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

[Anonymous User]

A bunch more just came out from David Lat.

HLS --> Srinivasan/Boasberg --> Roberts
HLS --> Livingston/Friederich --> Roberts
YLS --> D. Motz --> Sotomayor (first recent feed?)
YLS --> Fletcher/K. Ellison --> Sotomayor (probably the first recent feed for Ellison)
SLS --> Sutton --> Gorsuch
HLS --> Collins/Millett --> Kavanaugh (first feed for Collins)
SLS --> Boasberg/Srinivasan --> Kavanaugh
GULC -->McFadden/Grant/Ambro --> Kavanaugh (another feed for McFadden and Grant, probably the first in a while for Ambro)
YLS --> Katsas/Friederich --> Kavanaugh
UVA --> Wilkinson/Friederich --> Kavanaugh
Chi --> T. Lee/Sutton --> Kennedy (I'm pretty sure this is Judge Nielson's kid, and they graduated without honors, so Kennedy getting clerkships for his buddies continues... Also a SSC feed.)

Other notes: Kavanaugh is hiring ridiculously far out, old habits die hard. Tons of feeds for DDC judges (Boasberg, Friederich, McFadden) and none from SDNY in this batch.

You also missed HLS --> Sutton --> Thomas

Add another UChicago —> E. Jones/Rao —> Alito too

And that's a second one this term who graduated from UChicago without honors--outside of the top ~30% of the class--to clerk on SCOTUS. He also wasn't on LR and had only a 3.8 in UG at Hillsdale. The political selectivity gap is going to get huge.

I wouldn't make so much of these hires. One of these two was the daughter of a prominent judge (himself a Kennedy clerk), and the other is an experienced lawyer with strong ties to the conservative legal establishment. I graduated from a H/Y/S school, and my year alone my school had two liberal SCOTUS clerks from outside the top 30%. (Both, unsurprisingly, were well-connected). The moral of the story: SCOTUS hiring, like life, is all about relationships.

He's a transfer from OSU Law School, explaining the comparatively "low" UG grades, and not being on Law Review -- if UChicago is anything like my T-14, you would have to do the write-on process before finding out if your transfer application was accepted. In any case, he's 5 years out of law school, I seriously doubt Alito particularly cared about his grades compared to recommendations from his judges and C. Boyden Gray.

[Anonymous User]

And that's a second one this term who graduated from UChicago without honors--outside of the top ~30% of the class--to clerk on SCOTUS. He also wasn't on LR and had only a 3.8 in UG at Hillsdale. The political selectivity gap is going to get huge.

It's interesting. And you're probably right about political selectivity. As someone with similar stats from a T6 and two clerkships (though obviously not SCOTUS), part of me welcomes this. Grades are good indicator of intelligence, work ethic, etc. But they are just proxies. There are plenty of highly intelligent people who for whatever reason didn't care that much to get 4.0s or be top of class or do things like law review because "that's what you do." (I didn't do law review because it seemed like a pure rat race and I chose to spend my time in other ways.) For many employers, not caring about those traditional markers of excellence will be a dealbreaker (understandably). Others may overlook those traditional shortcomings because the person is actually brilliant/insightful according to everyone who has worked with them or seen their work. FWIW, this Chicago clerk did win a brief writing excellence award.

IME and I'm sure many others have noticed, often there are really smart peers who hover around 3.7s in UG or decent, not great law school grades. Conversely, there are many 4.0s and magnas who aren't particularly smart, they just work hard and play the game. So it's nice to sometimes see people with no honors or non-sterling UG records rise to the top.

I generally agree with this. The smartest person I know at my T6 has decent but not great grades. I have no doubt they would be an outstanding clerk. If Judges Jones and Rao called up Alito and said "hey, this guy was a terrific clerk" I can see why he would get hired even without the insane academic credentials we often see from SCOTUS clerks.

Though remember that a student like this would likely not be competitive for any federal appellate clerkship, let alone two with judges with track records at SCOTUS, without the Fed Soc/Burke Society line on their resume. Connections obviously matter a ton for hiring but who gets what connections has a political slant as well.

