Best and worst judges to clerk for Forum

[mjb447]

You may be right about the overall cosmic importance of getting law right for a broad area of the country vs. working on an individual's health, that's a matter of opinion.

But I think your view of an individual clerk's importance (especially in the appellate context that you're talking about here) is over-inflated. It's the judge's job to get the law right, although obviously s/he will rely on you not to misstate things. Your co-clerks should be checking your work (presuming it wasn't just my appellate judge who had us swap opinions). And there's TWO OTHER JUDGES and their clerks who should be checking your work as well.

Do errors slip through sometimes? Sure. But I don't think you're going to screw up qualified immunity (any more than it already is) in a circuit just because you leave time and mental space in your life for relationships, hobbies, exercise, watching sports, and occasionally getting plastered.

An individual district court clerk could well contribute to a bigger error in a case given the workload and relative autonomy, but that's what circuit courts are for!

This is a really good post.

Cosign. My 2/7/9 chambers really felt like a team, in part because we weren't really worried about whether some "supposedly good" clerk was screwing up "fundamental theories of law." It was a group effort to get the judge to the right place, and that sometimes even meant arguing for things that maybe weren't ultimately correct (but were at least arguable) to test theories, see what the best responses were, etc.

I'm happy to say the same. Both my D. Ct. and COA chambers felt like teams. It wasn't about making another clerk look bad, being competitive, or being the best law clerk that year. It was actually about making our teammates look good because we wanted our judge to look good. That's the sort of environment I prefer.

+1. My judge had us swap opinions as well (multiple times for each opinion) and verify assertions line by line. I'm sure it made our end product better, but it also drove home that the process was supposed to be a collegial group effort to get to the right place. We were also encouraged to do that kind of thing ad hoc when drafting if we thought it would help.

[Anonymous User]

You may be right about the overall cosmic importance of getting law right for a broad area of the country vs. working on an individual's health, that's a matter of opinion.

But I think your view of an individual clerk's importance (especially in the appellate context that you're talking about here) is over-inflated. It's the judge's job to get the law right, although obviously s/he will rely on you not to misstate things. Your co-clerks should be checking your work (presuming it wasn't just my appellate judge who had us swap opinions). And there's TWO OTHER JUDGES and their clerks who should be checking your work as well.

Do errors slip through sometimes? Sure. But I don't think you're going to screw up qualified immunity (any more than it already is) in a circuit just because you leave time and mental space in your life for relationships, hobbies, exercise, watching sports, and occasionally getting plastered.

An individual district court clerk could well contribute to a bigger error in a case given the workload and relative autonomy, but that's what circuit courts are for!

This is a really good post.

Cosign. My 2/7/9 chambers really felt like a team, in part because we weren't really worried about whether some "supposedly good" clerk was screwing up "fundamental theories of law." It was a group effort to get the judge to the right place, and that sometimes even meant arguing for things that maybe weren't ultimately correct (but were at least arguable) to test theories, see what the best responses were, etc.

I'm happy to say the same. Both my D. Ct. and COA chambers felt like teams. It wasn't about making another clerk look bad, being competitive, or being the best law clerk that year. It was actually about making our teammates look good because we wanted our judge to look good. That's the sort of environment I prefer.

+1. My judge had us swap opinions as well (multiple times for each opinion) and verify assertions line by line. I'm sure it made our end product better, but it also drove home that the process was supposed to be a collegial group effort to get to the right place. We were also encouraged to do that kind of thing ad hoc when drafting if we thought it would help.

It's really odd to me that you guys would take essentially "working hard" and "doing more than the bare minimum" as "you have to be competitive with other clerks or chambers" or "be mean (not collegial)." It's very interesting to see the leap in logic required and distortions of the points made to not actually address the points made. I think the lack of actual responses makes the point best.

[nixy]

Those aren’t the statements that led people to think about collegiality, which resulted from the impression someone (you?) gave that they were judging fellow clerks, both on their ability (in talking about their errors in fundamental law) and dedication (errors were a result of them not being “consumed” by their job).

Also no idea where you got “doing more than the bare minimum.” No one has referenced that anywhere, and no one has claimed to be unwilling to do anything more than the bare minimum. Nor is not wanting your job to “consume” you the same thing as not wanting to do more than the bare minimum. It’s not “either you’re consumed or you don’t want to do more than the bare minimum;” there’s a wide spectrum of possible approaches to work, but most importantly, you can work hard and long hours without your job “consuming” you.

