(Updated) Feeder Judge Rankings Forum

[namefromplace]

Here's a Top 10 excluding inactive judges such as Kavanaugh and Garland, only counting the filled up terms and not counting Barrett's new clerks.

1-T. Srinivasan / Katzmann [13]
3. W. Pryor [12]
4. Sutton [11]
5. Wilkinson [10]
6. Tatel [8]
7-T. O'Scannlain / Kethledge [7]
9-T. Katsas / Watford [6]
10. Pillard [5]

Katzmann and Tatel are now senior and will not feed the same in the future, and with Garland gone Srinivasan is now king of the liberal feeders. Maybe Pillard or Millett will feed more, or maybe Biden judges will become the new big feeders. As for conservatives, the last administration didn't change things. Pryor, Sutton, and Wilkinson show no signs of slowing down.

Really helpful, thanks. Do you have a quick and dirty of which D. Ct. / SSC judges top the ranks?

Rakoff, Oetken, Furman, Boasberg are the big ones, plus a decent number who feed more occasionally like Feinerman, Leon, and Nathan

Fwiw I think it's foolish to include RBG's clerks in the rankings. The "Are feeders dead?" thread has some with hers removed and what's immediately apparent is that SCOTUS is really bleak for liberals. My guess is Srinivasan will be somewhat exceptional because he's a more all-purpose feeder like Garland was.

I also slightly disagree that Trump didn't change much, conservative feeding has become pretty dispersed because he nominated so many judges who feed occasionally. So far I haven't seen any signs that any but Katsas will become a huge feeder, but lots that will feed once every year or two, but then again Sutton and Pryor weren't mega-feeders in their early times on the bench.

I agree with the list of district court judges you named, but your take on liberals' chances is too pessimistic. Nowadays Roberts hires mostly liberals, and Kavanaugh and Gorsuch will hire liberals who meet certain specifications. Who knows who Barrett intends to hire. Only Alito and Thomas are known to impose ideological litmus tests, and even still there are exceptions (such as Dana Remus, a former clerk of Alito's and now an employee in Biden's White House). Liberals will still get their SCOTUS clerkships, although some will probably keep tight-lipped about their political leanings in law school.

I would also quibble with your characterization of conservative feeding as "diffuse." While it is indisputably true that Trump minted many new semi-feeder judges, these new judges often fed in tandem with a more established feeder judge like Pryor, Sykes, or O'Scannlain. Except for Katsas, who has now properly established himself.

Kavanaugh and Gorsuch might hire liberal students occasionally, but if you just look at the judges they've hired from so far on the Court, it must be very occasionally. I've heard there are a couple, and Kavanaugh certainly took some on the D.C. Circuit, but I'm not personally aware of any (the Boasberg/Srinivasan he took for 2023 maybe). Roberts does hire more politically indiscriminately than any other justice though. I'm confident Barrett will hire very far right, her hiring on the Seventh Circuit was probably closest to Thomas (and I do know some Barrett clerks), the only real question is if she takes counterclerks once in a while.

Gorsuch doesn't hire liberals. He hasn't hired a single one as far as I can tell. The first step in his interview process is a screening interview with former clerks to ensure that the candidate shares a similar judicial philosophy. That's very much like the CT process.

BK hires liberals though. One of his clerks from his first term was a liberal. His couple of his clerks last term were relatively moderate. And he has a Srinivasan/Boasberg clerk for either 2022 or 2023, though I think the clerk in question was supposed to clerk for him on the DC Circuit.

A SCOTUS clerk who's hired would know better than me, but my impression is that there may just not be enough sterling-credentialed, ideologically-consistent Fed Soc students in the country to fill up 24 spots each year, which might be part of why BK and JR are willing to hire more liberals. There were some pretty mediocre Fed Soc students who got some very not mediocre Fed Soc clerkships in my class and there's an upcoming conservative SCOTUS clerk who has unwisely left up their UG/LS GPAs on LinkedIn and would not be competitive for an average 2/9/DC liberal chambers. (Undoubtedly they're probably brilliant, had incredible recs or story, etc., but still.)

I think this is probably part of Justice Gorsuch's reasoning behind hiring more experienced clerks.

[Anonymous User]

Here's a Top 10 excluding inactive judges such as Kavanaugh and Garland, only counting the filled up terms and not counting Barrett's new clerks.