[Anonymous User]

And that's a second one this term who graduated from UChicago without honors--outside of the top ~30% of the class--to clerk on SCOTUS. He also wasn't on LR and had only a 3.8 in UG at Hillsdale. The political selectivity gap is going to get huge.

It's interesting. And you're probably right about political selectivity. As someone with similar stats from a T6 and two clerkships (though obviously not SCOTUS), part of me welcomes this. Grades are good indicator of intelligence, work ethic, etc. But they are just proxies. There are plenty of highly intelligent people who for whatever reason didn't care that much to get 4.0s or be top of class or do things like law review because "that's what you do." (I didn't do law review because it seemed like a pure rat race and I chose to spend my time in other ways.) For many employers, not caring about those traditional markers of excellence will be a dealbreaker (understandably). Others may overlook those traditional shortcomings because the person is actually brilliant/insightful according to everyone who has worked with them or seen their work. FWIW, this Chicago clerk did win a brief writing excellence award.

IME and I'm sure many others have noticed, often there are really smart peers who hover around 3.7s in UG or decent, not great law school grades. Conversely, there are many 4.0s and magnas who aren't particularly smart, they just work hard and play the game. So it's nice to sometimes see people with no honors or non-sterling UG records rise to the top.

I generally agree with this. The smartest person I know at my T6 has decent but not great grades. I have no doubt they would be an outstanding clerk. If Judges Jones and Rao called up Alito and said "hey, this guy was a terrific clerk" I can see why he would get hired even without the insane academic credentials we often see from SCOTUS clerks.

Though remember that a student like this would likely not be competitive for any federal appellate clerkship, let alone two with judges with track records at SCOTUS, without the Fed Soc/Burke Society line on their resume. Connections obviously matter a ton for hiring but who gets what connections has a political slant as well.

This is absolutely false. Many liberals get federal COA clerkships with similar or worse grades. I know dozens personally. More than a few of them have gone on to SCOTUS, too. Yes, liberals outnumber conservatives. Yes, that makes it easier, holding everything else equal, for conservatives to get clerkships. But the suggestion that SCOTUS is hiring clerks who wouldn't get a federal COA clerkship without FedSoc is laughable.

[Anonymous User]

And that's a second one this term who graduated from UChicago without honors--outside of the top ~30% of the class--to clerk on SCOTUS. He also wasn't on LR and had only a 3.8 in UG at Hillsdale. The political selectivity gap is going to get huge.

It's interesting. And you're probably right about political selectivity. As someone with similar stats from a T6 and two clerkships (though obviously not SCOTUS), part of me welcomes this. Grades are good indicator of intelligence, work ethic, etc. But they are just proxies. There are plenty of highly intelligent people who for whatever reason didn't care that much to get 4.0s or be top of class or do things like law review because "that's what you do." (I didn't do law review because it seemed like a pure rat race and I chose to spend my time in other ways.) For many employers, not caring about those traditional markers of excellence will be a dealbreaker (understandably). Others may overlook those traditional shortcomings because the person is actually brilliant/insightful according to everyone who has worked with them or seen their work. FWIW, this Chicago clerk did win a brief writing excellence award.

IME and I'm sure many others have noticed, often there are really smart peers who hover around 3.7s in UG or decent, not great law school grades. Conversely, there are many 4.0s and magnas who aren't particularly smart, they just work hard and play the game. So it's nice to sometimes see people with no honors or non-sterling UG records rise to the top.

I generally agree with this. The smartest person I know at my T6 has decent but not great grades. I have no doubt they would be an outstanding clerk. If Judges Jones and Rao called up Alito and said "hey, this guy was a terrific clerk" I can see why he would get hired even without the insane academic credentials we often see from SCOTUS clerks.

Though remember that a student like this would likely not be competitive for any federal appellate clerkship, let alone two with judges with track records at SCOTUS, without the Fed Soc/Burke Society line on their resume. Connections obviously matter a ton for hiring but who gets what connections has a political slant as well.

This is absolutely false. Many liberals get federal COA clerkships with similar or worse grades. I know dozens personally. More than a few of them have gone on to SCOTUS, too. Yes, liberals outnumber conservatives. Yes, that makes it easier, holding everything else equal, for conservatives to get clerkships. But the suggestion that SCOTUS is hiring clerks who wouldn't get a federal COA clerkship without FedSoc is laughable.

If I make a post asking: "What are my COA clerkship chances? Graduated U Chicago, around median (no honors), no law review, TTT undergrad, liberal (no fed soc) . . . " What do you think people would say my chances are? Sorry, but without major connections (which come from fed soc) that application doesnt get picked up by a COA judge (at least not on a desirable circuit).

[Anonymous User]

Disagree.

Signed, moderate liberal non-honors UChicago student clerking on 2/7/9 (and not the above anon, nor do I think I'm one of the "dozens" of such students he/she knows).

[Anonymous User]

Disagree.

Signed, moderate liberal non-honors UChicago student clerking on 2/7/9 (and not the above anon, nor do I think I'm one of the "dozens" of such students he/she knows).

Congratulations on your 7th Circuit clerkship...

[Anonymous User]

Disagree.

Signed, moderate liberal non-honors UChicago student clerking on 2/7/9 (and not the above anon, nor do I think I'm one of the "dozens" of such students he/she knows).

Congratulations on your 7th Circuit clerkship...

Lol. I had the same thought.

Anyway, I think the (now lost) broader point here was you don’t regularly find liberals batting above their average when it comes to feeder clerkships/SCOTUS. It’s a sheer numbers game. And while people of all political persuasions with meh grades (including liberals) get COA clerkships, liberals with meh grades don’t get COA feeders/SCOTUS.

[Anonymous User]

Disagree.

Signed, moderate liberal non-honors UChicago student clerking on 2/7/9 (and not the above anon, nor do I think I'm one of the "dozens" of such students he/she knows).

Congratulations on your 7th Circuit clerkship...

I guess I don't need to mask identifying stuff as much when I'm anon, but it's CA9. Fair inference from both mentioning CA7 in the same breath as CA2/9 and being from Chicago, though.

.

Anyway, I think the (now lost) broader point here was you don’t regularly find liberals batting above their average when it comes to feeder clerkships/SCOTUS. It’s a sheer numbers game. And while people of all political persuasions with meh grades (including liberals) get COA clerkships, liberals with meh grades don’t get COA feeders/SCOTUS.

I don't really know enough about feeder hiring to say anything authoritative and I suspect most people who talk about feeders are speaking second or thirdhand. But the post I was responding to was claiming that a non-honors liberal applicant "doesn't even get picked up by a COA judge (at least not in a desirable circuit)," which just isn't true. I don't ultimately disagree that the odds are better for fedsoc people. But there's a lot of hyperbole both ITT and on this board generally about clerk hiring.

[Anonymous User]

Earlier double clerk anon without honors. Sorry for spawning the tangent with the point that grades =! intelligence. Obviously being in fedsoc helps, you’re a very small minority of students while the judiciary is roughly even. But I think another takeaway, and perhaps somewhat correlated, is that Chicago is killing it with clerkships at all levels. I think that’s a good thing (more non-HYS).

Let’s get back to the feeder watch. I wonder what new/first time feeds will grow in the coming years.

[Anonymous User]

Back to our regularly scheduled programming:

Duke Law / Hardiman clerk for Alito

https://law.duke.edu/news/baird-jdma-18 ... el-alito-0

I think we are only now missing a Sotomayor clerk?

[Anonymous User]

Disagree.

Signed, moderate liberal non-honors UChicago student clerking on 2/7/9 (and not the above anon, nor do I think I'm one of the "dozens" of such students he/she knows).

Congratulations on your 7th Circuit clerkship...

Lol. I had the same thought.

Anyway, I think the (now lost) broader point here was you don’t regularly find liberals batting above their average when it comes to feeder clerkships/SCOTUS. It’s a sheer numbers game. And while people of all political persuasions with meh grades (including liberals) get COA clerkships, liberals with meh grades don’t get COA feeders/SCOTUS.

This is closer than the previous post, but still false. At least a few liberals with mediocre grades get SCOTUS each term. I'm aware of two in OT-2020 and one in OT-2021. There are, I presume, additional corroborating examples. Bear in mind, these liberal clerks usually have one or more of the following: 1. ins with the progressive political establishment, 2. a unique demographic profile, or 3. a preeminent liberal lawyer in the family. Students checking those boxes often end up at Yale Law School, a school that (conveniently!) lacks Latin honors, and a school the liberal justices are particularly keen to hire from.

