Clerking for judge with opposing political views? Forum

[littlewing67]

Looking into COA judges as a liberal (very liberal interested in civil rights work). Wondering if it is worth it to apply to conservative/rep. appointed COA judges? Anyone who has done this willing to share their experience? Thanks!

[Anonymous User]

I will preface by saying I have not started my clerkship yet, but I am someone who is pretty liberal clerking for a conservative judge. This is a pretty personal decision and there is no right or wrong answer. There are some people who will not clerk for judges that have divergent ideological views (on aggregate) to themselves and those who are not concerned with clerking for those who have staunchly differing views. But in reality, you're likely not going to work on ground breaking, ideologically-based cases (at least on a daily basis). My recommenders also expressed the same message to me. Most cases will have clearly established paths or revolve around generally non-ideological issues and in those instances a judge's ideology is not nearly as important. That helped to convince me to expand my application base and I started to look more closely at judges, their decisions, and their background when developing my application strategy. Personally, I think that that was the right move and I found a lot of judges that I would be excited to clerk for even if we don't mirror views on a variety of issues.

[ughbugchugplug]

I’m liberal and I clerked for a very conservative appeals judge. It wasn’t a problem. Just don’t bring up politics and realize your role isn’t to change their fundamental beliefs but rather to analyze the law. Sometimes my judge (in my opinion) reached in order to come to a conservative result that wasn’t justified by the law, and I made clear what I thought the law said without accusing them of being biased or whatever. Didn’t change any minds though...

[lavarman84]

I did and had no issues. You might have to hold your tongue at group conversations (dinners, lunches, etc.). But otherwise, it shouldn't be too difficult. Your job is analyze the law and offer a recommendation. The judge can accept or reject your recommendation. From there, your job is to write the opinion the way the judge wants it. He or she was the person confirmed to the bench, not you. I guess if you can't accept that role, yeah, don't clerk for a conservative.

FWIW, I made an effort to understand how my judge viewed the law and analyze the law consistently with that. That doesn't mean there weren't times where my more liberal side came out, but my judge said he/she really valued my judgment near the end of my clerkship. That meant a lot to me.

That all said, my judge, while conservative, wasn't a zealot. I imagine the job could be harder if I were working for a zealot. So I would recommend doing some research on the judges. There are a handful of conservative judges I would not have been willing to clerk for. But I doubt they'd have hired me anyways.

One final note, there aren't that many truly politically controversial cases. And if it's an issue like abortion that you know could be a problem, you could always allow another law clerk to take that case (in my chambers, the law clerks were the ones who split up the cases). As others have stated, the vast majority will either have binding precedent or be an issue that doesn't much implicate politics.

[Anonymous User]

I've never talked to someone who regretted clerking for a conservative judge as a liberal. I'm doing this and talked to lots of people and all of them said it isn't a big deal. In the current environment, it's increasingly a necessity for liberal students--see the recent post about UChicago's liberals mostly clerking for conservatives this year.

That said, not all conservative judges are equally conservative. Most deeply ideological ones ("zealots")--think Jim Ho or Naomi Rao--won't hire liberal students anyway so you don't need to worry about them. There's pretty extensive discussion scattered around this forum about which of the Trump appointees hire liberal clerks that's worth reading.

[drwatson2573]

Looking into COA judges as a liberal (very liberal interested in civil rights work). Wondering if it is worth it to apply to conservative/rep. appointed COA judges? Anyone who has done this willing to share their experience? Thanks!

Interested in this from the inverse standpoint and for district court judges. Am a Fed Soc leaning guy and am heavily considered applying to Obama/Clinton/future Biden appointees at the district court level.

[Elston Gunn]

Looking into COA judges as a liberal (very liberal interested in civil rights work). Wondering if it is worth it to apply to conservative/rep. appointed COA judges? Anyone who has done this willing to share their experience? Thanks!

Interested in this from the inverse standpoint and for district court judges. Am a Fed Soc leaning guy and am heavily considered applying to Obama/Clinton/future Biden appointees at the district court level.

Unless you have very extreme views and it will bother you to write opinions that aren’t in line with them, I really wouldn’t worry about it. District court work is rarely political, except for I guess criminal sentencing, which many judges don’t even really involve their clerks in.

[GoneSouth]

Looking into COA judges as a liberal (very liberal interested in civil rights work). Wondering if it is worth it to apply to conservative/rep. appointed COA judges? Anyone who has done this willing to share their experience? Thanks!