1-T. Srinivasan / Katzmann [13]
3. W. Pryor [12]
4. Sutton [11]
5. Wilkinson [10]
6. Tatel [8]
7-T. O'Scannlain / Kethledge [7]
9-T. Katsas / Watford [6]
10. Pillard [5]

Katzmann and Tatel are now senior and will not feed the same in the future, and with Garland gone Srinivasan is now king of the liberal feeders. Maybe Pillard or Millett will feed more, or maybe Biden judges will become the new big feeders. As for conservatives, the last administration didn't change things. Pryor, Sutton, and Wilkinson show no signs of slowing down.

Really helpful, thanks. Do you have a quick and dirty of which D. Ct. / SSC judges top the ranks?

Rakoff, Oetken, Furman, Boasberg are the big ones, plus a decent number who feed more occasionally like Feinerman, Leon, and Nathan

Fwiw I think it's foolish to include RBG's clerks in the rankings. The "Are feeders dead?" thread has some with hers removed and what's immediately apparent is that SCOTUS is really bleak for liberals. My guess is Srinivasan will be somewhat exceptional because he's a more all-purpose feeder like Garland was.

I also slightly disagree that Trump didn't change much, conservative feeding has become pretty dispersed because he nominated so many judges who feed occasionally. So far I haven't seen any signs that any but Katsas will become a huge feeder, but lots that will feed once every year or two, but then again Sutton and Pryor weren't mega-feeders in their early times on the bench.

I agree with the list of district court judges you named, but your take on liberals' chances is too pessimistic. Nowadays Roberts hires mostly liberals, and Kavanaugh and Gorsuch will hire liberals who meet certain specifications. Who knows who Barrett intends to hire. Only Alito and Thomas are known to impose ideological litmus tests, and even still there are exceptions (such as Dana Remus, a former clerk of Alito's and now an employee in Biden's White House). Liberals will still get their SCOTUS clerkships, although some will probably keep tight-lipped about their political leanings in law school.

I would also quibble with your characterization of conservative feeding as "diffuse." While it is indisputably true that Trump minted many new semi-feeder judges, these new judges often fed in tandem with a more established feeder judge like Pryor, Sykes, or O'Scannlain. Except for Katsas, who has now properly established himself.

Kavanaugh and Gorsuch might hire liberal students occasionally, but if you just look at the judges they've hired from so far on the Court, it must be very occasionally. I've heard there are a couple, and Kavanaugh certainly took some on the D.C. Circuit, but I'm not personally aware of any (the Boasberg/Srinivasan he took for 2023 maybe). Roberts does hire more politically indiscriminately than any other justice though. I'm confident Barrett will hire very far right, her hiring on the Seventh Circuit was probably closest to Thomas (and I do know some Barrett clerks), the only real question is if she takes counterclerks once in a while.

Gorsuch doesn't hire liberals. He hasn't hired a single one as far as I can tell. The first step in his interview process is a screening interview with former clerks to ensure that the candidate shares a similar judicial philosophy. That's very much like the CT process.

BK hires liberals though. One of his clerks from his first term was a liberal. His couple of his clerks last term were relatively moderate. And he has a Srinivasan/Boasberg clerk for either 2022 or 2023, though I think the clerk in question was supposed to clerk for him on the DC Circuit.

The bolded is wrong. Gorsuch screens for judicial philosophy - textualism and originalism - not for politics. Some of his former clerks could be labeled "liberal originalists" or "moderate originalists" and have worked in Democratic administrations and at lefty law firms. Liberal law students who subscribe to textualism and originalism have a shot, whereas ardent living constitutionalists usually end up with Breyer.

[Anonymous User]

A SCOTUS clerk who's hired would know better than me, but my impression is that there may just not be enough sterling-credentialed, ideologically-consistent Fed Soc students in the country to fill up 24 spots each year, which might be part of why BK and JR are willing to hire more liberals. There were some pretty mediocre Fed Soc students who got some very not mediocre Fed Soc clerkships in my class and there's an upcoming conservative SCOTUS clerk who has unwisely left up their UG/LS GPAs on LinkedIn and would not be competitive for an average 2/9/DC liberal chambers. (Undoubtedly they're probably brilliant, had incredible recs or story, etc., but still.)

What school is this uncompetitive SCOTUS clerk from? I can't find who you're talking about.