I'm in no way contesting that liberals face longer odds in getting SCOTUS. The phenomenon of justices overlooking mediocre grades isn't, however, an ideological one. Every justice could hire only from the top 5% of the top 14 schools. They'd have clerks to spare. The Chicago graduate discussed in this thread is an example of how far one can get with the right connections. He's not an example of conservative justices running out of applicants with Latin honors.

[Anonymous User]

Back to our regularly scheduled programming:

Duke Law / Hardiman clerk for Alito

https://law.duke.edu/news/baird-jdma-18 ... el-alito-0

I think we are only now missing a Sotomayor clerk?

Where did you find the others? I only saw David Lat's now I guess outdated version?

[Anonymous User]

Anyway, I think the (now lost) broader point here was you don’t regularly find liberals batting above their average when it comes to feeder clerkships/SCOTUS. It’s a sheer numbers game. And while people of all political persuasions with meh grades (including liberals) get COA clerkships, liberals with meh grades don’t get COA feeders/SCOTUS.

Two things in the above are false. First, conservatives don't "regularly" bat above their average when it comes to feeder clerkships/SCOTUS. Some do, and it's obvious when that happens (as evidence from this conversation on this board), and it does happen more often than it does for liberals. But in the broad scheme of clerkships, it's not regular or common.

Second, it is absolutely false to say that unlike conservative, "liberals with meh grades don’t get COA feeders/SCOTUS." If you look back at feeder/SCOTUS clerks over the last 10 years, there are some who graduated without magna and yet clerked for feeders/on SCOTUS. I'm not going to get into whether it was *exclusively* due to race or gender (which would be the analogue to the political slant point about "lower performing" conservatives in the same position), but you can Google the names if you like, and they will come up. It's also not common or regular, but it happens for liberals, and it happens on the highest feeder/SCOTUS level.

So let's not get this twisted and conclude that conservatives are rampantly benefitting from a kind of identity politics to leverage plum clerkships, while liberals are not. Both sides do that.

[Anonymous User]

It's almost like this isn't a great thread to rehash the "unfair leg up" vs. "geographical and ideological self-selection" FedSoc clerkship debate that's happened a million times on the forum already

[Anonymous User]

It's almost like this isn't a great thread to rehash the "unfair leg up" vs. "geographical and ideological self-selection" FedSoc clerkship debate that's happened a million times on the forum already

Don't have to rehash a whole debate just to call specific statements out as factually, verifiably untrue.

[Anonymous User]

Anyway, I think the (now lost) broader point here was you don’t regularly find liberals batting above their average when it comes to feeder clerkships/SCOTUS. It’s a sheer numbers game. And while people of all political persuasions with meh grades (including liberals) get COA clerkships, liberals with meh grades don’t get COA feeders/SCOTUS.

Two things in the above are false. First, conservatives don't "regularly" bat above their average when it comes to feeder clerkships/SCOTUS. Some do, and it's obvious when that happens (as evidence from this conversation on this board), and it does happen more often than it does for liberals. But in the broad scheme of clerkships, it's not regular or common.

Second, it is absolutely false to say that unlike conservative, "liberals with meh grades don’t get COA feeders/SCOTUS." If you look back at feeder/SCOTUS clerks over the last 10 years, there are some who graduated without magna and yet clerked for feeders/on SCOTUS. I'm not going to get into whether it was *exclusively* due to race or gender (which would be the analogue to the political slant point about "lower performing" conservatives in the same position), but you can Google the names if you like, and they will come up. It's also not common or regular, but it happens for liberals, and it happens on the highest feeder/SCOTUS level.

So let's not get this twisted and conclude that conservatives are rampantly benefitting from a kind of identity politics to leverage plum clerkships, while liberals are not. Both sides do that.

Hate to dive in here, but this BS needs to be called out. Giving FedSoc kids advantages in hiring and giving historically disadvantaged groups (racial minorities) advantages in hiring is not the same thing (or even close). Thats like Ben Shapiro level bad faith where he just totally strips all context from a situation and says, "but if you do Y then you cant complain if this other person does Y (in a completely different context)."

