Feeder Judge Ratings OT 2016 - 2020 (and a bit beyond)

[Anonymous User]

These cover OT 2016-2020, a.k.a. the Trump/Gorsuch era, which is basically the start of the current iteration of the Court, plus David Lat's newest Substack post on OT 2021 and 2022.

First, circuit judges including retired justices: https://imgur.com/a/1wTFLZe

And non-circuit judges including retired justices: https://imgur.com/a/Pt5L0ba

Second, circuit judges minus retired justices, which looks quite different, to say the least: https://imgur.com/a/R5r29qt

And finally non-circuit judges minus retired justices: https://imgur.com/a/UZw3JaR

These circuit judges had one feed in the period, which I couldn't fit in the charts: A. Duncan*, Berzon, Cabranes, Carney, Clifton, Colloton, Edwards, Elrod, Flaum, G. Lynch, Gruender, Hamilton, Hardiman, Higginbotham, Higginson, Holmes, Ikuta, J.R. Brown, K.N. Moore, McKeague, N.R. Smith, Oldham, Owen, Owens, P. Kelly, Rao, S. Lynch, S. Williams, Sack, Sentelle, Silberman, Stras, Tymkovich, Wilkins, and Willett.

[Sorry for the shoddy image hosting, I don't know if there's a better way!]

[Anonymous User]

The big change here is that it looks like Fletcher, Tatel, and Katzmann, who were all mega-feeders, will likely be much diminished going forwards, and Garland is obviously off the bench. Srinivasan, though, is much better-positioned than other liberals, and Pillard, Friedland, and Lohier also have pretty good records and look likely to become more prominent.

Of the Trump appointees, Katsas, Thapar, and Barrett are significantly ahead of the others, as you'd expect, but also Friedrich, who has outfed the vast majority of circuit judges, let alone district judges, largely off the back of her relationship with Kavanaugh.

[Anonymous User]

These cover OT 2016-2020, a.k.a. the Trump/Gorsuch era, which is basically the start of the current iteration of the Court, plus David Lat's newest Substack post on OT 2021 and 2022.

First, circuit judges including retired justices: https://imgur.com/a/1wTFLZe

And non-circuit judges including retired justices: https://imgur.com/a/Pt5L0ba

Second, circuit judges minus retired justices, which looks quite different, to say the least: https://imgur.com/a/R5r29qt

And finally non-circuit judges minus retired justices: https://imgur.com/a/UZw3JaR

These circuit judges had one feed in the period, which I couldn't fit in the charts: A. Duncan*, Berzon, Cabranes, Carney, Clifton, Colloton, Edwards, Elrod, Flaum, G. Lynch, Gruender, Hamilton, Hardiman, Higginbotham, Higginson, Holmes, Ikuta, J.R. Brown, K.N. Moore, McKeague, N.R. Smith, Oldham, Owen, Owens, P. Kelly, Rao, S. Lynch, S. Williams, Sack, Sentelle, Silberman, Stras, Tymkovich, Wilkins, and Willett.

[Sorry for the shoddy image hosting, I don't know if there's a better way!]

Thanks for doing this. These charts will be invaluable for all the future SCOTUS hopefuls out there. I would, however, note an issue in your double counting the retired Justices' clerks. For instance, you count Judge Katzmann's 2 feeds to Justice Stevens under the "Stevens" column and under the active Justice columns (1 for Ginsburg, 1 for Kennedy). I bet the same issue repeats for the other judges - too lazy to check.

[Anonymous User]

These cover OT 2016-2020, a.k.a. the Trump/Gorsuch era, which is basically the start of the current iteration of the Court, plus David Lat's newest Substack post on OT 2021 and 2022.

First, circuit judges including retired justices: https://imgur.com/a/1wTFLZe

And non-circuit judges including retired justices: https://imgur.com/a/Pt5L0ba

Second, circuit judges minus retired justices, which looks quite different, to say the least: https://imgur.com/a/R5r29qt

And finally non-circuit judges minus retired justices: https://imgur.com/a/UZw3JaR

These circuit judges had one feed in the period, which I couldn't fit in the charts: A. Duncan*, Berzon, Cabranes, Carney, Clifton, Colloton, Edwards, Elrod, Flaum, G. Lynch, Gruender, Hamilton, Hardiman, Higginbotham, Higginson, Holmes, Ikuta, J.R. Brown, K.N. Moore, McKeague, N.R. Smith, Oldham, Owen, Owens, P. Kelly, Rao, S. Lynch, S. Williams, Sack, Sentelle, Silberman, Stras, Tymkovich, Wilkins, and Willett.

[Sorry for the shoddy image hosting, I don't know if there's a better way!]

Thanks for doing this. These charts will be invaluable for all the future SCOTUS hopefuls out there. I would, however, note an issue in your double counting the retired Justices' clerks. For instance, you count Judge Katzmann's 2 feeds to Justice Stevens under the "Stevens" column and under the active Justice columns (1 for Ginsburg, 1 for Kennedy). I bet the same issue repeats for the other judges - too lazy to check.

Half-right, Katzmann's feed to Kennedy was not a Stevens clerk (OT 2016), but the one in OT 2020 to RBG did slip through the cracks. He was a unique case--he wasn't just an RBG clerk clerking for Sotomayor, which I originally thought, but a Stevens, then RBG, then Sotomayor clerk. He's bad luck, Sotomayor should watch out. There are almost certainly some other errors around the edges, and post if you see any because I may update this again with the full OT 2021, but I did not double-count retired justices' clerks in general.

[Anonymous User]

The big change here is that it looks like Fletcher, Tatel, and Katzmann, who were all mega-feeders, will likely be much diminished going forwards, and Garland is obviously off the bench. Srinivasan, though, is much better-positioned than other liberals, and Pillard, Friedland, and Lohier also have pretty good records and look likely to become more prominent.

Of the Trump appointees, Katsas, Thapar, and Barrett are significantly ahead of the others, as you'd expect, but also Friedrich, who has outfed the vast majority of circuit judges, let alone district judges, largely off the back of her relationship with Kavanaugh.

Once Fletcher retires, Watford and Friedland will be duking it out to be the Ninth's liberal feeder. It should be interesting to see whether, with RBG's passing, Friedland overtakes Watford, since so many of his feeds were to RBG, and whether either of them feed to Breyer's replacement since neither Watford nor Friedland appear to be connected to Kruger/Brown Jackson.

[Anonymous User]

UChicago just announced its second straight year of landing 7 SCOTUS clerks, some of which (the asterisked ones) aren't on this sheet. From a school perspective it's notable that they managed to feed seven different justices (including two liberals), they're on a roll. The solo feed of a '20 grad from Grant to Roberts is the one that sticks out to me as notable, most of the rest are usual suspects.

Grant --> Roberts*
Jones/Larsen --> Thomas
C. Breyer/McKeown --> Breyer
Feinerman/Tatel --> Kagan*
Sykes/Griffith --> Gorsuch*
Pryor/Sutton --> Kavanaugh
Marcus/Barrett --> Barrett*

Also a new feed from UMich, Kethledge/Abrams --> Kagan. And one from UVA, Newsom/McFadden --> Barrett. That's the first feed for both Newsom and McFadden.

Also the new Bristow Fellows are out.

Lohier/Moss
Hayes/Willett
Stras/Thapar
Srinivasan/Oetken
Bibas/Feinerman

[Anonymous User]

Another Breyer clerk--Sidney Thomas/Chhabria. David Lat thinks that Breyer won't retire in June, he's been hiring more clerks for 2021 over the last month and might want Jackson to have a year on the D.C. Circuit before being elevated to replace him.