In any case, since we’re all distorting what you/they said, what do you think the responses are ignoring? Pretty sure polareagle at least responded pretty substantively to your argument.

[Anonymous User]

This isnt really true at all. The best students overwhelmingly go to the best schools because so much of law school is centered around prestige. That's the reason why so many judges are more than happy to fill their slots with median Yale students - because by and large a person who is median at Yale is probably a better student than even a top 10% student at CCN (let alone Mizzou), because that student would have otherwise went to Yale if they had that option. Does that mean the student from CCN or Mizzou would be a bad clerk? Of course not, but when you get 1000 applications for 4 slots, you have to set standards somewhere.

Apart from the other criticisms of this post, with which I completely agree, the bolded just isn't universally true (as well as grammatically incorrect). Someone who got one of the full rides/top scholarships at Columbia and no need-based aid at Yale may have decided that financially, Columbia made more sense, especially if their goal was to go into NYC biglaw. And some people just have to be in NYC.

Median at YLS > top 10% at CCN is a hell of a troll, especially when lumping Chi in there.

I'm not trolling, nor do I think it is particularly fair as a CCN student that was top 5%. But my judge reads every single app he receives from Yale, and for the most part, doesn't even look at anything that is not top 10% or so at CCN. He also is not alone in this regard either. Some major feeders hire Yale students without grades (Katsas and Thapar for example), while requiring others to not only get top grades, but also clerk before working for them.

Thapar also hires very early at Chicago (not before grades, but Chicago gets grades far earlier) and both him and Katsas hire a bunch of Chicago students. If they strongly prefer Yale they have a very odd way of showing it. I also just don’t think it’s true that top conservative students prefer Yale to Chicago, especially if the latter gives them more money.

Worth noting also that Chicago just beat Yale at clerkship percentage last year.

Chicago beat Yale!?!? The list I saw on Law.com for this past year had Stanford>Yale>Harvard>Chicago

Checked again, I misremembered and Yale still beat Chicago by a hair but Stanford was well ahead of both. Chicago and Yale crushed Harvard, which is normal, it’s always been more in the UVA tier than the SYC tier in clerkship percentage in recent years.

I think the Plan has made judges hire further out so I wouldn’t be surprised if ‘20 clerking immediately after graduation stats end up being significantly down across the board (though I know Chicago’s raw number obtained without respect to year increased again in 2020).

[mjb447]

It's really odd to me that you guys would take essentially "working hard" and "doing more than the bare minimum" as "you have to be competitive with other clerks or chambers" or "be mean (not collegial)." It's very interesting to see the leap in logic required and distortions of the points made to not actually address the points made. I think the lack of actual responses makes the point best.

The primary point (as I understood it) was addressed by redefining clerking "consuming you," which most people didn't think clerking necessarily needed to do, with clerking needing to be your main priority, with sacrifices made to do it right where necessary. (If the quoted anon is you, it also seems that you were "essentially" saying that clerks should just work hard and do more than the bare minimum.) I don't disagree with any of that - although I'm still not sure where the "good/above average law clerk" who "makes a lot of mistakes" and screws up fundamental legal theories might fit on this spectrum - and my reply to that lengthy string of quotes wasn't really intended to respond directly to anything you'd said.

[Fireworks2016]

It's nice to see that the time-honored tradition of taking semi-useful posts and running them into the ground with pedantic bickering is still alive and well at TLS. What does any of this discussion have to do with the original subject matter? It just makes it harder for applicants to sift through for the actual, useful posts.

[beepboopbeep]

All of the above is probably more relevant to the clerks taking question thread, and if mods want to move these posts there it probably makes sense to do so. But exactly what is required to excel in a clerkship is definitely on-topic discussion; it's something applicants frequently ask both in interviews and in general on here.

[mjb447]

Talking about what constitutes normal dedication and work-life balance (or, tangentially, normal workflow or a normal level of collegiality) is relevant in a thread where we regularly hear about a judge's expectations and chambers culture being out of step with those norms (which was the original subject matter of this topic). It also doesn't stop interested applicants from searching for a particular judge's name/district/initials/whatever.