[Anonymous User]

It's almost like this isn't a great thread to rehash the "unfair leg up" vs. "geographical and ideological self-selection" FedSoc clerkship debate that's happened a million times on the forum already

Don't have to rehash a whole debate just to call specific statements out as factually, verifiably untrue.

I mean the whole aggregate discussion just misses a lot of the underlying dynamics. Show me the Westchester lib (or, hell, the Kansas lib) that’s ok with clerking in Kansas or even Ohio, away from their New York and DC friends, and ok with counterclerking that’s getting passed over because of a FedSoc grade bump and maybe there’s a point here. Like yes, plenty of conservatives screen for ideology but plenty are also open to counters and just don’t get that many lib applicants. Because of location and ideology, it also doesn’t much matter whether lib judges screen for ideology similarly since the con applicants are gone by the cycle.

At the end of the day, so much of this “FedSoc boost” argument boils down to the fact that libs don’t like that conservative judges *exist* at all and are present in wide swaths of the country in a less concentrated way than lib judges are. Add in the dynamics of an overwhelmingly liberal law school student body at large (much more tilted than the makeup of judges and obviously SCOTUS justices), and one doesn’t really need to concoct some kind of nefarious conspiracy or magic FedSoc sauce to explain the results. Sure, the organization helps connect applicants to judges that match each other, but it’s more effective because of the underlying dynamics than any kind of secret handshake.

[Anonymous User]

Anyway, I think the (now lost) broader point here was you don’t regularly find liberals batting above their average when it comes to feeder clerkships/SCOTUS. It’s a sheer numbers game. And while people of all political persuasions with meh grades (including liberals) get COA clerkships, liberals with meh grades don’t get COA feeders/SCOTUS.

Two things in the above are false. First, conservatives don't "regularly" bat above their average when it comes to feeder clerkships/SCOTUS. Some do, and it's obvious when that happens (as evidence from this conversation on this board), and it does happen more often than it does for liberals. But in the broad scheme of clerkships, it's not regular or common.

Second, it is absolutely false to say that unlike conservative, "liberals with meh grades don’t get COA feeders/SCOTUS." If you look back at feeder/SCOTUS clerks over the last 10 years, there are some who graduated without magna and yet clerked for feeders/on SCOTUS. I'm not going to get into whether it was *exclusively* due to race or gender (which would be the analogue to the political slant point about "lower performing" conservatives in the same position), but you can Google the names if you like, and they will come up. It's also not common or regular, but it happens for liberals, and it happens on the highest feeder/SCOTUS level.

So let's not get this twisted and conclude that conservatives are rampantly benefitting from a kind of identity politics to leverage plum clerkships, while liberals are not. Both sides do that.

Hate to dive in here, but this BS needs to be called out. Giving FedSoc kids advantages in hiring and giving historically disadvantaged groups (racial minorities) advantages in hiring is not the same thing (or even close). Thats like Ben Shapiro level bad faith where he just totally strips all context from a situation and says, "but if you do Y then you cant complain if this other person does Y (in a completely different context)."

Wow. You are in so deep with your ideological priors that you've lost sight of the actual people involved here. Many of the liberal folks we're talking about with lower grades clerking at SCOTUS are often coming from wealthy families and backgrounds, regardless of race/gender. The whole "but that's a different context so you can't compare the two!" in order to block other factors from counting is an attempt to win an argument by insisting on labeling or stipulation, so that race or gender count as legitimate grounds for a boost, but socioeconomic background doesn't, just to take one example. This isn't the place for a debate about AA, so I'll leave it at this: "bad faith" runs in both directions, and if you're not willing to consider an argument on its own terms and instead insist on straw-manning it, it'll be a race to the bottom.

This also isn't necessarily some moral argument about what's good or bad: the point about liberals with low grades getting SCOTUS clerkships is a verifiable fact, totally apart from whether it is justified or not.

[Anonymous User]

Anyway, I think the (now lost) broader point here was you don’t regularly find liberals batting above their average when it comes to feeder clerkships/SCOTUS. It’s a sheer numbers game. And while people of all political persuasions with meh grades (including liberals) get COA clerkships, liberals with meh grades don’t get COA feeders/SCOTUS.

Two things in the above are false. First, conservatives don't "regularly" bat above their average when it comes to feeder clerkships/SCOTUS. Some do, and it's obvious when that happens (as evidence from this conversation on this board), and it does happen more often than it does for liberals. But in the broad scheme of clerkships, it's not regular or common.

Second, it is absolutely false to say that unlike conservative, "liberals with meh grades don’t get COA feeders/SCOTUS." If you look back at feeder/SCOTUS clerks over the last 10 years, there are some who graduated without magna and yet clerked for feeders/on SCOTUS. I'm not going to get into whether it was *exclusively* due to race or gender (which would be the analogue to the political slant point about "lower performing" conservatives in the same position), but you can Google the names if you like, and they will come up. It's also not common or regular, but it happens for liberals, and it happens on the highest feeder/SCOTUS level.

So let's not get this twisted and conclude that conservatives are rampantly benefitting from a kind of identity politics to leverage plum clerkships, while liberals are not. Both sides do that.

Hate to dive in here, but this BS needs to be called out. Giving FedSoc kids advantages in hiring and giving historically disadvantaged groups (racial minorities) advantages in hiring is not the same thing (or even close). Thats like Ben Shapiro level bad faith where he just totally strips all context from a situation and says, "but if you do Y then you cant complain if this other person does Y (in a completely different context)."

Wow. You are in so deep with your ideological priors that you've lost sight of the actual people involved here. Many of the liberal folks we're talking about with lower grades clerking at SCOTUS are often coming from wealthy families and backgrounds, regardless of race/gender. The whole "but that's a different context so you can't compare the two!" in order to block other factors from counting is an attempt to win an argument by insisting on labeling or stipulation, so that race or gender count as legitimate grounds for a boost, but socioeconomic background doesn't, just to take one example. This isn't the place for a debate about AA, so I'll leave it at this: "bad faith" runs in both directions, and if you're not willing to consider an argument on its own terms and instead insist on straw-manning it, it'll be a race to the bottom.

This also isn't necessarily some moral argument about what's good or bad: the point about liberals with low grades getting SCOTUS clerkships is a verifiable fact, totally apart from whether it is justified or not.

I think the bolded is the main takeaway from this conversation. Affirmative action isn't a relevant differentiator. Some justices (liberal and conservative) look past bad transcripts for applicants who check demographic boxes. Some justices (liberal and conservative) don't. Some liberal SCOTUS clerks with meh grades are white and come from privilege. Some conservative SCOTUS clerks with meh grades are POC and come from adversity. Obviously, the opposite is also true.

Because it seems to require repetition: no one disagrees FedSoc students enjoy a supply and demand advantage when applying for feeders / SCOTUS. But the argument that liberal feeders / justices never hire students with meh grades (like Chicago's Alito clerk) is flatly wrong. Anyone familiar with the process could provide counterexamples. Or you could look up recent terms on Wikipedia and see for yourself.

[Anonymous User]

Anyway, I think the (now lost) broader point here was you don’t regularly find liberals batting above their average when it comes to feeder clerkships/SCOTUS. It’s a sheer numbers game. And while people of all political persuasions with meh grades (including liberals) get COA clerkships, liberals with meh grades don’t get COA feeders/SCOTUS.

Two things in the above are false. First, conservatives don't "regularly" bat above their average when it comes to feeder clerkships/SCOTUS. Some do, and it's obvious when that happens (as evidence from this conversation on this board), and it does happen more often than it does for liberals. But in the broad scheme of clerkships, it's not regular or common.

Second, it is absolutely false to say that unlike conservative, "liberals with meh grades don’t get COA feeders/SCOTUS." If you look back at feeder/SCOTUS clerks over the last 10 years, there are some who graduated without magna and yet clerked for feeders/on SCOTUS. I'm not going to get into whether it was *exclusively* due to race or gender (which would be the analogue to the political slant point about "lower performing" conservatives in the same position), but you can Google the names if you like, and they will come up. It's also not common or regular, but it happens for liberals, and it happens on the highest feeder/SCOTUS level.

So let's not get this twisted and conclude that conservatives are rampantly benefitting from a kind of identity politics to leverage plum clerkships, while liberals are not. Both sides do that.

