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

[Anonymous User]

What do we think the feeding potential of the new big Biden noms, like Nathan or Heytens will be?

Perez will be a feeder in time.

Doubtful. Nathan will continue to be one and may become more of a feeder than previously IMO.

Why would Perez be a feeder? Her class at Columbia doesn’t attract a full contingent of students and she doesn’t have any close connections to the current justices.

Livingston isn’t really a liberal feeder either, she primarily feeds to Roberts because they like the same type of clerk - summa or close to summa HLS/Yale students. I’d also reckon she prefers to hire moderate conservatives ceteris paribus.

Feeding has less to do with the politics of the judge/clerk and more to do with the judge's relationships with the justices. Sotomayor has hired from Livingston (a moderate conservative) but never Srinivasan (a moderate liberal); Kavanaugh has hired from Srinivasan but never Livingston. When the other poster said "liberal feeder," I assume they meant "a judge with ties to the liberal justices."

[Anonymous User]

I think it’s become very hard for even the top liberal judges to feed consistently, but I think all of Heytens, Nathan, Perez, and Rodriguez will feed at least occasionally. (Regarding Perez, she’s in New York, presumably well-connected in the nonprofit world, and I’ve heard very good initial impressions from the CA2 world. I don’t think her CLS class is relevant at all to her feeding potential.)

Going forward, besides Boasberg and Srinivasan, most liberal feeders will probably be closer to the level of semi-feeder conservatives, though.

[Anonymous User]

Yeah that Livingston comment was weird. Guessing an ultra-FedSoccer made it or just someone who doesn’t know this stuff. Also on Nathan…I would be surprised if her elevation even has her matching the feeds of the lib feeders on SDNY.

Anyways, let’s play a parlor game: how do we rank Heytens, Pan, and Bloomekatz in terms of projected feedability?

[Anonymous User]

Yeah that Livingston comment was weird. Guessing an ultra-FedSoccer made it or just someone who doesn’t know this stuff. Also on Nathan…I would be surprised if her elevation even has her matching the feeds of the lib feeders on SDNY.

Anyways, let’s play a parlor game: how do we rank Heytens, Pan, and Bloomekatz in terms of projected feedability?

Bloomekatz will probably be hurt because many liberal applicants from HYS are lifelong coastal types who want to be in California or the Northeast. That’s part of why judges like Costa, K. Ellison, Hamilton, A. Jordan, Kelly, and S. Thomas rarely (if ever) feed despite having very strong backgrounds and reputations. There hasn’t been a non-coastal liberal feeder who’s not in Chicago (Feinerman, sort-of Posner) in quite some time unless I’m forgetting someone.

[Anonymous User]

Livingston is a moderate conservative who surely hires conservatives when she can. But I wouldn't be surprised if her strongest clerks year in, year out are liberals now for two entwined reasons. First, she hires liberals with the same strong credentials she'll demand from conservatives and two, she's down the totem pole for a very strong conservative who has other options. If you're one of the top conservatives in the country, you look to a Thapar or a Pryor before you look to Livingston (if she's even hiring as early as they are). There are, of course, exceptions and her standards are so high that any conservative clerking for her is automatically within the grade range to clerk for any of the Justices. But I'd suspect that her most likely feeds in a given year are liberals even if they'll end up clerking for someone like Chief Justice Roberts.

[Anonymous User]

Yeah that Livingston comment was weird. Guessing an ultra-FedSoccer made it or just someone who doesn’t know this stuff. Also on Nathan…I would be surprised if her elevation even has her matching the feeds of the lib feeders on SDNY.

Anyways, let’s play a parlor game: how do we rank Heytens, Pan, and Bloomekatz in terms of projected feedability?

I think Nathan will feed more now because she and KBJ are friends.

[Anonymous User]

At my T14 the career office and clerkship committee are aggressively pushing clerkships. What's interesting is that the people that would probably have the greatest shot at a competitive COA clerkship with a feeder judge (e.g. maybe not top of class but at least LR, moot court, very interesting CVs and acadmic backgrounds and charisma) seem to be the least interested in clerking and actually more inclined to just do BL or something very niche like leaving the law to do a health startup. I know personally that the clerkship committee has hounded some of these people to apply to clerkships, leaving those of us with less stellar credentials but a greater desire to clerkship to grovel at its feet. It's hard out here, but I am interested in seeing how common this is elsewhere.

[Anonymous User]

At my T14 the career office and clerkship committee are aggressively pushing clerkships. What's interesting is that the people that would probably have the greatest shot at a competitive COA clerkship with a feeder judge (e.g. maybe not top of class but at least LR, moot court, very interesting CVs and acadmic backgrounds and charisma) seem to be the least interested in clerking and actually more inclined to just do BL or something very niche like leaving the law to do a health startup. I know personally that the clerkship committee has hounded some of these people to apply to clerkships, leaving those of us with less stellar credentials but a greater desire to clerkship to grovel at its feet. It's hard out here, but I am interested in seeing how common this is elsewhere.

This strikes me as probably the case at several T14s. Also some schools just have stronger "clerkship cultures" than others, which is really illustrated if you compare Chicago and Columbia. One of my co-clerks during my Court of Appeals clerkship was someone who graduated top of the class at Chicago. She said that virtually everyone who is competitive for a clerkship at Chicago applies for and ultimately gets a clerkship, and no one really interrogates why they want to clerk, it's just sort of "what you do". She herself was went on to do transactional work and openly admits that her clerking experience was mostly irrelevant to her ultimate law career. At Columbia on the other hand, the clerkship culture is relatively weak. The students not interested in litigation don't bother with clerkships regardless of whether they are competitive for them and most of the students prefer to take biglaw jobs in big cities rather than take the more get-able flyover country clerkships, which serves to depress the clerkship numbers at that school.

[Anonymous User]

At my T14 the career office and clerkship committee are aggressively pushing clerkships. What's interesting is that the people that would probably have the greatest shot at a competitive COA clerkship with a feeder judge (e.g. maybe not top of class but at least LR, moot court, very interesting CVs and acadmic backgrounds and charisma) seem to be the least interested in clerking and actually more inclined to just do BL or something very niche like leaving the law to do a health startup. I know personally that the clerkship committee has hounded some of these people to apply to clerkships, leaving those of us with less stellar credentials but a greater desire to clerkship to grovel at its feet. It's hard out here, but I am interested in seeing how common this is elsewhere.

This strikes me as probably the case at several T14s. Also some schools just have stronger "clerkship cultures" than others, which is really illustrated if you compare Chicago and Columbia. One of my co-clerks during my Court of Appeals clerkship was someone who graduated top of the class at Chicago. She said that virtually everyone who is competitive for a clerkship at Chicago applies for and ultimately gets a clerkship, and no one really interrogates why they want to clerk, it's just sort of "what you do". She herself was went on to do transactional work and openly admits that her clerking experience was mostly irrelevant to her ultimate law career. At Columbia on the other hand, the clerkship culture is relatively weak. The students not interested in litigation don't bother with clerkships regardless of whether they are competitive for them and most of the students prefer to take biglaw jobs in big cities rather than take the more get-able flyover country clerkships, which serves to depress the clerkship numbers at that school.

This 100%. Also, the previous poster mentioned clerkship committees, and I have never even heard a peep from the one at CLS. In fact, I am not sure if it really exists. The difference between CLS and UChicago is perhaps the best illustration of how much clerkship culture matters for top-end clerkship placements and whatnot.

[Anonymous User]

At my T14 the career office and clerkship committee are aggressively pushing clerkships. What's interesting is that the people that would probably have the greatest shot at a competitive COA clerkship with a feeder judge (e.g. maybe not top of class but at least LR, moot court, very interesting CVs and acadmic backgrounds and charisma) seem to be the least interested in clerking and actually more inclined to just do BL or something very niche like leaving the law to do a health startup. I know personally that the clerkship committee has hounded some of these people to apply to clerkships, leaving those of us with less stellar credentials but a greater desire to clerkship to grovel at its feet. It's hard out here, but I am interested in seeing how common this is elsewhere.

This strikes me as probably the case at several T14s. Also some schools just have stronger "clerkship cultures" than others, which is really illustrated if you compare Chicago and Columbia. One of my co-clerks during my Court of Appeals clerkship was someone who graduated top of the class at Chicago. She said that virtually everyone who is competitive for a clerkship at Chicago applies for and ultimately gets a clerkship, and no one really interrogates why they want to clerk, it's just sort of "what you do". She herself was went on to do transactional work and openly admits that her clerking experience was mostly irrelevant to her ultimate law career. At Columbia on the other hand, the clerkship culture is relatively weak. The students not interested in litigation don't bother with clerkships regardless of whether they are competitive for them and most of the students prefer to take biglaw jobs in big cities rather than take the more get-able flyover country clerkships, which serves to depress the clerkship numbers at that school.

This 100%. Also, the previous poster mentioned clerkship committees, and I have never even heard a peep from the one at CLS. In fact, I am not sure if it really exists. The difference between CLS and UChicago is perhaps the best illustration of how much clerkship culture matters for top-end clerkship placements and whatnot.

To be fair, at least at Chicago, the clerkship committee exists primarily to get the top students clerkships. I think the talk about clerkship help to Chicago students is pretty overblown. Unless you are near the top, the committee as a whole will not really do much for you to get a clerkship. They may talk to you broadly about clerking, but the resources on this site can be just as, if not more, informative than the committee. But if you are at the top, they will move mountains for you to be successful.

[Anonymous User]

At my T14 the career office and clerkship committee are aggressively pushing clerkships. What's interesting is that the people that would probably have the greatest shot at a competitive COA clerkship with a feeder judge (e.g. maybe not top of class but at least LR, moot court, very interesting CVs and acadmic backgrounds and charisma) seem to be the least interested in clerking and actually more inclined to just do BL or something very niche like leaving the law to do a health startup. I know personally that the clerkship committee has hounded some of these people to apply to clerkships, leaving those of us with less stellar credentials but a greater desire to clerkship to grovel at its feet. It's hard out here, but I am interested in seeing how common this is elsewhere.

This strikes me as probably the case at several T14s. Also some schools just have stronger "clerkship cultures" than others, which is really illustrated if you compare Chicago and Columbia. One of my co-clerks during my Court of Appeals clerkship was someone who graduated top of the class at Chicago. She said that virtually everyone who is competitive for a clerkship at Chicago applies for and ultimately gets a clerkship, and no one really interrogates why they want to clerk, it's just sort of "what you do". She herself was went on to do transactional work and openly admits that her clerking experience was mostly irrelevant to her ultimate law career. At Columbia on the other hand, the clerkship culture is relatively weak. The students not interested in litigation don't bother with clerkships regardless of whether they are competitive for them and most of the students prefer to take biglaw jobs in big cities rather than take the more get-able flyover country clerkships, which serves to depress the clerkship numbers at that school.

This 100%. Also, the previous poster mentioned clerkship committees, and I have never even heard a peep from the one at CLS. In fact, I am not sure if it really exists. The difference between CLS and UChicago is perhaps the best illustration of how much clerkship culture matters for top-end clerkship placements and whatnot.

To be fair, at least at Chicago, the clerkship committee exists primarily to get the top students clerkships. I think the talk about clerkship help to Chicago students is pretty overblown. Unless you are near the top, the committee as a whole will not really do much for you to get a clerkship. They may talk to you broadly about clerking, but the resources on this site can be just as, if not more, informative than the committee. But if you are at the top, they will move mountains for you to be successful.

The committee at Chicago does a lot behind the scenes. I didn’t even realize they’d made calls for me before I got hired and my judge mentioned it. But at Chicago having a recommender who is deeply invested in the clerkship process is also really helpful and there are a lot of them—Masur, Strahilevitz, Dean Miles, Nou, Rappaport, Mortara, Lakier, Strauss, Stone, formerly Hemel, etc. And because of the small student body most students will have at least one top recommender.

[Anonymous User]

To be fair, at least at Chicago, the clerkship committee exists primarily to get the top students clerkships. I think the talk about clerkship help to Chicago students is pretty overblown. Unless you are near the top, the committee as a whole will not really do much for you to get a clerkship. They may talk to you broadly about clerking, but the resources on this site can be just as, if not more, informative than the committee. But if you are at the top, they will move mountains for you to be successful.

The committee at Chicago does a lot behind the scenes. I didn’t even realize they’d made calls for me before I got hired and my judge mentioned it. But at Chicago having a recommender who is deeply invested in the clerkship process is also really helpful and there are a lot of them—Masur, Strahilevitz, Dean Miles, Nou, Rappaport, Mortara, Lakier, Strauss, Stone, formerly Hemel, etc. And because of the small student body most students will have at least one top recommender.

Similar for me. I was nonhonors, but I found out a few calls were made on my behalf, and I had a strong recommender. I'm not with feeders and am in flyover land, though in cities. The clerkship application operation seemed pretty smooth from my vantage point, once I had my materials ready. It was simply a matter of adding judges to my list as I saw openings.

[Anonymous User]

Which feeders are the most willing to take a chance on someone with suboptimal grades?

[Anonymous User]

Which feeders are the most willing to take a chance on someone with suboptimal grades?

How bad are we talking? And what's your school ranking band?

[Anonymous User]

Which feeders are the most willing to take a chance on someone with suboptimal grades?

I mean, the answer is sort of the conservative ones who hire super early, who decide to risk getting clerks with less optimal grades, but that’s not really what you mean. Lohier emphasizes URM hiring a lot which means he can be a bit more flexible on grades than you’d expect. Or many will bend for people with connections that make them especially likely to go to SCOTUS, especially judges’ and law professors’ kids.

[Anonymous User]

Which feeders are the most willing to take a chance on someone with suboptimal grades?

Look for the feeders who hire the HLS cum laude but not magna cum laude folks. These are people who were not top 10% at HLS but were somewhere within the top 40%. For example, Engelmayer, Pillard, and Sotomayor hired this person: https://law.tulane.edu/news/tulane-law- ... 0in%202023..

