7/25/2023 0 Comments Feeder judgesBeyond connections to particular justices, the D.C. Kozinski clerked for Justice Anthony Kennedy, and of the 15 clerks he placed on the court between 19, eight were with Kennedy. Circuit, and Luttig placed three-quarters of his clerks with Scalia or Justice Clarence Thomas. Judge Michael Luttig, for example, clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia while Scalia was on the D.C. Some judges have an edge placing clerks with justices for whom they themselves were once clerks. Additionally, because feeder clerkships are themselves so highly desired, the judges benefit by being able to hire some the most talented of the clerkship applicant pool in a given year. Indeed, many feeder judges cherish this status so much they modulate their own clerkship hiring based on an applicant's compatibility with the justices, and pass over promising clerks because they are doubtful of the applicant's chances of securing a Supreme Court clerkship. Being regarded as a feeder can be a way to stand out among the ranks of courts of appeals judges. "It's a little bit of a prestige matter," Kozinski has remarked. įor some, the reputation as a feeder judge is a draw. In fact, feeder judges are notorious for being on the extremes of the judicial spectrum, with comparatively few ideologically moderate feeder judges. Ideological alignment with justices is usually an important factor, and conservative feeder judges place more clerks with conservative justices and vice versa. Various factors affect which judges become feeders. Rakoff is essentially a feeder since he co-hires clerks with appellate feeder Judge Robert Katzmann. Leval were historically feeders while on the district court, and district Judge Jed S. Although most feeder judges are therefore court of appeals judges, some district court judges are feeders. For the 1986–2005 William Rehnquist court, these numbers had respectively risen to 92 percent and dropped to 7 percent. Burger, 85 percent of Supreme Court clerks had previously served on a court of appeals and 12 percent on a district court. Judges ĭuring the 1969 to 1986 tenure of Chief Justice Warren E. However, the feeder system has become more concentrated as more judges are feeding to specific justices than in the past. Statistical analysis comparing the feeders of the 04 terms suggests the reliance on feeders has remained consistent since the Burger era, or at most has seen modest growth. Although the phenomenon had thus existed for quite some time, the first published uses of the phrase were in a 1990 article by Judge Patricia Wald and a 1991 article by Judge Alex Kozinski, both feeder judges themselves. This phenomenon probably began with Judge Learned Hand, and had been established by the time of Chief Justice Warren Burger in 1969, although data before his tenure is unreliable. As the court began to draw more frequently from prior clerks, particular lower-court judges naturally had more consistent success placing their clerks with the Supreme Court. But over time, applicants to Supreme Court clerk posts began to more often have prior experience, and between 19, 98 percent of Supreme Court clerks had clerked before. Justices in the early history of the United States Supreme Court hired law clerks straight from law school based on personal recommendations. Judge Learned Hand was one of the earliest feeder judges in the United States.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |