Best and worst judges to clerk for Forum

[Anonymous User]

On the ongoing "Trump appointee feeder battle" watch, Kovner and Willett fed a clerk to Kavanaugh that was announced today. I believe that Judge Kovner is the second Trump district court judge to feed after Judge Friederich. Consistent with speculation on here this summer.

I think the Kovner statement is misleading in a way that skimps on her amazingness. She did not feed anyone; the Kavanaugh clerk applied to her after the Kavanaugh clerkship was lined up. Let that sink in.

[Anonymous User]

It’ll be interesting to see if, after the rush of new COA appointees has settled down, D Ct/COA will become the standard combo for conservative SCOTUS applicants like it is for liberal ones. I think it’s fair to say that there are fewer superstar conservative district judges than liberal ones (probably part of working from a much shallower bench), but from the combination of district, age, and background I feel like Kovner, Friederich, McFadden (less glittering but super conservative), Nichols, Cronan, Pacold, and Seeger have at least some serious feeder potential. Maybe one or two of the ones from the suddenly massive Bill Pryor network as well (Maze, Manasco, LaCour, Mizelle). Of course, a big issue preventing that will be the Plan, as SDNY, DDC, NDIL, and EDNY all take the Plan seriously and (at least for now) all judges listed here are on it afaik. Howard Nielson is one off-plan judge who seems from the outside to have feeder ambitions, but it’ll be hard from Utah.

[Anonymous User]

Any thoughts on Judge Coughenour from WD Wa? I can’t find a lot of info on him.

[Anonymous User]

Any thoughts on Judge Coughenour from WD Wa? I can’t find a lot of info on him.

My mother clerked for Judge Coughenour in one of his first years on the bench, so.....a long time ago. She had a positive experience but to say this is stale intel would be an understatement

[Anonymous User]

Any thoughts on Judge Coughenour from WD Wa? I can’t find a lot of info on him.

My mother clerked for Judge Coughenour in one of his first years on the bench, so.....a long time ago. She had a positive experience but to say this is stale intel would be an understatement

[boliver783]

Can't disagree with any of this. FWIW, I've heard he's a nice person. But I couldn't see myself writing what he seems to want in controversial cases. It has nothing to do with my political leanings. I'm not a conservative, but I clerked for a conservative judge and had no issues writing conservative opinions. I just feel like that writing style doesn't represent the judiciary well. It would bother me. But I'm sure there are plenty of others happy to do it. And yes, you're right about McConnell being his ticket to where he is (not that there's something wrong with that).

It is definitely a tried and true path to the judiciary, but I can't help but feel like this was a bit of a misfire. Walker's not a district court judge, so he *has* to persuade colleagues to get anything done. And the D.C. Circuit seems to have gotten over its historic reluctance to go en banc for Judge Rao, and I suspect Judge Walker may face the same. By contrast, Judge Katsas has definitely been able to put together majorities without drawing an en banc, and he's far from liberal.

Judge Griffith was the conservatives' emissary to the liberal majority of the D.C. Circuit. To replace him with someone as partisan as Judge Walker is a big misstep for civility in the circuit.

Did anyone see his first writing for the Court? Not even an opinion but a 'statement' he asked to attach to a summary order baselessly criticizing military lawyers. Not even 6 months on the circuit and showing his true colors. An unfortunate replacement for Judge Griffith

[Anonymous User]

I've noticed that a lot of Judges are basically politicians who start with the desired conclusion and work backwards from there to justify the predetermined conclusion. Not sure if it had always been that way, but there sure AF seems to be an uptick in it lately.

[Anonymous User]

Anyone have any insight on Judges John Rogers and Judge Gilman on the Sixth Circuit? Saw they made OSCAR postings for 2022-23 recently.

[Anonymous User]

Anyone have any insight on Judges John Rogers and Judge Gilman on the Sixth Circuit? Saw they made OSCAR postings for 2022-23 recently.

I've heard positive things about both, and both came off as good people when I interacted with them.

[GoneSouth]

Anyone have any insight on Judges John Rogers and Judge Gilman on the Sixth Circuit? Saw they made OSCAR postings for 2022-23 recently.

Judge Gilman sits by designation with the Ninth Circuit fairly frequently, so assuming the pandemic has abated, you might get to take a trip to the West Coast

[Anonymous User]

Now that the Trump era is coming to an end and many of the Trump appointees have been serving for a while, can we work on a list of which Trump judges seem fairly normal, albeit conservative, and which seem to embrace fringe views, audition for SCOTUS, potentially be a red flag on a future job app, etc.? Many liberal students are willing to work for the former but not the latter Based on my own knowledge and what I've read on here, I'd categorize them this way:

Respectable:
Bennett
Bianco
Bibas
Eid
Erickson
Kobes
Miller
Nardini
Newsom
Park
Quattlebaum
Scudder
St. Eve
Stras
Sullivan
Thapar
Willett

Nuts:
Duncan
Ho
Rao
Walker

No idea where to put a lot of the rest. Bush, Menashi, Rushing, VanDyke, and Wilson seem like potential candidates for category 2 based on their confirmations, but I'm not sure how they've been on the bench so far. On the other hand, Daniel Collins has a very conventional background but the LA Times story a while back indicates that he may be viewed as fringe by his colleagues on the Ninth. There seem to be some differences of opinion on Jay Richardson on the Fourth Circuit thread (based on who I've talked to I'd personally put him pretty firmly in the "respectable" camp though).

[Anonymous User]

Now that the Trump era is coming to an end and many of the Trump appointees have been serving for a while, can we work on a list of which Trump judges seem fairly normal, albeit conservative, and which seem to embrace fringe views, audition for SCOTUS, potentially be a red flag on a future job app, etc.?

Add Mary Rowland in ND IL to your "respectable" list--she's a straight-up liberal "let's make a deal" pick from Durbin and Duckworth who's a former PD, the first openly LGBTQ judge in her district, and an all-around awesome person.

Also... Willett? The tweet-happy former SCOTX Justice? He was pretty controversial at his time of nomination--has he proven himself more reasonable than expected?

[jackshunger]

Now that the Trump era is coming to an end and many of the Trump appointees have been serving for a while, can we work on a list of which Trump judges seem fairly normal, albeit conservative, and which seem to embrace fringe views, audition for SCOTUS, potentially be a red flag on a future job app, etc.?

Add Mary Rowland in ND IL to your "respectable" list--she's a straight-up liberal "let's make a deal" pick from Durbin and Duckworth who's a former PD, the first openly LGBTQ judge in her district, and an all-around awesome person.

Also... Willett? The tweet-happy former SCOTX Justice? He was pretty controversial at his time of nomination--has he proven himself more reasonable than expected?

Can we not sidetrack a useful thread with pointless blathering about the ideologies of various justices? Willett just fed a clerk to SCOTUS. Obviously, he is held in high regard by important people. The same is true with Rao, Ho, Walker; basically everyone else on the above list. If you get a clerkship with them, you are in a significantly better position than if you didn't. The idea Gibson Dunn DC or whoever is going to toss your application in the trash because you had the "wrong" DC Circuit clerkship is laughable. If you don't like their ideology and don't want to work with them, just don't apply. You can always ask about ideologies in the individual circuit threads. This thread was meant to get the inside scoop from actual clerks about how individual judges treat their clerks, not to whine that Judge Willett is conservative.

[Pennoyer v. Meh]

Can we not sidetrack a useful thread with pointless blathering about the ideologies of various justices? Willett just fed a clerk to SCOTUS. Obviously, he is held in high regard by important people. The same is true with Rao, Ho, Walker; basically everyone else on the above list. If you get a clerkship with them, you are in a significantly better position than if you didn't. The idea Gibson Dunn DC or whoever is going to toss your application in the trash because you had the "wrong" DC Circuit clerkship is laughable. If you don't like their ideology and don't want to work with them, just don't apply. You can always ask about ideologies in the individual circuit threads. This thread was meant to get the inside scoop from actual clerks about how individual judges treat their clerks, not to whine that Judge Willett is conservative.

I generally agree with that, though I think there's a small subset of judges (primarily Rao, Ho, Walker) who are so damaging to this country that it deserves to be noted. The prestige may still be there, but for these judges there should be an asterisk.

