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

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

Post by Anonymous User » Sun Jul 10, 2022 5:18 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Sun Jul 10, 2022 5:01 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Sat Jul 09, 2022 6:37 pm
This is partially to move the CA6 discussion to somewhere more apropos, but I'm curious, especially for those who know future classes, which judges people would "sell" or "buy" versus their current level of feeding. Numbers in parens are from the last feeders-minus-retired-justices list.

Buy: Bress (1), Collins (1), Friedland (3), Heytens (0), Menashi (0), Nathan (0), Park (1), Richardson (0), Stras (1)
Sell: Fletcher (5), Jones (4), Livingston (5), Tatel (5), O'Scannlain (9), Wilkinson (10)

Happy to give rationales, to be clear this is a parlor game not (for the most part) inside info
Why do you think Stras and Richardson will pick up? Stras sent one pretty soon after he got on the 8th, but it has been a few years since he has fed (to the best of my knowledge). Richardson seems very solid, but he didn't clerk for a current justice, and he hasn't spent too much time in DC recently. Not necessarily disagreeing with either, but I am interested to hear your thoughts.
Stras and Richardson both just had former clerks get the Bristow, and both care a lot about feeding and network and hire aggressively. Both have pipelines at Chicago and Richardson also has one at UVA. Also Stras already is his circuit’s top conservative, and Richardson will become his circuit’s whenever Wilkinson starts winding down, and that matters to an extent—e.g. native Upper Midwesterners tend to have strong attachments to the region, and it’s not a coincidence that Stras’s first feed was Minnesotan.

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

Post by Anonymous User » Sun Jul 10, 2022 10:20 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Sun Jul 10, 2022 5:07 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Sun Jul 10, 2022 5:01 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Sat Jul 09, 2022 6:37 pm
This is partially to move the CA6 discussion to somewhere more apropos, but I'm curious, especially for those who know future classes, which judges people would "sell" or "buy" versus their current level of feeding. Numbers in parens are from the last feeders-minus-retired-justices list.

Buy: Bress (1), Collins (1), Friedland (3), Heytens (0), Menashi (0), Nathan (0), Park (1), Richardson (0), Stras (1)
Sell: Fletcher (5), Jones (4), Livingston (5), Tatel (5), O'Scannlain (9), Wilkinson (10)

Happy to give rationales, to be clear this is a parlor game not (for the most part) inside info
Why do you think Stras and Richardson will pick up? Stras sent one pretty soon after he got on the 8th, but it has been a few years since he has fed (to the best of my knowledge). Richardson seems very solid, but he didn't clerk for a current justice, and he hasn't spent too much time in DC recently. Not necessarily disagreeing with either, but I am interested to hear your thoughts.
Stras tries for star students and markets himself pretty aggressively, I wouldn't be surprised to see him move up. Richardson is also on the FedSoc circuit a lot, and he gets a good number of solid UChicago students.
I think buy Nathan. She’s pals with Brown Jackson. Why buy Friedland? (Don’t disagree based on her hiring only SCOTUS calibre people from my school, but I don’t see any connection to Brown Jackson, and she has never fed to Sotomayor.) If we are including district court judges, I would also buy Chhabria and Oetken.

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

Post by Anonymous User » Sun Jul 10, 2022 11:08 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Sun Jul 10, 2022 10:20 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Sun Jul 10, 2022 5:07 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Sun Jul 10, 2022 5:01 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Sat Jul 09, 2022 6:37 pm
This is partially to move the CA6 discussion to somewhere more apropos, but I'm curious, especially for those who know future classes, which judges people would "sell" or "buy" versus their current level of feeding. Numbers in parens are from the last feeders-minus-retired-justices list.

Buy: Bress (1), Collins (1), Friedland (3), Heytens (0), Menashi (0), Nathan (0), Park (1), Richardson (0), Stras (1)
Sell: Fletcher (5), Jones (4), Livingston (5), Tatel (5), O'Scannlain (9), Wilkinson (10)

Happy to give rationales, to be clear this is a parlor game not (for the most part) inside info
Why do you think Stras and Richardson will pick up? Stras sent one pretty soon after he got on the 8th, but it has been a few years since he has fed (to the best of my knowledge). Richardson seems very solid, but he didn't clerk for a current justice, and he hasn't spent too much time in DC recently. Not necessarily disagreeing with either, but I am interested to hear your thoughts.
Stras tries for star students and markets himself pretty aggressively, I wouldn't be surprised to see him move up. Richardson is also on the FedSoc circuit a lot, and he gets a good number of solid UChicago students.
I think buy Nathan. She’s pals with Brown Jackson. Why buy Friedland? (Don’t disagree based on her hiring only SCOTUS calibre people from my school, but I don’t see any connection to Brown Jackson, and she has never fed to Sotomayor.) If we are including district court judges, I would also buy Chhabria and Oetken.
Perez is also close with KBJ and will likely feed to her soon.

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

Post by Anonymous User » Sun Jul 10, 2022 11:25 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Sun Jul 10, 2022 11:08 pm

Perez is also close with KBJ and will likely feed to her soon.
A lot of judges are close with KBJ, the legal world isn't that large, and everyone in the community had a pretty good idea she was on the SCOTUS shortlist from the moment she was appointed. She's also friends with most of the Obama-appointed judges on DDC, for example, and has hired from Nathan.

In any case, I find this Perez hyping fascinating, because sure, she might feed occasionally. But there isn't really much evidence to suggest this, or any real proof the people she's hired (I know a few), are more distinguished, PI-focused, or attractive to Sotomayor/KBJ more than say, the clerks Jackson-Akiwumi or Pan have hired.

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

Post by Anonymous User » Sun Jul 10, 2022 11:32 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Sat Jul 09, 2022 6:37 pm
This is partially to move the CA6 discussion to somewhere more apropos, but I'm curious, especially for those who know future classes, which judges people would "sell" or "buy" versus their current level of feeding. Numbers in parens are from the last feeders-minus-retired-justices list.