Relatedly, Kagan had one clerk in OT 2014 that graduated from HLS only cum laude.

[Anonymous User]

A SCOTUS clerk who's hired would know better than me, but my impression is that there may just not be enough sterling-credentialed, ideologically-consistent Fed Soc students in the country to fill up 24 spots each year, which might be part of why BK and JR are willing to hire more liberals. There were some pretty mediocre Fed Soc students who got some very not mediocre Fed Soc clerkships in my class and there's an upcoming conservative SCOTUS clerk who has unwisely left up their UG/LS GPAs on LinkedIn and would not be competitive for an average 2/9/DC liberal chambers. (Undoubtedly they're probably brilliant, had incredible recs or story, etc., but still.)

What school is this uncompetitive SCOTUS clerk from? I can't find who you're talking about.

Relatedly, Kagan had one clerk in OT 2014 that graduated from HLS only cum laude.

Looking up that list reminded me how insane it is that AMK used Kozinski as his top feeder forever despite that his abuses were apparently an open secret (including a TLS thread). GMU.

[AAPLTSLADIS]

Here's a Top 10 excluding inactive judges such as Kavanaugh and Garland, only counting the filled up terms and not counting Barrett's new clerks.

1-T. Srinivasan / Katzmann [13]
3. W. Pryor [12]
4. Sutton [11]
5. Wilkinson [10]
6. Tatel [8]
7-T. O'Scannlain / Kethledge [7]
9-T. Katsas / Watford [6]
10. Pillard [5]

Katzmann and Tatel are now senior and will not feed the same in the future, and with Garland gone Srinivasan is now king of the liberal feeders. Maybe Pillard or Millett will feed more, or maybe Biden judges will become the new big feeders. As for conservatives, the last administration didn't change things. Pryor, Sutton, and Wilkinson show no signs of slowing down.

Really helpful, thanks. Do you have a quick and dirty of which D. Ct. / SSC judges top the ranks?

Rakoff, Oetken, Furman, Boasberg are the big ones, plus a decent number who feed more occasionally like Feinerman, Leon, and Nathan

Fwiw I think it's foolish to include RBG's clerks in the rankings. The "Are feeders dead?" thread has some with hers removed and what's immediately apparent is that SCOTUS is really bleak for liberals. My guess is Srinivasan will be somewhat exceptional because he's a more all-purpose feeder like Garland was.

I also slightly disagree that Trump didn't change much, conservative feeding has become pretty dispersed because he nominated so many judges who feed occasionally. So far I haven't seen any signs that any but Katsas will become a huge feeder, but lots that will feed once every year or two, but then again Sutton and Pryor weren't mega-feeders in their early times on the bench.

I agree with the list of district court judges you named, but your take on liberals' chances is too pessimistic. Nowadays Roberts hires mostly liberals, and Kavanaugh and Gorsuch will hire liberals who meet certain specifications. Who knows who Barrett intends to hire. Only Alito and Thomas are known to impose ideological litmus tests, and even still there are exceptions (such as Dana Remus, a former clerk of Alito's and now an employee in Biden's White House). Liberals will still get their SCOTUS clerkships, although some will probably keep tight-lipped about their political leanings in law school.

I would also quibble with your characterization of conservative feeding as "diffuse." While it is indisputably true that Trump minted many new semi-feeder judges, these new judges often fed in tandem with a more established feeder judge like Pryor, Sykes, or O'Scannlain. Except for Katsas, who has now properly established himself.

Kavanaugh and Gorsuch might hire liberal students occasionally, but if you just look at the judges they've hired from so far on the Court, it must be very occasionally. I've heard there are a couple, and Kavanaugh certainly took some on the D.C. Circuit, but I'm not personally aware of any (the Boasberg/Srinivasan he took for 2023 maybe). Roberts does hire more politically indiscriminately than any other justice though. I'm confident Barrett will hire very far right, her hiring on the Seventh Circuit was probably closest to Thomas (and I do know some Barrett clerks), the only real question is if she takes counterclerks once in a while.

Gorsuch doesn't hire liberals. He hasn't hired a single one as far as I can tell. The first step in his interview process is a screening interview with former clerks to ensure that the candidate shares a similar judicial philosophy. That's very much like the CT process.

