in the Bharara USAO and clerked for Katzmann, Kovner worked in the Obama OSG.

[Anonymous User]

Kovner seems great from all this talk in the last few replies--anyone have a sense whether she'd be open to hiring counter-clerks? I'd guess maybe so just because district-court hiring is less politicized in general?

[Anonymous User]

Kovner seems great from all this talk in the last few replies--anyone have a sense whether she'd be open to hiring counter-clerks? I'd guess maybe so just because district-court hiring is less politicized in general?

From what I have heard, she is very open to counterclerks.

[Anonymous User]

On the other hand I know of students doing Kness + Pryor, Pacold + Thapar, Cronan + Park, Cronan + Bress, and Kovner + Willett, though, so maybe the introduction of high-profile conservative district judges on high-profile district courts--Pacold, Kness,* and Seeger on NDIL, Friedrich and Nichols on DDC, Cronan on SDNY, Kovner on EDNY--will lead to more conservative students doing district courts.

I also know there are students doing Pacold + Newsom, Kovner + Collins, and Nichols + Bibas. I think at least the judges on this list may attract top Fed Soc students, which is probably a net plus for them if they can do it without sacrificing SCOTUS prospects because DC+COA generally is better for education than COA+COA.

Fwiw the students Seeger has hired from my school have not been conservative, actually pretty ACSy, so maybe he doesn't belong in this bucket.

[Iowahawk]

Katzmann went senior and joined the NYU Law faculty, probably the first of many of the Clinton-appointed feeders.

[Anonymous User]

David Lat reports that a Consovoy associate who clerked for Jolly and Rao will clerk for Justice Thomas. He's a GMU grad so that shows Thomas's continued willingness to hire beyond the T14. That's also three of Consovoy's seven associates that will clerk on SCOTUS in the next couple of years--one's Pryor/Thapar/Thomas, one's Gruender/Barrett/Kavanaugh.

AtL has only reported one 2021 Breyer hire, which might indicate a pending retirement, but plenty of justices don't have full classes on there so who knows. Though based on this Tweet it seems quite likely the WH is planning on Breyer retiring: https://twitter.com/jmartNYT/status/1363550487841275907

Speaking of which, NYT article today naming Ketanji Brown Jackson as likely leading candidate, joined on a possible shortlist by Leondra Kruger, surprising nobody who pays attention to this stuff, but also lists Cheri Beasley, Michelle Childs, Danielle Holley-Walker, and Leslie Abrams Gardner as possibilities some legislators are pushing (esp Childs) or interested in. Clyburn seems to really want Childs so I'd expect her to be elevated to CA4, though I doubt she has a real SCOTUS shot. Gardner will at some point almost certainly get Beverly Martin's CA11 seat.

[Anonymous User]

Speaking of which, NYT article today naming Ketanji Brown Jackson as likely leading candidate, joined on a possible shortlist by Leondra Kruger, surprising nobody who pays attention to this stuff, but also lists Cheri Beasley, Michelle Childs, Danielle Holley-Walker, and Leslie Abrams Gardner as possibilities some legislators are pushing (esp Childs) or interested in. Clyburn seems to really want Childs so I'd expect her to be elevated to CA4, though I doubt she has a real SCOTUS shot. Gardner will at some point almost certainly get Beverly Martin's CA11 seat.

I think it this right (re: Childs), especially since Floyd is almost certainly taking senior in the next year.