[Anon-non-anon]

One thing I'll add---this is for all the kids who are thinking of clerking. I clerked at multiple federal levels. To do the job correctly, unfortunately, it should consume you. There are a lot of errors at every level.

Uhhhhh this is a strange attitude and really unhealthy. You can work really hard, pay close attention, and do great work without letting a job "consume you." People (that last) in the most serious jobs know how to turn it off and on at the right times. Clerking is serious, but it's not like you're an ER doctor. Even ER doctors (that last/don't hate life) switch it off when they go home, even though they could prevent one more error by working another 12 hours. It just doesn't work in the long run, or even over a single year.

In any event, having this type of attitude is likely to produce errors or waste a lot of time due to stressing about the wrong things. Some things matter, some things don't, your job shouldn't "consume you" except in limited time periods. If you're consumed by the day-to-day, you won't be able to ramp up when things really need that type of attention.

End of mental health rant.

See above.

And no, I would consider creating bad law across multiple states, half the country in one particular circuit, and the whole country (of course the SC) just as serious, if not more, than being a ER doctor. As a concrete and relevant example, we can talk about the potential life altering impact of even doctrines like qualified immunity have had across not only individuals, but communities, across decades.

And even if we were reducing this discussion to "hours" as you did, we can debate how many more errors are created by overwork as opposed to carelessness. Part of the reason the term clerkships are limited to a year is because it does take a lot of work to get it right.

End of response to someone's rant.

You may be right about the overall cosmic importance of getting law right for a broad area of the country vs. working on an individual's health, that's a matter of opinion.

But I think your view of an individual clerk's importance (especially in the appellate context that you're talking about here) is over-inflated. It's the judge's job to get the law right, although obviously s/he will rely on you not to misstate things. Your co-clerks should be checking your work (presuming it wasn't just my appellate judge who had us swap opinions). And there's TWO OTHER JUDGES and their clerks who should be checking your work as well.

Do errors slip through sometimes? Sure. But I don't think you're going to screw up qualified immunity (any more than it already is) in a circuit just because you leave time and mental space in your life for relationships, hobbies, exercise, watching sports, and occasionally getting plastered.

An individual district court clerk could well contribute to a bigger error in a case given the workload and relative autonomy, but that's what circuit courts are for!

See above as my response to your response to my mental health rant. It's just objectively not true that a job must "consume you" (unless you have some very low threshold of what that means) to do an excellent/fantastic/whatever perfection you were able to reach by being consumed, job. I agree with nixy regarding an individual judge can certainly force your hours to be high in order to succeed in their chambers but not all.

And hard to keep track but if it's the same person saying median at Yale is better than top 10% at CCN, you're nuts. I suspect if you took a poll of partners and judges (maybe excluding those that went to Yale but probably not) they'd almost universally laugh in your face. Sure, there's some point if you go down in the rankings that the top 10% will be worse than median at Yale, but it's not starting at CCN, or anywhere close.

Try to relax a bit, it'll be very good for you.

[Anonymous User]

Getting back on topic, Lynn Hughes on S.D. Tex. certainly looks batshit. Crazy ruling today on the Republican Convention, reversed by the Fifth Circuit before for being a sexist, just got mandamused for requiring hearings to be in person, at least one racism controversy, Orin Kerr just noted on Twitter that he thinks he shouldn't be a federal judge.

[lavarman84]

Getting back on topic, Lynn Hughes on S.D. Tex. certainly looks batshit. Crazy ruling today on the Republican Convention, reversed by the Fifth Circuit before for being a sexist, just got mandamused for requiring hearings to be in person, at least one racism controversy, Orin Kerr just noted on Twitter that he thinks he shouldn't be a federal judge.

Not only is Lynn Hughes too extreme and fringe for the Fifth Circuit in terms of his jurisprudence (and that's saying something), I've also heard that he's a bad boss (and it's clear from his actions that he is very prejudiced). I recommend avoiding. In my mind, he's the worst federal judge in the country.

[ExperssioUnius]

Getting back on topic, Lynn Hughes on S.D. Tex. certainly looks batshit. Crazy ruling today on the Republican Convention

How can you call today's ruling "[c]razy?" It might be incredibly dumb to hold an in-person convention in the midst of a rapidly intensifying pandemic but the activity is still highly protected political speech and a mayor lacks the authority to suspend rights granted to the people by the Constitution. Its an unfortunate result from a public health perspective but and I have some degree of contempt for those who will attend the convention, but its not really a difficult case from a legal perspective.

[beepboopbeep]

Getting back on topic, Lynn Hughes on S.D. Tex. certainly looks batshit. Crazy ruling today on the Republican Convention

How can you call today's ruling "[c]razy?" It might be incredibly dumb to hold an in-person convention in the midst of a rapidly intensifying pandemic but the activity is still highly protected political speech and a mayor lacks the authority to suspend rights granted to the people by the Constitution. Its an unfortunate result from a public health perspective but and I have some degree of contempt for those who will attend the convention, but its not really a difficult case from a legal perspective.

I haven't read the briefs and have no comment on the merits, but at least one Fifth Circuit expert seems to agree with the first anon (and I am not sure why either of you are anon-posting):

https://twitter.com/RMFifthCircuit/stat ... 89506?s=19

That the Fifth Circuit stayed the ruling last night would seem relevant, too.

[nixy]

Getting back on topic, Lynn Hughes on S.D. Tex. certainly looks batshit. Crazy ruling today on the Republican Convention

How can you call today's ruling "[c]razy?" It might be incredibly dumb to hold an in-person convention in the midst of a rapidly intensifying pandemic but the activity is still highly protected political speech and a mayor lacks the authority to suspend rights granted to the people by the Constitution. Its an unfortunate result from a public health perspective but and I have some degree of contempt for those who will attend the convention, but its not really a difficult case from a legal perspective.

I mean, a mayor is a government official, and the government *can* actually limit constitutional rights, as long as it meets the appropriate legal standards (not that I can remotely remember what they are in the First Amendment realm right now, but there's a lot of "compelling interest" and "narrowly tailored" and such).

Edit to add: following the twitter stuff linked above leads to the information that on July 15, Judge Hughes refused to refer to covid as anything but the flu, believed the country had seen worse, and the only problem was unwarranted panic.

[The Lsat Airbender]

Getting back on topic, Lynn Hughes on S.D. Tex. certainly looks batshit. Crazy ruling today on the Republican Convention

How can you call today's ruling "[c]razy?" It might be incredibly dumb to hold an in-person convention in the midst of a rapidly intensifying pandemic but the activity is still highly protected political speech and a mayor lacks the authority to suspend rights granted to the people by the Constitution. Its an unfortunate result from a public health perspective but and I have some degree of contempt for those who will attend the convention, but its not really a difficult case from a legal perspective.

What a stupid comment. Tons of 1A SCOTUS precedent involves local regulations. The mayor's authority as a mayor is orthogonal to the 1A issue

[lavarman84]

Getting back on topic, Lynn Hughes on S.D. Tex. certainly looks batshit. Crazy ruling today on the Republican Convention

How can you call today's ruling "[c]razy?" It might be incredibly dumb to hold an in-person convention in the midst of a rapidly intensifying pandemic but the activity is still highly protected political speech and a mayor lacks the authority to suspend rights granted to the people by the Constitution. Its an unfortunate result from a public health perspective but and I have some degree of contempt for those who will attend the convention, but its not really a difficult case from a legal perspective.

This is a patently ridiculous stance. I hope you're trolling. The Texas Supreme Court, which is all Republicans, already rejected this argument:
https://www.texastribune.org/2020/07/13 ... onvention/

Good luck winning before the Fifth Circuit (spoiler: 5CA stayed Hughes's ruling) when they previously upheld Abbott's use of emergency powers to stop abortions:
https://www.abajournal.com/news/article ... urgery-ban

Furthermore, there was a contractual clause directly on point (a force majeure clause that explicitly mentioned epidemics) that allowed the cancellation of the contract.
https://www.texastribune.org/2020/07/09 ... onvention/
"Turner, asked about the lawsuit at a news conference later Thursday, said the party signed the contract in March with a force majeure clause that included epidemics in Houston. That clause allows either party to cancel the agreement if an occurrence 'is beyond the reasonable control of the party whose performance is affected,' according to the letter Houston First sent to the party Wednesday."