BK hires liberals though. One of his clerks from his first term was a liberal. His couple of his clerks last term were relatively moderate. And he has a Srinivasan/Boasberg clerk for either 2022 or 2023, though I think the clerk in question was supposed to clerk for him on the DC Circuit.

A SCOTUS clerk who's hired would know better than me, but my impression is that there may just not be enough sterling-credentialed, ideologically-consistent Fed Soc students in the country to fill up 24 spots each year, which might be part of why BK and JR are willing to hire more liberals. There were some pretty mediocre Fed Soc students who got some very not mediocre Fed Soc clerkships in my class and there's an upcoming conservative SCOTUS clerk who has unwisely left up their UG/LS GPAs on LinkedIn and would not be competitive for an average 2/9/DC liberal chambers. (Undoubtedly they're probably brilliant, had incredible recs or story, etc., but still.)

I know for a fact that the bolded part above is totally incorrect.

[Anonymous User]

A SCOTUS clerk who's hired would know better than me, but my impression is that there may just not be enough sterling-credentialed, ideologically-consistent Fed Soc students in the country to fill up 24 spots each year, which might be part of why BK and JR are willing to hire more liberals. There were some pretty mediocre Fed Soc students who got some very not mediocre Fed Soc clerkships in my class and there's an upcoming conservative SCOTUS clerk who has unwisely left up their UG/LS GPAs on LinkedIn and would not be competitive for an average 2/9/DC liberal chambers. (Undoubtedly they're probably brilliant, had incredible recs or story, etc., but still.)

What school is this uncompetitive SCOTUS clerk from? I can't find who you're talking about.

Relatedly, Kagan had one clerk in OT 2014 that graduated from HLS only cum laude.

Looking up that list reminded me how insane it is that AMK used Kozinski as his top feeder forever despite that his abuses were apparently an open secret (including a TLS thread). GMU.

The judiciary is such a clubby, insular world that it's easy to see how this happened. Even after Koz's scandals blew up and he resigned, I heard judges speak with confusion about how "our friend Alex" could be capable of such things. Koz was apparently a good colleague and treated fellow judges excellently, which made his treatment of clerks and others hard to square.

[Anonymous User]

A SCOTUS clerk who's hired would know better than me, but my impression is that there may just not be enough sterling-credentialed, ideologically-consistent Fed Soc students in the country to fill up 24 spots each year, which might be part of why BK and JR are willing to hire more liberals. There were some pretty mediocre Fed Soc students who got some very not mediocre Fed Soc clerkships in my class and there's an upcoming conservative SCOTUS clerk who has unwisely left up their UG/LS GPAs on LinkedIn and would not be competitive for an average 2/9/DC liberal chambers. (Undoubtedly they're probably brilliant, had incredible recs or story, etc., but still.)

What school is this uncompetitive SCOTUS clerk from? I can't find who you're talking about.

Relatedly, Kagan had one clerk in OT 2014 that graduated from HLS only cum laude.

Looking up that list reminded me how insane it is that AMK used Kozinski as his top feeder forever despite that his abuses were apparently an open secret (including a TLS thread). GMU.

The judiciary is such a clubby, insular world that it's easy to see how this happened. Even after Koz's scandals blew up and he resigned, I heard judges speak with confusion about how "our friend Alex" could be capable of such things. Koz was apparently a good colleague and treated fellow judges excellently, which made his treatment of clerks and others hard to square.

No one likes to think that their 'friend' is a monster, and most people like him know better than to abuse their power in front of their peers. You really have to see how they treat their 'inferiors' - staff & clerks, and listen to them.

[Anonymous User]

A SCOTUS clerk who's hired would know better than me, but my impression is that there may just not be enough sterling-credentialed, ideologically-consistent Fed Soc students in the country to fill up 24 spots each year, which might be part of why BK and JR are willing to hire more liberals. There were some pretty mediocre Fed Soc students who got some very not mediocre Fed Soc clerkships in my class and there's an upcoming conservative SCOTUS clerk who has unwisely left up their UG/LS GPAs on LinkedIn and would not be competitive for an average 2/9/DC liberal chambers. (Undoubtedly they're probably brilliant, had incredible recs or story, etc., but still.)

What school is this uncompetitive SCOTUS clerk from? I can't find who you're talking about.

Relatedly, Kagan had one clerk in OT 2014 that graduated from HLS only cum laude.

