Clerk of the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court appointed its first Clerk in February 1790, at its first session in New York, and the office has existed ever since. The Clerk is appointed by the Court, not by the President, and serves at its pleasure, leading a staff of about 30 who process cases and answer questions from lawyers and the public. Only about 20 people have held the office, several of them for decades.

The Clerk's office receives and reviews every petition, brief, motion, and application filed with the Court, about 4,000 petitions for review each year, checking them against the Court's rules on format, length, and deadlines. It dockets cases, circulates filings to the Justices, prepares the argument calendar and the orders lists that announce which cases the Court will hear, and collects filing fees. It also administers admission to the Supreme Court Bar, keeps the official case files and minutes, and since 2017 has run an electronic filing system that posts most filings online.

Because the Clerk's office applies the Court's rules to every filing, its decisions can determine whether a petition is accepted or returned for correction, especially for the many prisoners and others who file without lawyers. The growth of emergency applications on the Court's so-called shadow docket since the late 2010s has added to the office's workload and drawn attention to how quickly such matters are processed. Supporters say the office's strict rules keep a busy court orderly and fair, while critics say procedural hurdles can block litigants without lawyers from being heard.