[galba]

Could we not do this in this thread

[Iowahawk]

Getting back on topic, Lynn Hughes on S.D. Tex. certainly looks batshit. Crazy ruling today on the Republican Convention

How can you call today's ruling "[c]razy?" It might be incredibly dumb to hold an in-person convention in the midst of a rapidly intensifying pandemic but the activity is still highly protected political speech and a mayor lacks the authority to suspend rights granted to the people by the Constitution. Its an unfortunate result from a public health perspective but and I have some degree of contempt for those who will attend the convention, but its not really a difficult case from a legal perspective.

This is a patently ridiculous stance. I hope you're trolling. The Texas Supreme Court, which is all Republicans, already rejected this argument:
https://www.texastribune.org/2020/07/13 ... onvention/

Good luck winning before the Fifth Circuit (spoiler: 5CA stayed Hughes's ruling) when they previously upheld Abbott's use of emergency powers to stop abortions:
https://www.abajournal.com/news/article ... urgery-ban

Furthermore, there was a contractual clause directly on point (a force majeure clause that explicitly mentioned epidemics) that allowed the cancellation of the contract.
https://www.texastribune.org/2020/07/09 ... onvention/
"Turner, asked about the lawsuit at a news conference later Thursday, said the party signed the contract in March with a force majeure clause that included epidemics in Houston. That clause allows either party to cancel the agreement if an occurrence 'is beyond the reasonable control of the party whose performance is affected,' according to the letter Houston First sent to the party Wednesday."

Also, if you read the order from the bench (linked in Raffi's thread), it's incoherent and doesn't really talk about law at all.

[Anonymous User]

Any opinions on James Browning on D.N.M.? He's still open and seems like a real mixed mag--laudatory page on the AFJ and founded the top lit boutique in NM, but reports on here of crazy hours and his rulings are crazy long.

[Anonymous User]

Any opinions on James Browning on D.N.M.? He's still open and seems like a real mixed mag--laudatory page on the AFJ and founded the top lit boutique in NM, but reports on here of crazy hours and his rulings are crazy long.

Definitely avoid. I have heard its about 80 hours a week, and, unlike Alsup, I have not heard anything positive to offset those hours.

[Wild Card]

Any opinions on James Browning on D.N.M.? He's still open and seems like a real mixed mag--laudatory page on the AFJ and founded the top lit boutique in NM, but reports on here of crazy hours and his rulings are crazy long.

AbovetheLaw has covered his rejection letters, which detail at length the qualifications of his chosen clerks:

https://abovethelaw.com/2019/03/rejecti ... rk-for-me/

https://abovethelaw.com/2012/10/rejecti ... rk-for-me/

[Anonymous User]

Browning’s hours are ridiculously long, probably mostly because he holds a hearing on every pleading and does all his own discovery work. He also has a very strange format for orders, which makes them about three times longer than they need to be (even now that I’m no longer in that circuit, if I’m doing an out of circuit search, and I hit one of his orders, I can ID it instantly by the distinctive style). I was also told (though this could be gossip) that he requires his clerks to get their routine medical checkups done before they start (like I said, this could just be gossip). Hours were at least to 7 pm every night and all day Saturday.

All that said, I heard people speak fairly positively about the experience, saying that they learned a lot, he was incredibly smart, and besides the overwork part, an extremely nice guy; while he required a lot of work he was in the trenches doing that work with you. People talked about him fondly.

That said, I can’t say I knew his clerks well enough/talked to them in contexts where they would speak candidly to me about such things, so take the positive stuff with a grain of salt. Personally, I think it would have been very frustrating to have to write the way he makes his clerks write, and probably also to work so hard because of how the judge chooses to handle his workload, not because there was an objectively massive workload (though he probably has principled reasons for his choices that make them more palatable to people working for him).

I can’t explain the rejection letters.

[Anonymous User]

I've heard Judge Browning is very particular too. For example, printing out pleadings and motions and highlighting different sections/criteria/certain cases different colors for him. Stuff like that on top of everything above.

[beepboopbeep]

@ Wild Card: Have you clerked? Not asking you to out yourself, not asking what judge or court, just a simple yes or no.

From your posting history, seems like the answer is no. You post pretty often in these threads, and I think this information would be useful for others as they decide how much to credit your (often very confidently-expressed) views.

Also no response the last time this was asked. I think that's your answer.

Wildcard, mind answering this?

[boliver783]

Any opinions/knowledge on CA3 Newark Judges(Greenaway, Shwartz, Chagares, Matey) and just the CA3 experience in general? Thanks so much!