Hate to dive in here, but this BS needs to be called out. Giving FedSoc kids advantages in hiring and giving historically disadvantaged groups (racial minorities) advantages in hiring is not the same thing (or even close). Thats like Ben Shapiro level bad faith where he just totally strips all context from a situation and says, "but if you do Y then you cant complain if this other person does Y (in a completely different context)."

Wow. You are in so deep with your ideological priors that you've lost sight of the actual people involved here. Many of the liberal folks we're talking about with lower grades clerking at SCOTUS are often coming from wealthy families and backgrounds, regardless of race/gender. The whole "but that's a different context so you can't compare the two!" in order to block other factors from counting is an attempt to win an argument by insisting on labeling or stipulation, so that race or gender count as legitimate grounds for a boost, but socioeconomic background doesn't, just to take one example. This isn't the place for a debate about AA, so I'll leave it at this: "bad faith" runs in both directions, and if you're not willing to consider an argument on its own terms and instead insist on straw-manning it, it'll be a race to the bottom.

I am not the one that first brought up race or gender, and compared race-advantaged hiring with FedSoc advantaged hiring. You did, and you specifically said race based hiring was "analogous" or whatever to favoring a political ideology. I'm not going to argue with you, because I dont believe you make that argument in good faith. And who said anything about socioeconomic background? Is the chicago kid with bad grades from a disadvantaged socioeconomic group? If he is, and thats why he got preferenced instead of being pushed by FedSoc, then I have no problem with it. But literally nobody is suggesting that kid is from a disadvantaged socioeconomic group.

This also isn't necessarily some moral argument about what's good or bad: the point about liberals with low grades getting SCOTUS clerkships is a verifiable fact, totally apart from whether it is justified or not.

And again, you just ignore context. Liberals with bad grades get COA clerkships-- ***but they dont get them because they are liberals or espouse liberal ideologies***. They might get them because they come ,e.g., from disadvantaged backgrounds, or have connections, and happen to be liberal. Conservatives with bad grades absolutely get COA clerkships because they are conservatives at a top school and in FedSoc. Thats the difference. (obviously you still have to do very well in your clerkship to move up to SCOTUS, but thats another issue). You get a leg up for being a conservative. You dont for being a liberal. I'm not arguing about whether its morally right or not, but its not the same.

[Anonymous User]

Is the chicago kid with bad grades from a disadvantaged socioeconomic group? If he is, and thats why he got preferenced instead of being pushed by FedSoc, then I have no problem with it. But literally nobody is suggesting that kid is from a disadvantaged socioeconomic group.

I worked with him many moons ago. I don't really think this is the place to discuss peoples' personal lives nor am I well-informed about his SES growing up, but he has a unique background from a rural and very christian environment. Not your typical "coastal elite" with connections by birthright, AFAIK. He was also an OSU transfer to Chicago, which might have something to do with the grades.

[Anonymous User]

And again, you just ignore context. Liberals with bad grades get COA clerkships-- ***but they dont get them because they are liberals or espouse liberal ideologies***. They might get them because they come ,e.g., from disadvantaged backgrounds, or have connections, and happen to be liberal. Conservatives with bad grades absolutely get COA clerkships because they are conservatives at a top school and in FedSoc. Thats the difference. (obviously you still have to do very well in your clerkship to move up to SCOTUS, but thats another issue). You get a leg up for being a conservative. You dont for being a liberal. I'm not arguing about whether its morally right or not, but its not the same.

I'm not the poster you were responding to but I disagree--there are absolutely liberals who get COA jobs for being performatively progressive and getting involved in progressive advocacy groups and causes. How's that any different from FedSoc? Some judges want partisan clerks, and that's fine. The majority of judges across the political spectrum don't care.

[Anonymous User]

It's astounding to me how people are still having this conversation. Who cares?

[Anonymous User]

It's astounding to me how people are still having this conversation. Who cares?

Everyone should care. You can't succeed in law these days without a SCOTUS clerkship.

[Reese1]

It's astounding to me how people are still having this conversation. Who cares?

Everyone should care. You can't succeed in law these days without a SCOTUS clerkship.

**Two SCOTUS clerkships