Looking up that list reminded me how insane it is that AMK used Kozinski as his top feeder forever despite that his abuses were apparently an open secret (including a TLS thread). GMU.

The judiciary is such a clubby, insular world that it's easy to see how this happened. Even after Koz's scandals blew up and he resigned, I heard judges speak with confusion about how "our friend Alex" could be capable of such things. Koz was apparently a good colleague and treated fellow judges excellently, which made his treatment of clerks and others hard to square.

No one likes to think that their 'friend' is a monster, and most people like him know better than to abuse their power in front of their peers. You really have to see how they treat their 'inferiors' - staff & clerks, and listen to them.

I hear Kagan is abusive (anon for obvious reasons).

[Anonymous User]

A SCOTUS clerk who's hired would know better than me, but my impression is that there may just not be enough sterling-credentialed, ideologically-consistent Fed Soc students in the country to fill up 24 spots each year, which might be part of why BK and JR are willing to hire more liberals. There were some pretty mediocre Fed Soc students who got some very not mediocre Fed Soc clerkships in my class and there's an upcoming conservative SCOTUS clerk who has unwisely left up their UG/LS GPAs on LinkedIn and would not be competitive for an average 2/9/DC liberal chambers. (Undoubtedly they're probably brilliant, had incredible recs or story, etc., but still.)

What school is this uncompetitive SCOTUS clerk from? I can't find who you're talking about.

Relatedly, Kagan had one clerk in OT 2014 that graduated from HLS only cum laude.

Looking up that list reminded me how insane it is that AMK used Kozinski as his top feeder forever despite that his abuses were apparently an open secret (including a TLS thread). GMU.

The judiciary is such a clubby, insular world that it's easy to see how this happened. Even after Koz's scandals blew up and he resigned, I heard judges speak with confusion about how "our friend Alex" could be capable of such things. Koz was apparently a good colleague and treated fellow judges excellently, which made his treatment of clerks and others hard to square.

No one likes to think that their 'friend' is a monster, and most people like him know better than to abuse their power in front of their peers. You really have to see how they treat their 'inferiors' - staff & clerks, and listen to them.

I hear Kagan is abusive (anon for obvious reasons).

I've heard rumors that Kagan has a somewhat archaic and unpleasant hiring process, though she may be a good boss--meanspirited interviews, very snobby even by SCOTUS standards (HYS or bust and even heavy preference for elite undergrads). When I double-checked the latter a while ago for the last half a dozen terms or so I found no non-Ivyish undergrads and that checks out this term as well. I've heard nothing but good things about Breyer, Roberts, and Thomas though.

[Anonymous User]

Kagan has hired clerks from non-Ivy undergrads such as UVA, although that clerk was top at Stanford, then had two other top clerkships.

[Anonymous User]

Kagan has hired clerks from non-Ivy undergrads such as UVA, although that clerk was top at Stanford, then had two other top clerkships.

The only public undergrads Kagan has ever hired from are UVA and Berkeley. She hired from Tulane and BYU, non-elite private schools, earlier in her time on the bench (Tulane was also the cum laude Harvard grad, so very unusual) but it's been quite a while and eyeballing it I'd guess about half of her clerks went to not just Ivies but HY, which is absurd. Overall it's probably at least as bad on class as RBG was on race.

[Anonymous User]

All this talk about well-known hiring styles but no one with the time to re-run the original analysis or duplicate it for district feeders...

[Anonymous User]

All this talk about well-known hiring styles but no one with the time to re-run the original analysis or duplicate it for district feeders...

If you Google for it you can find on another forum a version through Feb 2020. There's also this year's on the TLS thread "Are Feeders Dead." But yeah ideally someone even more obsessive than me should update it.

[Anonymous User]

Kagan has hired clerks from non-Ivy undergrads such as UVA, although that clerk was top at Stanford, then had two other top clerkships.

The only public undergrads Kagan has ever hired from are UVA and Berkeley. She hired from Tulane and BYU, non-elite private schools, earlier in her time on the bench (Tulane was also the cum laude Harvard grad, so very unusual) but it's been quite a while and eyeballing it I'd guess about half of her clerks went to not just Ivies but HY, which is absurd. Overall it's probably at least as bad on class as RBG was on race.

Kagan also hired a cum laude Georgetown Law grad for the 2016-2017 term.