[Anonymous User]

Which feeders are the most willing to take a chance on someone with suboptimal grades?

Look for the feeders who hire the HLS cum laude but not magna cum laude folks. These are people who were not top 10% at HLS but were somewhere within the top 40%. For example, Engelmayer, Pillard, and Sotomayor hired this person: https://law.tulane.edu/news/tulane-law- ... 0in%202023..

HLS cum laude is top 30% excluding 10%.

[Anonymous User]

Which feeders are the most willing to take a chance on someone with suboptimal grades?

Look for the feeders who hire the HLS cum laude but not magna cum laude folks. These are people who were not top 10% at HLS but were somewhere within the top 40%. For example, Engelmayer, Pillard, and Sotomayor hired this person: https://law.tulane.edu/news/tulane-law- ... 0in%202023..

HLS cum laude is top 30% excluding 10%.

Page 37 of the handbook describes cum laude as the *next* 30% after magna cum laude, which would be top 40% but not top 10%, no?

https://hls.harvard.edu/content/uploads ... LS_HAP.pdf

[Anonymous User]

Which feeders are the most willing to take a chance on someone with suboptimal grades?

Look for the feeders who hire the HLS cum laude but not magna cum laude folks. These are people who were not top 10% at HLS but were somewhere within the top 40%. For example, Engelmayer, Pillard, and Sotomayor hired this person: https://law.tulane.edu/news/tulane-law- ... 0in%202023..

HLS cum laude is top 30% excluding 10%.

Page 37 of the handbook describes cum laude as the *next* 30% after magna cum laude, which would be top 40% but not top 10%, no?

https://hls.harvard.edu/content/uploads ... LS_HAP.pdf

I think you are right. My bad. My eyes glazed over the text and thought it was like a lot of the other latin honors of other schools.

If that's the case, that's a pretty damn big range.

[Anonymous User]

Which feeders are the most willing to take a chance on someone with suboptimal grades?

Look for the feeders who hire the HLS cum laude but not magna cum laude folks. These are people who were not top 10% at HLS but were somewhere within the top 40%. For example, Engelmayer, Pillard, and Sotomayor hired this person: https://law.tulane.edu/news/tulane-law- ... 0in%202023..

HLS cum laude is top 30% excluding 10%.

Page 37 of the handbook describes cum laude as the *next* 30% after magna cum laude, which would be top 40% but not top 10%, no?

https://hls.harvard.edu/content/uploads ... LS_HAP.pdf

I think you are right. My bad. My eyes glazed over the text and thought it was like a lot of the other latin honors of other schools.

If that's the case, that's a pretty damn big range.

Indeed, it inadvertently hurts the bottom 60% of the class because lack of Latin honors confirms that someone was basically median (or worse). Then again, at the end of the day it’s still Harvard, so…

[Anonymous User]

Which feeders are the most willing to take a chance on someone with suboptimal grades?

How bad are we talking? And what's your school ranking band?

Cum laude (higher end) at HLS but not an URM or a woman. Moderate who could clerk on either side

[OPM]

Which feeders are the most willing to take a chance on someone with suboptimal grades?

How bad are we talking? And what's your school ranking band?

Cum laude (higher end) at HLS but not an URM or a woman. Moderate who could clerk on either side

Fwiw I got hired by a feeder with this profile, albeit with good recs and on plan before I narrowly missed magna. But I know of several cum laude people with feeder and 2/9/DC COA clerkships. The big factor is recs / writing though.

[Anonymous User]

Looking at these ratings, I’m curious about Millett. She seems to have all the usual markers of a feeder (hot-shot SCOTUS litigator, DC Cir) and has a reputation of working her clerks really hard, but doesn’t feed at a high rate.

Is that a red flag that she doesn’t look out for her clerks?

[Anonymous User]

Looking at these ratings, I’m curious about Millett. She seems to have all the usual markers of a feeder (hot-shot SCOTUS litigator, DC Cir) and has a reputation of working her clerks really hard, but doesn’t feed at a high rate.

Is that a red flag that she doesn’t look out for her clerks?

The recent terms have marked an uptick for her feeding actually—this criticism was more common earlier when she hadn’t fed / only had 1-2. She seems to be taking more counters / libs who are open to being counters, which may be coincidence or a conscious choice, but it has led to more feeds on this current Court.

[Anonymous User]

Looking at these ratings, I’m curious about Millett. She seems to have all the usual markers of a feeder (hot-shot SCOTUS litigator, DC Cir) and has a reputation of working her clerks really hard, but doesn’t feed at a high rate.

Is that a red flag that she doesn’t look out for her clerks?

I think she does help her clerks and try get them ahead. But the year with her is brutal. As close as I’ve seen and heard to someone like Reinhardt. I would never personally clerk for her and subject myself to that.