I think this goes too far. If you think about it, the court was 5-4 conservative before Trump, and 6-3 now. And while Kennedy used to hire liberals, the Chief has taken over that role since Kennedy retired. Assuming everything else cancels out - other conservatives will hire the stray liberal, but liberals will also hire the stray conservative - there are now 3 to 5 fewer liberal SCOTUS clerks per year. That's a significant percentage, but it's minuscule in absolute terms.Anonymous User wrote: ↑Thu Jun 02, 2022 4:25 pmOne thing that is relevant is whether OP is a liberal or a conservative. I suspect that the value of a SCOTUS clerkship will be different depending on the answer. For liberals, it'll increasingly become so difficult to get one that it will be less of a big deal if you don't get one. But on the right, if you don't get a SCOTUS clerkship, I actually think that'll be a bigger deal because lots of people are getting them now (this is all relative; "lots" is still a small number in the grand scheme of things).
In other words, when the SG's office is hiring over the next few years, as the people picked by Jeff Wall and Noel Francisco are replaced by people picked by Elizabeth Prelogar, I wouldn't be surprised if you see more people become assistants to the SG without a SCOTUS clerkship (but instead elite COA clerkships like Watford, Pillard, Srinivasan, Lohier etc). But when the SG's office turns over again and the Republicans are picking, it won't be enough to have Thapar or Katsas on the list. Instead, they'll expect you clerked on the Court. The same will likely be true for other uber-elite jobs where it's normal to have multiple applicants with SCOTUS clerkships or SCOTUS-level credentials.
So if you're a liberal, I wouldn't worry as much about not having SCOTUS under your belt. There will only be 12 a year from your class who'll have that credential and most law students are liberal. But if you're conservative, then it might be a bigger deal.
For the truly super-elite jobs, especially SCOTUS-adjacent jobs like OSG, no one wants to hear about how competitive the year was. There will always be more more qualified liberal SCOTUS clerks than there are ASG openings, even if SCOTUS maintains its current composition. If anything, the increasing power of liberal superfeeders could make life hard for the clerks who barely missed the SCOTUS cut. For instance, OSG can call up their former colleague, Judge Srinivasan, and ask him which of his 15 former clerks he would recommend for an ASG opening. Chances are, he'll name someone he already recommended for SCOTUS.
Judgeships are a different story. Biden has, very much to his credit, looked outside traditional enclaves of prestige in selecting judges. As a whole, the progressive legal movement is committed to elevating public interest litigators, public defenders, and others from diverse professional backgrounds. But don't think that Biden couldn't fill S.D.N.Y., for example, with exclusively former RBG clerks if he wanted to.