Supreme Court Law Clerks

Justice Horace Gray began the practice in 1882, hiring a recent Harvard Law School graduate at his own expense, and Congress began funding a clerk for each Justice in 1886. Early clerks were often stenographers, but over the twentieth century the job became a prestigious post for top law graduates. Today each active Justice may hire up to four clerks, typically for one year, and retired Justices keep one, so about three dozen clerks serve each term, nearly all of whom first clerked on a federal court of appeals.

Clerks review the thousands of petitions for certiorari the Court receives each year, most through the cert pool, begun in 1973, in which participating chambers share a single memo on each petition. They prepare bench memos analyzing argued cases, research legal questions, help prepare the Justices for oral argument and conference, and draft portions of opinions under the Justice's direction. Clerks are bound by strict confidentiality, and the chambers each Justice builds often reflect the Justice's judicial philosophy.

Former clerks fill the upper ranks of the legal profession, the federal bench, and the Supreme Court itself, and law firms have paid signing bonuses of several hundred thousand dollars to hire them. Critics have long noted that clerks come from a narrow set of law schools and have raised questions about their influence over which cases the Court hears and how opinions are written. The leak of a draft opinion in May 2022 led to an investigation of clerks and staff that did not identify the source. Supporters say clerks give Justices essential research help, while critics say too much of the Court's work is delegated to young, unaccountable lawyers.