Buy: Bress (1), Collins (1), Friedland (3), Heytens (0), Menashi (0), Nathan (0), Park (1), Richardson (0), Stras (1)
Sell: Fletcher (5), Jones (4), Livingston (5), Tatel (5), O'Scannlain (9), Wilkinson (10)

Happy to give rationales, to be clear this is a parlor game not (for the most part) inside info
It's very hard to handicap most of the Trump-appointed judges like this, because most hire so early they are bound to hire a few duds, for lack of a better term. As opposed to someone like Srinivasan (for obvious reasons) or Katsas (who only hires people with top grades and at least a semi-feeder clerkship), who you can always be assured is hiring someone with a decent shot at SCOTUS. So there will be a natural ebb and flow just based on whichever ones managed to snipe the best candidates early enough, and have those candidates want to do a second clerkship (and even third!).

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

Post by Anonymous User » Sun Jul 10, 2022 11:55 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Sun Jul 10, 2022 10:20 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Sun Jul 10, 2022 5:07 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Sun Jul 10, 2022 5:01 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Sat Jul 09, 2022 6:37 pm
This is partially to move the CA6 discussion to somewhere more apropos, but I'm curious, especially for those who know future classes, which judges people would "sell" or "buy" versus their current level of feeding. Numbers in parens are from the last feeders-minus-retired-justices list.

Buy: Bress (1), Collins (1), Friedland (3), Heytens (0), Menashi (0), Nathan (0), Park (1), Richardson (0), Stras (1)
Sell: Fletcher (5), Jones (4), Livingston (5), Tatel (5), O'Scannlain (9), Wilkinson (10)

Happy to give rationales, to be clear this is a parlor game not (for the most part) inside info
Why do you think Stras and Richardson will pick up? Stras sent one pretty soon after he got on the 8th, but it has been a few years since he has fed (to the best of my knowledge). Richardson seems very solid, but he didn't clerk for a current justice, and he hasn't spent too much time in DC recently. Not necessarily disagreeing with either, but I am interested to hear your thoughts.
Stras tries for star students and markets himself pretty aggressively, I wouldn't be surprised to see him move up. Richardson is also on the FedSoc circuit a lot, and he gets a good number of solid UChicago students.
I think buy Nathan. She’s pals with Brown Jackson. Why buy Friedland? (Don’t disagree based on her hiring only SCOTUS calibre people from my school, but I don’t see any connection to Brown Jackson, and she has never fed to Sotomayor.) If we are including district court judges, I would also buy Chhabria and Oetken.
With Fletcher slowing down and no RBG for Watford to feed to, CA9 can become a more even playing field between Friedland and Watford. I believe she used to have clerks come to her from Nathan when she was on SDNY too. It's kind of more of a "Why not Friedland?" situation. Her Tatel/O'Connor connections are less of a disadvantage now. Clerks are going to have to come from some new places and now-seasoned Obama appointees have new chances now.

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

Post by Anonymous User » Mon Jul 11, 2022 9:36 am

Anonymous User wrote:
Sun Jul 10, 2022 11:25 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Sun Jul 10, 2022 11:08 pm

Perez is also close with KBJ and will likely feed to her soon.
A lot of judges are close with KBJ, the legal world isn't that large, and everyone in the community had a pretty good idea she was on the SCOTUS shortlist from the moment she was appointed. She's also friends with most of the Obama-appointed judges on DDC, for example, and has hired from Nathan.

In any case, I find this Perez hyping fascinating, because sure, she might feed occasionally. But there isn't really much evidence to suggest this, or any real proof the people she's hired (I know a few), are more distinguished, PI-focused, or attractive to Sotomayor/KBJ more than say, the clerks Jackson-Akiwumi or Pan have hired.
What does that have to do with anything about Perez's relationship with KBJ?

What's with all the Perez bashing? Is everyone on here a disgruntled/rejected Perez applicant?

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

Post by Anonymous User » Mon Jul 11, 2022 10:01 am

Anonymous User wrote:
Sun Jul 10, 2022 11:25 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Sun Jul 10, 2022 11:08 pm

Perez is also close with KBJ and will likely feed to her soon.

A lot of judges are close with KBJ
, the legal world isn't that large, and everyone in the community had a pretty good idea she was on the SCOTUS shortlist from the moment she was appointed. She's also friends with most of the Obama-appointed judges on DDC, for example, and has hired from Nathan.

In any case, I find this Perez hyping fascinating, because sure, she might feed occasionally. But there isn't really much evidence to suggest this, or any real proof the people she's hired (I know a few), are more distinguished, PI-focused, or attractive to Sotomayor/KBJ more than say, the clerks Jackson-Akiwumi or Pan have hired.
This. Jackson-Akiwumi is extremely close with KBJ, but that doesn't mean she's likely to feed soon.

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

Post by Anonymous User » Mon Jul 11, 2022 10:48 am

Anonymous User wrote:
Mon Jul 11, 2022 9:36 am
Anonymous User wrote:
Sun Jul 10, 2022 11:25 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Sun Jul 10, 2022 11:08 pm

Perez is also close with KBJ and will likely feed to her soon.
A lot of judges are close with KBJ, the legal world isn't that large, and everyone in the community had a pretty good idea she was on the SCOTUS shortlist from the moment she was appointed. She's also friends with most of the Obama-appointed judges on DDC, for example, and has hired from Nathan.

In any case, I find this Perez hyping fascinating, because sure, she might feed occasionally. But there isn't really much evidence to suggest this, or any real proof the people she's hired (I know a few), are more distinguished, PI-focused, or attractive to Sotomayor/KBJ more than say, the clerks Jackson-Akiwumi or Pan have hired.
What does that have to do with anything about Perez's relationship with KBJ?

What's with all the Perez bashing? Is everyone on here a disgruntled/rejected Perez applicant?
I don't think anyone's bashing Perez. She'll be a competitive, sought-after clerkship in a great market. However, some people have gone too far and claimed she's also a future feeder (one post even said the preeminent feeder on CA2). And that's not the case.