[jackshunger]

Can we not sidetrack a useful thread with pointless blathering about the ideologies of various justices? Willett just fed a clerk to SCOTUS. Obviously, he is held in high regard by important people. The same is true with Rao, Ho, Walker; basically everyone else on the above list. If you get a clerkship with them, you are in a significantly better position than if you didn't. The idea Gibson Dunn DC or whoever is going to toss your application in the trash because you had the "wrong" DC Circuit clerkship is laughable. If you don't like their ideology and don't want to work with them, just don't apply. You can always ask about ideologies in the individual circuit threads. This thread was meant to get the inside scoop from actual clerks about how individual judges treat their clerks, not to whine that Judge Willett is conservative.

I generally agree with that, though I think there's a small subset of judges (primarily Rao, Ho, Walker) who are so damaging to this country that it deserves to be noted. The prestige may still be there, but for these judges there should be an asterisk.

Exactly the type of unhelpful reply, based off of no information and deliberately inflammatory, I was talking about. Go create a "I hate Trump judges" post elsewhere on this forum and centralize useless discussion there.

[LBJ's Hair]

I was one of the people making fun of Justin Walker for being an underwhelming nominee to CADC when FedSoc had Kannon Shanmugam, etc sitting right there

but just to be clear, Walker is a super desirable clerkship, and if you're a gunner that has a shot at him, you'd be a doofus not to apply because I said mean things about his academic writing and thought his coronavirus opinion was correct but rhetorically sorta over the top. it's DC Cir, he's clearly super connected, etc

[Anonymous User]

Can we not sidetrack a useful thread with pointless blathering about the ideologies of various justices? Willett just fed a clerk to SCOTUS. Obviously, he is held in high regard by important people. The same is true with Rao, Ho, Walker; basically everyone else on the above list. If you get a clerkship with them, you are in a significantly better position than if you didn't. The idea Gibson Dunn DC or whoever is going to toss your application in the trash because you had the "wrong" DC Circuit clerkship is laughable. If you don't like their ideology and don't want to work with them, just don't apply. You can always ask about ideologies in the individual circuit threads. This thread was meant to get the inside scoop from actual clerks about how individual judges treat their clerks, not to whine that Judge Willett is conservative.

I generally agree with that, though I think there's a small subset of judges (primarily Rao, Ho, Walker) who are so damaging to this country that it deserves to be noted. The prestige may still be there, but for these judges there should be an asterisk.

Exactly the type of unhelpful reply, based off of no information and deliberately inflammatory, I was talking about. Go create a "I hate Trump judges" post elsewhere on this forum and centralize useless discussion there.

Your complaint is off-base. First, this thread is clearly broader than the purpose you stipulate to it. It has lots of discussion of ideology and is more or less our clearinghouse for this type of information. Plus many circuit threads haven’t been active in years. Second, it meets your description. Clerks and attorneys are often much better-positioned than law students to know judges’ ideologies. Ideology also affects the clerking experience. Third, there are absolutely judges for whom a clerkship may be a negative in future employment with certain employers. Of course Ho is “prestigious” in the sense that all federal appellate clerkships are but he raises eyebrows more than, say, Bibas in many circles.

[Anonymous User]

Now that the Trump era is coming to an end and many of the Trump appointees have been serving for a while, can we work on a list of which Trump judges seem fairly normal, albeit conservative, and which seem to embrace fringe views, audition for SCOTUS, potentially be a red flag on a future job app, etc.?

Add Mary Rowland in ND IL to your "respectable" list--she's a straight-up liberal "let's make a deal" pick from Durbin and Duckworth who's a former PD, the first openly LGBTQ judge in her district, and an all-around awesome person.

Also... Willett? The tweet-happy former SCOTX Justice? He was pretty controversial at his time of nomination--has he proven himself more reasonable than expected?

On Willett in particular, he’s fed, as jackishunger notes, he’s highly regarded in Texas as far as I know, and his opinions on qualified immunity and his excellent McKesson dissent make clear that he’s not a hack. For “nuts” I mean people with serious weirdness like Ho’s ultra-political concurrences on his own opinions or Duncan’s screed on preferred pronouns, not just conservatives (which would be like every Trump COA appointee minus maybe St. Eve).

[LBJ's Hair]

I was one of the people making fun of Justin Walker for being an underwhelming nominee to CADC when FedSoc had Kannon Shanmugam, etc sitting right there

but just to be clear, Walker is a super desirable clerkship, and if you're a gunner that has a shot at him, you'd be a doofus not to apply because I said mean things about his academic writing and thought his coronavirus opinion was correct but rhetorically sorta over the top. it's DC Cir, he's clearly super connected, etc

would add...