Interested in this from the inverse standpoint and for district court judges. Am a Fed Soc leaning guy and am heavily considered applying to Obama/Clinton/future Biden appointees at the district court level.

This is definitely a non-issue at the district court level. With the possible exception of D.D.C., 95%+ of what you’d be working on as a district court clerk has no political valence. As long as you think you could get along with someone with different political views from a personality standpoint, I wouldn’t be concerned about it.

[Anonymous User]

I'm a political liberal working for some very conservative judges, but my approach to jurisprudence skews fairly conservative (emphasis on federalism, textualism) so I focused on that during my interviews. If you have the same situation, that's an approach worth considering.

[replevin123]

I'm a political liberal working for some very conservative judges, but my approach to jurisprudence skews fairly conservative (emphasis on federalism, textualism) so I focused on that during my interviews. If you have the same situation, that's an approach worth considering.

a welcomed post. there need be nothing inherently political (in terms of republicans or democrats) with federalism, textualism, judicial restraint, etc. Sure there are some who wield these concepts as a matter of convenience and not principle, but that is not everyone.

[Anonymous User]

I clerked for the Chief Justice of a SSC. I am very conservative, and he/she was more or less liberal, at least by habit and temperament. Every judge-clerk relationship is different, but we never really talked directly about politics. There were some cases I worked on that year that were inextricably political and partisan, and in those assignments I might casually mention my biases before justifying my position with far more than partisanship and philosophy. That doesn't mean I didn't sometimes resent the state's substantive law being fixed in a way, likely for decades, governing millions of people, that I thought patently dysfunctional and incorrect on an ideological level. But it just never got personal or uncomfortable thankfully.

Honestly, though, he/she was such a kind, likeable person and I am open-minded enough that it never negatively affected my experience clerking for them. Ideally, political disagreement within chambers can be exchanged with levity, and the theory is that any tension actually sharpens your views and arguments. If the judge or other clerks can't do that, the problem is probably personality, not politics. Unfortunately, personality and politics go together all too often, and I can confidently say I probably would have had a much rougher year clerking for justices further left, who I tended to view as unjustifiably arrogant and self-righteous (no offense intended). As to them, notwithstanding their obvious intelligence, I can't help but admit I grew more cynical of their decision-making ability than I was on a theoretical level going into the clerkship. That sucks, but honestly they largely vindicated my somewhat negative perception of their judicial tendencies. As people, again, a pleasant conversation could be had in the corridors.

Final point, as to SSC or COA or SCOTUS, a lot more decisions than you think are unanimous or near-unanimous decisions irrespective of ideological persuasion. Often, the issue presented was more simple, neutral, and mundane, not who should win an election and how. So tension ebbed in some cases, but not uncomfortably.

[lavarman84]

I clerked for the Chief Justice of a SSC. I am very conservative, and he/she was more or less liberal, at least by habit and temperament. Every judge-clerk relationship is different, but we never really talked directly about politics. There were some cases I worked on that year that were inextricably political and partisan, and in those assignments I might casually mention my biases before justifying my position with far more than partisanship and philosophy. That doesn't mean I didn't sometimes resent the state's substantive law being fixed in a way, likely for decades, governing millions of people, that I thought patently dysfunctional and incorrect on an ideological level. But it just never got personal or uncomfortable thankfully.

Honestly, though, he/she was such a kind, likeable person and I am open-minded enough that it never negatively affected my experience clerking for them. Ideally, political disagreement within chambers can be exchanged with levity, and the theory is that any tension actually sharpens your views and arguments. If the judge or other clerks can't do that, the problem is probably personality, not politics. Unfortunately, personality and politics go together all too often, and I can confidently say I probably would have had a much rougher year clerking for justices further left, who I tended to view as unjustifiably arrogant and self-righteous (no offense intended). As to them, notwithstanding their obvious intelligence, I can't help but admit I grew more cynical of their decision-making ability than I was on a theoretical level going into the clerkship. That sucks, but honestly they largely vindicated my somewhat negative perception of their judicial tendencies. As people, again, a pleasant conversation could be had in the corridors.

Final point, as to SSC or COA or SCOTUS, a lot more decisions than you think are unanimous or near-unanimous decisions irrespective of ideological persuasion. Often, the issue presented was more simple, neutral, and mundane, not who should win an election and how. So tension ebbed in some cases, but not uncomfortably.

If it makes you feel better, I think this is a common feeling for law clerks on both sides of the spectrum.