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

Post by Anonymous User » Mon Jul 11, 2022 11:31 am

Anonymous User wrote:
Mon Jul 11, 2022 10:48 am
Anonymous User wrote:
Mon Jul 11, 2022 9:36 am
Anonymous User wrote:
Sun Jul 10, 2022 11:25 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Sun Jul 10, 2022 11:08 pm

Perez is also close with KBJ and will likely feed to her soon.
A lot of judges are close with KBJ, the legal world isn't that large, and everyone in the community had a pretty good idea she was on the SCOTUS shortlist from the moment she was appointed. She's also friends with most of the Obama-appointed judges on DDC, for example, and has hired from Nathan.

In any case, I find this Perez hyping fascinating, because sure, she might feed occasionally. But there isn't really much evidence to suggest this, or any real proof the people she's hired (I know a few), are more distinguished, PI-focused, or attractive to Sotomayor/KBJ more than say, the clerks Jackson-Akiwumi or Pan have hired.
What does that have to do with anything about Perez's relationship with KBJ?

What's with all the Perez bashing? Is everyone on here a disgruntled/rejected Perez applicant?
I don't think anyone's bashing Perez. She'll be a competitive, sought-after clerkship in a great market. However, some people have gone too far and claimed she's also a future feeder (one post even said the preeminent feeder on CA2). And that's not the case.
Yeah, and feeding occasionally does not equal being a feeder. I see no reason she would come close to the numbers that Livingston and Lohier have, nor why she would feed any more than nearly any other NYC CA2 judge.

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

Post by Anonymous User » Mon Jul 11, 2022 1:15 pm

Some thoughts:

Lol the pearl clutching over the D-appointee feeding predictions is laughable. Realistically, nearly none of these judges will be what one might've considered a classic "feeder" any time soon. Aside from Srinivasan, there are no more feeders on the left given the court's personnel/dynamics. There are quite a lot of largely similar and well respected D-appointed judges on 2/9/DC who know the three liberal justices. They are all competing for a relatively small set of clerkship slots, and will relatively rarely send clerks up. Figure it this way: there are max 14 liberal scotus slots each year if JGR takes 2x liberals. The Chief tends to hire counters from Sutton/Thapar etc or Srinivasan / Livingston for his liberal clerks. So you're back down to 12 or so slots. Kagan will hire at least one from Sri most years I'd imagine, and will probably fill at least one or two of the other spots from the other prominent CADC judges (her class tends to be CADC heavy). So the CA2/9 judges are down to like 8-9 spots again. There are at least 10-15 younger judges who are plausibly feeding to SS/KBJ, I'd be surprised if any of them averages above 1 a year. By the time you account for the increasing focus on demographic diversity, older clerks in academia, less conventional PI applicants amongst those two justices etc there's even more variance. Add in competition from the older senior crowd (Tatel, Fletcher, etc) and the counters from Sutton/Thapar, and you're down to an even smaller number of reliable spots.

That being said, there's absolutely zero evidence that Perez will feed. She has an awful rep afaik, lacks conventional indicators, and is not hiring for scotus credentials at least in her first couple classes. No reason to think she will hurdle those odds--especially when compared to Nathan, Friedland, etc.

The right I think will continue to have real super-feeders, perhaps to a historic degree. I don't think it would be crazy to expect Katsas to feed nearly 4 a year for years. Pryor and Thapar will continue to send their guys. Sutton I think will still send 2+ a year. Oldham will continue to be a really solid feeder I think too. I think beyond that though, there's going to a significant degree of variance as the conservative movement becomes more balkanized and as the students have a ton more agency and bargaining power than ever before given the oversupply of Trumpy judges and undersupply of even plausibly qualified conservative students. They've started self-selecting into tribes, more than focusing on raw feeding, etc. Which has lead to more dispersion of the already limited number of candidates who are both politically/ideologically qualified and have non-embarrassing credentials on the right. So I think the Menashi, Stras, Kethledge, etc. crowd will all be somewhat common feeders, but none will really emerge as terribly predictable feeders if that makes sense.

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

Post by Anonymous User » Mon Jul 11, 2022 1:22 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Mon Jul 11, 2022 1:15 pm
Some thoughts:

Lol the pearl clutching over the D-appointee feeding predictions is laughable. Realistically, nearly none of these judges will be what one might've considered a classic "feeder" any time soon. Aside from Srinivasan, there are no more feeders on the left given the court's personnel/dynamics. There are quite a lot of largely similar and well respected D-appointed judges on 2/9/DC who know the three liberal justices. They are all competing for a relatively small set of clerkship slots, and will relatively rarely send clerks up. Figure it this way: there are max 14 liberal scotus slots each year if JGR takes 2x liberals. The Chief tends to hire counters from Sutton/Thapar etc or Srinivasan / Livingston for his liberal clerks. So you're back down to 12 or so slots. Kagan will hire at least one from Sri most years I'd imagine, and will probably fill at least one or two of the other spots from the other prominent CADC judges (her class tends to be CADC heavy). So the CA2/9 judges are down to like 8-9 spots again. There are at least 10-15 younger judges who are plausibly feeding to SS/KBJ, I'd be surprised if any of them averages above 1 a year. By the time you account for the increasing focus on demographic diversity, older clerks in academia, less conventional PI applicants amongst those two justices etc there's even more variance. Add in competition from the older senior crowd (Tatel, Fletcher, etc) and the counters from Sutton/Thapar, and you're down to an even smaller number of reliable spots.

That being said, there's absolutely zero evidence that Perez will feed. She has an awful rep afaik, lacks conventional indicators, and is not hiring for scotus credentials at least in her first couple classes. No reason to think she will hurdle those odds--especially when compared to Nathan, Friedland, etc.

The right I think will continue to have real super-feeders, perhaps to a historic degree. I don't think it would be crazy to expect Katsas to feed nearly 4 a year for years. Pryor and Thapar will continue to send their guys. Sutton I think will still send 2+ a year. Oldham will continue to be a really solid feeder I think too. I think beyond that though, there's going to a significant degree of variance as the conservative movement becomes more balkanized and as the students have a ton more agency and bargaining power than ever before given the oversupply of Trumpy judges and undersupply of even plausibly qualified conservative students. They've started self-selecting into tribes, more than focusing on raw feeding, etc. Which has lead to more dispersion of the already limited number of candidates who are both politically/ideologically qualified and have non-embarrassing credentials on the right. So I think the Menashi, Stras, Kethledge, etc. crowd will all be somewhat common feeders, but none will really emerge as terribly predictable feeders if that makes sense.
This is exactly right.

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

Post by Anonymous User » Mon Jul 11, 2022 2:29 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Mon Jul 11, 2022 1:15 pm
Some thoughts:

Lol the pearl clutching over the D-appointee feeding predictions is laughable. Realistically, nearly none of these judges will be what one might've considered a classic "feeder" any time soon. Aside from Srinivasan, there are no more feeders on the left given the court's personnel/dynamics. There are quite a lot of largely similar and well respected D-appointed judges on 2/9/DC who know the three liberal justices. They are all competing for a relatively small set of clerkship slots, and will relatively rarely send clerks up. Figure it this way: there are max 14 liberal scotus slots each year if JGR takes 2x liberals. The Chief tends to hire counters from Sutton/Thapar etc or Srinivasan / Livingston for his liberal clerks. So you're back down to 12 or so slots. Kagan will hire at least one from Sri most years I'd imagine, and will probably fill at least one or two of the other spots from the other prominent CADC judges (her class tends to be CADC heavy). So the CA2/9 judges are down to like 8-9 spots again. There are at least 10-15 younger judges who are plausibly feeding to SS/KBJ, I'd be surprised if any of them averages above 1 a year. By the time you account for the increasing focus on demographic diversity, older clerks in academia, less conventional PI applicants amongst those two justices etc there's even more variance. Add in competition from the older senior crowd (Tatel, Fletcher, etc) and the counters from Sutton/Thapar, and you're down to an even smaller number of reliable spots.
This makes an interesting point. With fewer spots at SCOTUS reserved exclusively for liberals, career-minded moderate liberal types with top-but-not-Sri-top grades may target conservative megafeeders like Wilkinson/Sutton/Thapar instead of Biden appointees to open up potential counterclerking spots with Roberts/Kavanaugh/Gorsuch/Barrett. Counterintuitively, that could increase the power of the conservative megafeeders even with some of the liberal justices. Same for liberal judges like Millett who have shown they can feed to the right of Roberts.

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

Post by Anonymous User » Mon Jul 11, 2022 2:31 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Mon Jul 11, 2022 1:15 pm
Some thoughts:

Lol the pearl clutching over the D-appointee feeding predictions is laughable. Realistically, nearly none of these judges will be what one might've considered a classic "feeder" any time soon. Aside from Srinivasan, there are no more feeders on the left given the court's personnel/dynamics. There are quite a lot of largely similar and well respected D-appointed judges on 2/9/DC who know the three liberal justices. They are all competing for a relatively small set of clerkship slots, and will relatively rarely send clerks up. Figure it this way: there are max 14 liberal scotus slots each year if JGR takes 2x liberals. The Chief tends to hire counters from Sutton/Thapar etc or Srinivasan / Livingston for his liberal clerks. So you're back down to 12 or so slots. Kagan will hire at least one from Sri most years I'd imagine, and will probably fill at least one or two of the other spots from the other prominent CADC judges (her class tends to be CADC heavy). So the CA2/9 judges are down to like 8-9 spots again. There are at least 10-15 younger judges who are plausibly feeding to SS/KBJ, I'd be surprised if any of them averages above 1 a year. By the time you account for the increasing focus on demographic diversity, older clerks in academia, less conventional PI applicants amongst those two justices etc there's even more variance. Add in competition from the older senior crowd (Tatel, Fletcher, etc) and the counters from Sutton/Thapar, and you're down to an even smaller number of reliable spots.

That being said, there's absolutely zero evidence that Perez will feed. She has an awful rep afaik, lacks conventional indicators, and is not hiring for scotus credentials at least in her first couple classes. No reason to think she will hurdle those odds--especially when compared to Nathan, Friedland, etc.

The right I think will continue to have real super-feeders, perhaps to a historic degree. I don't think it would be crazy to expect Katsas to feed nearly 4 a year for years. Pryor and Thapar will continue to send their guys. Sutton I think will still send 2+ a year. Oldham will continue to be a really solid feeder I think too. I think beyond that though, there's going to a significant degree of variance as the conservative movement becomes more balkanized and as the students have a ton more agency and bargaining power than ever before given the oversupply of Trumpy judges and undersupply of even plausibly qualified conservative students. They've started self-selecting into tribes, more than focusing on raw feeding, etc. Which has lead to more dispersion of the already limited number of candidates who are both politically/ideologically qualified and have non-embarrassing credentials on the right. So I think the Menashi, Stras, Kethledge, etc. crowd will all be somewhat common feeders, but none will really emerge as terribly predictable feeders if that makes sense.
Agree as well. If you are a moderate liberal who can't get Srinivasan or Pillard, your best bet might be to pair a liberal circuit judge or (preferably) a prestigious district judge with someone like Sutton or Thapar because they can place you with Kavanaugh and the Chief and you still have a shot with the liberal Justices.

On the right, I think only Katsas will send 4 a year but that's because he can just cherrypick the best from the regional courts. He pairs frequently with Thapar and Pryor for example–and those two will get pretty darn close to 4 as well.

EDIT: I would agree with Wilkinson but I think he's aging out and hasn't interacted with his clerks much in last two years because of COVID.

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

Post by Anonymous User » Mon Jul 11, 2022 2:56 pm

If you want a real buy-low type that I think will make some noise in the future with KBJ, notwithstanding the accurate statements posters have made about the scarcity of liberal SCOTUS spots, it's Carlton Reeves.
Last edited by Anonymous User on Mon Jul 11, 2022 2:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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

Post by OPM » Mon Jul 11, 2022 2:56 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Mon Jul 11, 2022 2:29 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Mon Jul 11, 2022 1:15 pm
Some thoughts:

Lol the pearl clutching over the D-appointee feeding predictions is laughable. Realistically, nearly none of these judges will be what one might've considered a classic "feeder" any time soon. Aside from Srinivasan, there are no more feeders on the left given the court's personnel/dynamics. There are quite a lot of largely similar and well respected D-appointed judges on 2/9/DC who know the three liberal justices. They are all competing for a relatively small set of clerkship slots, and will relatively rarely send clerks up. Figure it this way: there are max 14 liberal scotus slots each year if JGR takes 2x liberals. The Chief tends to hire counters from Sutton/Thapar etc or Srinivasan / Livingston for his liberal clerks. So you're back down to 12 or so slots. Kagan will hire at least one from Sri most years I'd imagine, and will probably fill at least one or two of the other spots from the other prominent CADC judges (her class tends to be CADC heavy). So the CA2/9 judges are down to like 8-9 spots again. There are at least 10-15 younger judges who are plausibly feeding to SS/KBJ, I'd be surprised if any of them averages above 1 a year. By the time you account for the increasing focus on demographic diversity, older clerks in academia, less conventional PI applicants amongst those two justices etc there's even more variance. Add in competition from the older senior crowd (Tatel, Fletcher, etc) and the counters from Sutton/Thapar, and you're down to an even smaller number of reliable spots.
This makes an interesting point. With fewer spots at SCOTUS reserved exclusively for liberals, career-minded moderate liberal types with top-but-not-Sri-top grades may target conservative megafeeders like Wilkinson/Sutton/Thapar instead of Biden appointees to open up potential counterclerking spots with Roberts/Kavanaugh/Gorsuch/Barrett. Counterintuitively, that could increase the power of the conservative megafeeders even with some of the liberal justices. Same for liberal judges like Millett who have shown they can feed to the right of Roberts.
I'm the quoted anon (didn't mean to click anon for this). I think it's an interesting point or theory, but I'm skeptical that there are too many mod lib folks who can take full advantage of this path. At least at my school (HYS) all of the conservative feeders relied significantly upon the fedsoc backchannels and a couple of connected right-leaning profs for hiring. If you are not genuinely conservative and not involved with fedsoc, I'm skeptical that most of the conservative feeders would frankly take you. Some mild gop-leaning background characteristics or being from a redder state without any liberal indicators might help with a favorable inference. But the feeder judges on the right are cognizant that the justices generally appear to want clerks who have a discernable and reliable commitment to the conservative movement, and that can be hard to fake these days. Yes, Sutton and to some extent Thapar hire counter clerks, but I think Sutton at least tends to hire very liberal counter clerks in the hope of sending them to the left side of the court; he isn't hiring moderates for those slots afaik. More importantly, even if you could get a conservative feeder to hire you, I think the chances that a justice to Roberts' right--especially after these last few months--would hire a moderate liberal are dwindling. Unless you're willing to commit for years to a faux persona as a legal conservative, I think you would be seen as insufficiently connected to the movement. And even if you did get all of that, I think the career benefits on the left/center of clerking for a justice who joined the Dobbs opinion is pretty minimal (if not negative, tbh) so I'm not sure you wouldn't be better off, certainly for the effort, just taking a reasonable D-appointed circuit clerkship and calling it a day. Most of the liberals I know have given up on scotus lately.

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

Post by Anonymous User » Mon Jul 11, 2022 3:03 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Mon Jul 11, 2022 2:29 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Mon Jul 11, 2022 1:15 pm
Some thoughts:

Lol the pearl clutching over the D-appointee feeding predictions is laughable. Realistically, nearly none of these judges will be what one might've considered a classic "feeder" any time soon. Aside from Srinivasan, there are no more feeders on the left given the court's personnel/dynamics. There are quite a lot of largely similar and well respected D-appointed judges on 2/9/DC who know the three liberal justices. They are all competing for a relatively small set of clerkship slots, and will relatively rarely send clerks up. Figure it this way: there are max 14 liberal scotus slots each year if JGR takes 2x liberals. The Chief tends to hire counters from Sutton/Thapar etc or Srinivasan / Livingston for his liberal clerks. So you're back down to 12 or so slots. Kagan will hire at least one from Sri most years I'd imagine, and will probably fill at least one or two of the other spots from the other prominent CADC judges (her class tends to be CADC heavy). So the CA2/9 judges are down to like 8-9 spots again. There are at least 10-15 younger judges who are plausibly feeding to SS/KBJ, I'd be surprised if any of them averages above 1 a year. By the time you account for the increasing focus on demographic diversity, older clerks in academia, less conventional PI applicants amongst those two justices etc there's even more variance. Add in competition from the older senior crowd (Tatel, Fletcher, etc) and the counters from Sutton/Thapar, and you're down to an even smaller number of reliable spots.
This makes an interesting point. With fewer spots at SCOTUS reserved exclusively for liberals, career-minded moderate liberal types with top-but-not-Sri-top grades may target conservative megafeeders like Wilkinson/Sutton/Thapar instead of Biden appointees to open up potential counterclerking spots with Roberts/Kavanaugh/Gorsuch/Barrett. Counterintuitively, that could increase the power of the conservative megafeeders even with some of the liberal justices. Same for liberal judges like Millett who have shown they can feed to the right of Roberts.
Millett hired a fed soc member who’d clerked for Collins — she’s actively hiring conservatives, not placing moderates with the conservative justices

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

Post by Anonymous User » Mon Jul 11, 2022 3:11 pm

OPM wrote:
Mon Jul 11, 2022 2:56 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Mon Jul 11, 2022 2:29 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Mon Jul 11, 2022 1:15 pm
Some thoughts:

Lol the pearl clutching over the D-appointee feeding predictions is laughable. Realistically, nearly none of these judges will be what one might've considered a classic "feeder" any time soon. Aside from Srinivasan, there are no more feeders on the left given the court's personnel/dynamics. There are quite a lot of largely similar and well respected D-appointed judges on 2/9/DC who know the three liberal justices. They are all competing for a relatively small set of clerkship slots, and will relatively rarely send clerks up. Figure it this way: there are max 14 liberal scotus slots each year if JGR takes 2x liberals. The Chief tends to hire counters from Sutton/Thapar etc or Srinivasan / Livingston for his liberal clerks. So you're back down to 12 or so slots. Kagan will hire at least one from Sri most years I'd imagine, and will probably fill at least one or two of the other spots from the other prominent CADC judges (her class tends to be CADC heavy). So the CA2/9 judges are down to like 8-9 spots again. There are at least 10-15 younger judges who are plausibly feeding to SS/KBJ, I'd be surprised if any of them averages above 1 a year. By the time you account for the increasing focus on demographic diversity, older clerks in academia, less conventional PI applicants amongst those two justices etc there's even more variance. Add in competition from the older senior crowd (Tatel, Fletcher, etc) and the counters from Sutton/Thapar, and you're down to an even smaller number of reliable spots.
This makes an interesting point. With fewer spots at SCOTUS reserved exclusively for liberals, career-minded moderate liberal types with top-but-not-Sri-top grades may target conservative megafeeders like Wilkinson/Sutton/Thapar instead of Biden appointees to open up potential counterclerking spots with Roberts/Kavanaugh/Gorsuch/Barrett. Counterintuitively, that could increase the power of the conservative megafeeders even with some of the liberal justices. Same for liberal judges like Millett who have shown they can feed to the right of Roberts.
I'm the quoted anon (didn't mean to click anon for this). I think it's an interesting point or theory, but I'm skeptical that there are too many mod lib folks who can take full advantage of this path. At least at my school (HYS) all of the conservative feeders relied significantly upon the fedsoc backchannels and a couple of connected right-leaning profs for hiring. If you are not genuinely conservative and not involved with fedsoc, I'm skeptical that most of the conservative feeders would frankly take you. Some mild gop-leaning background characteristics or being from a redder state without any liberal indicators might help with a favorable inference. But the feeder judges on the right are cognizant that the justices generally appear to want clerks who have a discernable and reliable commitment to the conservative movement, and that can be hard to fake these days. Yes, Sutton and to some extent Thapar hire counter clerks, but I think Sutton at least tends to hire very liberal counter clerks in the hope of sending them to the left side of the court; he isn't hiring moderates for those slots afaik. More importantly, even if you could get a conservative feeder to hire you, I think the chances that a justice to Roberts' right--especially after these last few months--would hire a moderate liberal are dwindling. Unless you're willing to commit for years to a faux persona as a legal conservative, I think you would be seen as insufficiently connected to the movement. And even if you did get all of that, I think the career benefits on the left/center of clerking for a justice who joined the Dobbs opinion is pretty minimal (if not negative, tbh) so I'm not sure you wouldn't be better off, certainly for the effort, just taking a reasonable D-appointed circuit clerkship and calling it a day. Most of the liberals I know have given up on scotus lately.
I think there are two questionable statements here. First, I don't think one can fake being a legal conservative in a realistic way. I was very involved with my FedSoc chapter back in the days and we all know who was a member for clerkship/OCI/etc reasons and who was an actual legal conservative (or libertarian). I have significant doubts that a person could hide their true views from their classmates, professors, and judges all with the goal of landing a SCOTUS clerkship.

Second, I highly doubt that clerkship for a conservative would be harmful to the career of someone on the left or center. I suppose that Marc Elias or Planned Parenthood won't be hiring many Thomas/Alito/Gorsuch clerks, but those justices rarely hire liberals anyway. (I bet Indian Law firms on the left would love some Gorsuch clerks though.) I can't imagine any type of centrist group or moderate liberal group would look down on a Kavanaugh clerkship, especially as he is the person those groups need to get. As for private sector firms, I highly doubt any will care which justice someone clerked for. SCOTUS clerkships are still glittery, and firms love them some gold stars.

*Barrett hasn't hired enough clerks yet to make strong determinations, so I left her out of this.

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

Post by Anonymous User » Mon Jul 11, 2022 3:13 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Mon Jul 11, 2022 3:11 pm

I think there are two questionable statements here. First, I don't think one can fake being a legal conservative in a realistic way. I was very involved with my FedSoc chapter back in the days and we all know who was a member for clerkship/OCI/etc reasons and who was an actual legal conservative (or libertarian). I have significant doubts that a person could hide their true views from their classmates, professors, and judges all with the goal of landing a SCOTUS clerkship.

Second, I highly doubt that clerkship for a conservative would be harmful to the career of someone on the left or center. I suppose that Marc Elias or Planned Parenthood won't be hiring many Thomas/Alito/Gorsuch clerks, but those justices rarely hire liberals anyway. (I bet Indian Law firms on the left would love some Gorsuch clerks though.) I can't imagine any type of centrist group or moderate liberal group would look down on a Kavanaugh clerkship, especially as he is the person those groups need to get. As for private sector firms, I highly doubt any will care which justice someone clerked for. SCOTUS clerkships are still glittery, and firms love them some gold stars.

*Barrett hasn't hired enough clerks yet to make strong determinations, so I left her out of this.
John Roberts managed for decades.

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

Post by Anonymous User » Mon Jul 11, 2022 3:31 pm

OPM wrote:
Mon Jul 11, 2022 2:56 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Mon Jul 11, 2022 2:29 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Mon Jul 11, 2022 1:15 pm
Some thoughts:

Lol the pearl clutching over the D-appointee feeding predictions is laughable. Realistically, nearly none of these judges will be what one might've considered a classic "feeder" any time soon. Aside from Srinivasan, there are no more feeders on the left given the court's personnel/dynamics. There are quite a lot of largely similar and well respected D-appointed judges on 2/9/DC who know the three liberal justices. They are all competing for a relatively small set of clerkship slots, and will relatively rarely send clerks up. Figure it this way: there are max 14 liberal scotus slots each year if JGR takes 2x liberals. The Chief tends to hire counters from Sutton/Thapar etc or Srinivasan / Livingston for his liberal clerks. So you're back down to 12 or so slots. Kagan will hire at least one from Sri most years I'd imagine, and will probably fill at least one or two of the other spots from the other prominent CADC judges (her class tends to be CADC heavy). So the CA2/9 judges are down to like 8-9 spots again. There are at least 10-15 younger judges who are plausibly feeding to SS/KBJ, I'd be surprised if any of them averages above 1 a year. By the time you account for the increasing focus on demographic diversity, older clerks in academia, less conventional PI applicants amongst those two justices etc there's even more variance. Add in competition from the older senior crowd (Tatel, Fletcher, etc) and the counters from Sutton/Thapar, and you're down to an even smaller number of reliable spots.
This makes an interesting point. With fewer spots at SCOTUS reserved exclusively for liberals, career-minded moderate liberal types with top-but-not-Sri-top grades may target conservative megafeeders like Wilkinson/Sutton/Thapar instead of Biden appointees to open up potential counterclerking spots with Roberts/Kavanaugh/Gorsuch/Barrett. Counterintuitively, that could increase the power of the conservative megafeeders even with some of the liberal justices. Same for liberal judges like Millett who have shown they can feed to the right of Roberts.
I'm the quoted anon (didn't mean to click anon for this). I think it's an interesting point or theory, but I'm skeptical that there are too many mod lib folks who can take full advantage of this path. At least at my school (HYS) all of the conservative feeders relied significantly upon the fedsoc backchannels and a couple of connected right-leaning profs for hiring. If you are not genuinely conservative and not involved with fedsoc, I'm skeptical that most of the conservative feeders would frankly take you. Some mild gop-leaning background characteristics or being from a redder state without any liberal indicators might help with a favorable inference. But the feeder judges on the right are cognizant that the justices generally appear to want clerks who have a discernable and reliable commitment to the conservative movement, and that can be hard to fake these days. Yes, Sutton and to some extent Thapar hire counter clerks, but I think Sutton at least tends to hire very liberal counter clerks in the hope of sending them to the left side of the court; he isn't hiring moderates for those slots afaik. More importantly, even if you could get a conservative feeder to hire you, I think the chances that a justice to Roberts' right--especially after these last few months--would hire a moderate liberal are dwindling. Unless you're willing to commit for years to a faux persona as a legal conservative, I think you would be seen as insufficiently connected to the movement. And even if you did get all of that, I think the career benefits on the left/center of clerking for a justice who joined the Dobbs opinion is pretty minimal (if not negative, tbh) so I'm not sure you wouldn't be better off, certainly for the effort, just taking a reasonable D-appointed circuit clerkship and calling it a day. Most of the liberals I know have given up on scotus lately.
I think we mostly agree. Only a dozen or so FedSoc feeders even hire counterclerks, although, frankly, I doubt liberals would want to work for the others anyways. Of those who do, most, at least in my experience, prefer Hillary Democrats to lefty hardliners. You'll still see a rare Leah Litman, but it's rare. As for SCOTUS, no one clerks for any conservative justice without a trusted vouch. Those often come from the big FedSoc profs, but they can also come from unusual places. At YLS, for example, Bill Eskridge has an open line with several conservative justices. I assume the same is true elsewhere. Whether any of this is worth it for the clerk is an altogether different story. Maybe not for most, but Dobbs will eventually slip out of the news cycle whereas $500,000 is, well, $500,000.

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

Post by Anonymous User » Mon Jul 11, 2022 9:12 pm

OPM wrote:
Mon Jul 11, 2022 2:56 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Mon Jul 11, 2022 2:29 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Mon Jul 11, 2022 1:15 pm
Some thoughts:

Lol the pearl clutching over the D-appointee feeding predictions is laughable. Realistically, nearly none of these judges will be what one might've considered a classic "feeder" any time soon. Aside from Srinivasan, there are no more feeders on the left given the court's personnel/dynamics. There are quite a lot of largely similar and well respected D-appointed judges on 2/9/DC who know the three liberal justices. They are all competing for a relatively small set of clerkship slots, and will relatively rarely send clerks up. Figure it this way: there are max 14 liberal scotus slots each year if JGR takes 2x liberals. The Chief tends to hire counters from Sutton/Thapar etc or Srinivasan / Livingston for his liberal clerks. So you're back down to 12 or so slots. Kagan will hire at least one from Sri most years I'd imagine, and will probably fill at least one or two of the other spots from the other prominent CADC judges (her class tends to be CADC heavy). So the CA2/9 judges are down to like 8-9 spots again. There are at least 10-15 younger judges who are plausibly feeding to SS/KBJ, I'd be surprised if any of them averages above 1 a year. By the time you account for the increasing focus on demographic diversity, older clerks in academia, less conventional PI applicants amongst those two justices etc there's even more variance. Add in competition from the older senior crowd (Tatel, Fletcher, etc) and the counters from Sutton/Thapar, and you're down to an even smaller number of reliable spots.
This makes an interesting point. With fewer spots at SCOTUS reserved exclusively for liberals, career-minded moderate liberal types with top-but-not-Sri-top grades may target conservative megafeeders like Wilkinson/Sutton/Thapar instead of Biden appointees to open up potential counterclerking spots with Roberts/Kavanaugh/Gorsuch/Barrett. Counterintuitively, that could increase the power of the conservative megafeeders even with some of the liberal justices. Same for liberal judges like Millett who have shown they can feed to the right of Roberts.
I'm the quoted anon (didn't mean to click anon for this). I think it's an interesting point or theory, but I'm skeptical that there are too many mod lib folks who can take full advantage of this path. At least at my school (HYS) all of the conservative feeders relied significantly upon the fedsoc backchannels and a couple of connected right-leaning profs for hiring. If you are not genuinely conservative and not involved with fedsoc, I'm skeptical that most of the conservative feeders would frankly take you. Some mild gop-leaning background characteristics or being from a redder state without any liberal indicators might help with a favorable inference. But the feeder judges on the right are cognizant that the justices generally appear to want clerks who have a discernable and reliable commitment to the conservative movement, and that can be hard to fake these days. Yes, Sutton and to some extent Thapar hire counter clerks, but I think Sutton at least tends to hire very liberal counter clerks in the hope of sending them to the left side of the court; he isn't hiring moderates for those slots afaik. More importantly, even if you could get a conservative feeder to hire you, I think the chances that a justice to Roberts' right--especially after these last few months--would hire a moderate liberal are dwindling. Unless you're willing to commit for years to a faux persona as a legal conservative, I think you would be seen as insufficiently connected to the movement. And even if you did get all of that, I think the career benefits on the left/center of clerking for a justice who joined the Dobbs opinion is pretty minimal (if not negative, tbh) so I'm not sure you wouldn't be better off, certainly for the effort, just taking a reasonable D-appointed circuit clerkship and calling it a day. Most of the liberals I know have given up on scotus lately.
There are a ton of liberals clerking for conservative semi-feeders—the ones who don’t hire liberals are a minority I’d guess—but I don’t think we’ve seen any evidence that they’ll be competitive for SCOTUS beyond Sutton and Thapar (who fed repeatedly to SS in his district court days).

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

Post by Anonymous User » Mon Jul 11, 2022 9:16 pm

OPM wrote:
Mon Jul 11, 2022 2:56 pm
And even if you did get all of that, I think the career benefits on the left/center of clerking for a justice who joined the Dobbs opinion is pretty minimal (if not negative, tbh) so I'm not sure you wouldn't be better off, certainly for the effort, just taking a reasonable D-appointed circuit clerkship and calling it a day. Most of the liberals I know have given up on scotus lately.
Maybe if you want to work in the lefty nonprofit space (somewhere Gorsuch or Kavanaugh counterclerks aren't likely to go anyway), but definitely not in academia or private practice

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

Post by Anonymous User » Mon Jul 11, 2022 9:30 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Mon Jul 11, 2022 3:31 pm
Only a dozen or so FedSoc feeders even hire counterclerks, although, frankly, I doubt liberals would want to work for the others anyways. Of those who do, most, at least in my experience, prefer Hillary Democrats to lefty hardliners.
You must be defining "feeder" broadly if you're counting to a dozen, and if you are, I don't think this is right. Working down the feeder spreadsheet, Sutton, Thapar, Wilkinson, Livingston, Bibas, Carnes, Hardiman, Cabranes, Colloton, Easterbrook, Scirica, Collins, Ikuta, Park, Stras, Sullivan, Tjoflat, Richardson have hired liberals at least somewhat recently to my knowledge. Some hire liberals every year.

On the other hand, Pryor, Katsas, O'Scannlain, Sykes, Oldham, Rao, Jones, Smith, Silberman, Bress, Bush, Menashi, Walker do not to my knowledge. No idea on the ones I missed, most notably Kethledge, Larsen, and Grant, but regardless I think an absolute majority of Fed Soc judges who have fed since 2016 hire some liberals. I'm sure some prefer Fed Soc but can't reliably pull top classes of four Fed Soc students, some are pretty ideology-agnostic (e.g. Bibas), and some deliberately hire counter-clerks (e.g. Sutton).

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

Post by Anonymous User » Mon Jul 11, 2022 10:44 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Mon Jul 11, 2022 9:30 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Mon Jul 11, 2022 3:31 pm
Only a dozen or so FedSoc feeders even hire counterclerks, although, frankly, I doubt liberals would want to work for the others anyways. Of those who do, most, at least in my experience, prefer Hillary Democrats to lefty hardliners.
You must be defining "feeder" broadly if you're counting to a dozen, and if you are, I don't think this is right. Working down the feeder spreadsheet, Sutton, Thapar, Wilkinson, Livingston, Bibas, Carnes, Hardiman, Cabranes, Colloton, Easterbrook, Scirica, Collins, Ikuta, Park, Stras, Sullivan, Tjoflat, Richardson have hired liberals at least somewhat recently to my knowledge. Some hire liberals every year.

On the other hand, Pryor, Katsas, O'Scannlain, Sykes, Oldham, Rao, Jones, Smith, Silberman, Bress, Bush, Menashi, Walker do not to my knowledge. No idea on the ones I missed, most notably Kethledge, Larsen, and Grant, but regardless I think an absolute majority of Fed Soc judges who have fed since 2016 hire some liberals. I'm sure some prefer Fed Soc but can't reliably pull top classes of four Fed Soc students, some are pretty ideology-agnostic (e.g. Bibas), and some deliberately hire counter-clerks (e.g. Sutton).
It depends on how you define "counterclerk." I know several clerks for one of the "non-counterclerk" judges you mentioned that have hired bleeding heart liberals. But you still have to believe that the best way to interpret text is original public meaning.

Acceptable: abortion is great, medicare for all is needed, and prison is a human rights tragedy
Unacceptable: any of those things are constitutionally mandated.

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

Post by Anonymous User » Mon Jul 11, 2022 10:45 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Mon Jul 11, 2022 10:44 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Mon Jul 11, 2022 9:30 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Mon Jul 11, 2022 3:31 pm
Only a dozen or so FedSoc feeders even hire counterclerks, although, frankly, I doubt liberals would want to work for the others anyways. Of those who do, most, at least in my experience, prefer Hillary Democrats to lefty hardliners.
You must be defining "feeder" broadly if you're counting to a dozen, and if you are, I don't think this is right. Working down the feeder spreadsheet, Sutton, Thapar, Wilkinson, Livingston, Bibas, Carnes, Hardiman, Cabranes, Colloton, Easterbrook, Scirica, Collins, Ikuta, Park, Stras, Sullivan, Tjoflat, Richardson have hired liberals at least somewhat recently to my knowledge. Some hire liberals every year.

On the other hand, Pryor, Katsas, O'Scannlain, Sykes, Oldham, Rao, Jones, Smith, Silberman, Bress, Bush, Menashi, Walker do not to my knowledge. No idea on the ones I missed, most notably Kethledge, Larsen, and Grant, but regardless I think an absolute majority of Fed Soc judges who have fed since 2016 hire some liberals. I'm sure some prefer Fed Soc but can't reliably pull top classes of four Fed Soc students, some are pretty ideology-agnostic (e.g. Bibas), and some deliberately hire counter-clerks (e.g. Sutton).
It depends on how you define "counterclerk." I know several clerks for one of the "non-counterclerk" judges you mentioned that have hired bleeding heart liberals. But you still have to believe that the best way to interpret text is original public meaning.

Acceptable: abortion is great, medicare for all is needed, and prison is a human rights tragedy
Unacceptable: any of those things are constitutionally mandated.
Makes sense, also I just remembered that Sykes shouldn't be on the latter because she hired Evan Bernick, which is at least one lefty (though obviously an originalist one)

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