Rao is a very desirable clerkship and I dunno why this list is insinuating it's not. I'm sure she's annoying liberal Admin profs by refusing to apply Chevron deference or w/e, and maybe she's bad at building majorities on CADC, but that's not somethign that I would care about were I applying

Ho is by all accounts a fantastic clerkship, he's *personally* an awesome guy, etc. agree that his opinions are a lot, to where it's something to consider.

hate Willett's writing style but that's just me, it's a great CA5 clerkship and people like him

that list doesn't have Katsas - he's already a mega-feeder

EDIT - just so everyone is on the same page: my opinion is the opinion of a FedSoc-sympathetic person who knows an unhealthy amount about COA judges. most law students/BigLaw practitioners do not know or care about these people, they'll just be impressed you clerked COA

[jackshunger]

Can we not sidetrack a useful thread with pointless blathering about the ideologies of various justices? Willett just fed a clerk to SCOTUS. Obviously, he is held in high regard by important people. The same is true with Rao, Ho, Walker; basically everyone else on the above list. If you get a clerkship with them, you are in a significantly better position than if you didn't. The idea Gibson Dunn DC or whoever is going to toss your application in the trash because you had the "wrong" DC Circuit clerkship is laughable. If you don't like their ideology and don't want to work with them, just don't apply. You can always ask about ideologies in the individual circuit threads. This thread was meant to get the inside scoop from actual clerks about how individual judges treat their clerks, not to whine that Judge Willett is conservative.

I generally agree with that, though I think there's a small subset of judges (primarily Rao, Ho, Walker) who are so damaging to this country that it deserves to be noted. The prestige may still be there, but for these judges there should be an asterisk.

Exactly the type of unhelpful reply, based off of no information and deliberately inflammatory, I was talking about. Go create a "I hate Trump judges" post elsewhere on this forum and centralize useless discussion there.

Your complaint is off-base. First, this thread is clearly broader than the purpose you stipulate to it. It has lots of discussion of ideology and is more or less our clearinghouse for this type of information. Plus many circuit threads haven’t been active in years. Second, it meets your description. Clerks and attorneys are often much better-positioned than law students to know judges’ ideologies. Ideology also affects the clerking experience. Third, there are absolutely judges for whom a clerkship may be a negative in future employment with certain employers. Of course Ho is “prestigious” in the sense that all federal appellate clerkships are but he raises eyebrows more than, say, Bibas in many circles.

There is zero reason for you to be anon on this thread, as you aren't sharing private information about judges and their chambers.

Secondly, just because other posters have forced this thread off track previously does not mean we should continue. Figuring out a judge's ideology is not difficult. If you are interested in them, you can and should read their writings. Getting the uninformed opinion of random people on the internet that have never clerked on the same circuit and are criticizing them based on LA Times articles is not remotely helpful.

If you have evidence of any of these judges being a "negative" on their clerk's employment outcomes, feel free to share this helpful info. A Linkedin search of Judge Ho's previous clerks proves that his clerks are doing well for themselves, so we have certified you are wrong on that front. The same applies for the discussion of Walker, as a previous poster stated. The idea any DC Circuit clerkship is a bad thing for a law student is mind-blowingly dumb, and anyone who is in contention for one is presumably smart enough not to listen to anonymous internet posters, but you never know.

Again, if you want to go discuss how much you hate the judges' ideologies go start a new thread and centralize your gut opinions about their writings there instead of giving uninformed and wrong information here about the clerking experience.

[nixy]

I've always understood this thread to be much more about which judges are good/bad employers, in the sense of what the day to day experience in their chambers is like, not which ones are good/bad for someone's career. The most extremist (on either end of the political spectrum) might run a great chambers and treat their clerks amazingly, while someone with whom you're completely simpatico politically could still be an asshole who makes your life a living hell.

I also think that the chances that working for any given judge will raise a "red flag" on a resume are very very slim. First, employers with half a brain realize that applicants don't always have a ton of choice. Second, if the issue is that a given judge is so ideologically extreme that they will raise eyebrows in "certain circles," and you care about what people in those circles think, you're not likely to meet the ideological judge's criteria to get hired to begin with.

I mean, I don't much care if people hash out politics here b/c for some people, spending a year in a chambers with a judge whose politics you disagree with would be a bad work experience. But I think people get a little too anxious to parse all the Trump judges really really fine. Judges have been political appointees for yonks and everyone gets that.

[Anonymous User]

Now that the Trump era is coming to an end and many of the Trump appointees have been serving for a while, can we work on a list of which Trump judges seem fairly normal, albeit conservative, and which seem to embrace fringe views, audition for SCOTUS, potentially be a red flag on a future job app, etc.? Many liberal students are willing to work for the former but not the latter Based on my own knowledge and what I've read on here, I'd categorize them this way:

Respectable:
Bennett
Bianco
Bibas
Eid
Erickson
Kobes
Miller
Nardini
Newsom
Park
Quattlebaum
Scudder
St. Eve
Stras
Sullivan
Thapar
Willett

Nuts:
Duncan
Ho
Rao
Walker

No idea where to put a lot of the rest. Bush, Menashi, Rushing, VanDyke, and Wilson seem like potential candidates for category 2 based on their confirmations, but I'm not sure how they've been on the bench so far. On the other hand, Daniel Collins has a very conventional background but the LA Times story a while back indicates that he may be viewed as fringe by his colleagues on the Ninth. There seem to be some differences of opinion on Jay Richardson on the Fourth Circuit thread (based on who I've talked to I'd personally put him pretty firmly in the "respectable" camp though).

VanDyke is an under the radar candidate for the Nuts category. Collins is very conservative, but I don’t think he’s nuts.

[jackshunger]

VanDyke is an under the radar candidate for the Nuts category. Collins is very conservative, but I don’t think he’s nuts.

Brave anon, please inform us which one of the 6 opinions VanDyke has written that indicates he is a "nut." Or do you have some personal information to share about his chambers which would be helpful to applicants? Or are you just reciting information from his confirmation hearing that any applicant could look up with a Google search?

[Pneumonia]

There is no circuit clerkship that will "raise an eyebrow" at any Biglaw firm in this country. Most appellate practices pride themselves on being able to separate talent from political ideology. For those practice groups that lean liberal, the preference splits straight down the political aisle; no group is weighing Ho versus Willett or whatever. And even where a political preference exists, it has everything to do with a CANDIDATE's political leaning, not the judge's. Even liberal-leaning groups know that there are far more conservative judges than there are qualified conservative students. You don't get bonus points for turning down Walker.

Practicing lawyers know that every circuit judge spends the vast majority of their time writing opinions that have no discernible right/left political valence. That is why a circuit clerkship is valuable. Firms do not need an associate's input on hot-button political issues. They need appellate associates who can dive into a record and translate a decade's worth of FERC ratemaking into a persuasive and understandable brief.

The arguments otherwise in this thread are baffling. I guess I understand why those who disagree with conservative jurisprudence would follow ATL's lead by trying to guess into existence the idea that clerking for a conservative judge puts an asterisk on one's resume. But to those who actually believe it, all I can say is that you're wrong and that I can't see how your belief could survive more than a week of Biglaw appellate practice.

[Anonymous User]

On career repercussions, there are a lot of jobs that are not biglaw. The clerkship profs at my school (HYSCCN) have a (short) informal blacklist of judges who liberal students interested in liberal government/PI positions should not apply to due to career and experience concerns. Most of them do not hire liberals anyway, as you note, but I know of students who got interviews despite being told not to apply and the school strongly pushed them to cancel/withdraw.

Aside from career issues, ideology affects the clerkship experience. I have a good friend who clerked or is clerking for a judge mentioned in this thread and it definitely affected his/hers. I have another friend that was expected to constantly talk about why impeachment, Russiagate, etc. with their very right-wing judge and coclerks at lunch and whatever (not a Trump appointee so not mentioned). That's in large part why there's huge interest in judge ideology on this forum. It is impossible to research every judge in-depth before applying and many students use TLS to help. If you don't have any contributions, you can always not comment rather than add an umpteenth contribution to the meta-debate. If you think you have helpful advice like LBJ's Hair above, I and others commenting here would appreciate it. Obviously personal experience is much, much more valuable than just "I don't like this person's opinions," which is part of why it's in this thread.