Brian Leiter Law School Supreme Court Clerkship Placement, 2003-2013

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SUPREME COURT CLERKSHIP PLACEMENT, 2003 THROUGH 2013 TERMS
September 10, 2013

This study covers the 2003 through 2013 terms (the 2000-2007 results are here), and reports the total number of clerks hired from each law school by a justice of the Court.

There are two rankings below: one based on “per capita” placement; and one based on total placement. Because of the small number of clerks chosen in a given year; because clerks are only chosen from the very top of any law school’s class; because current clerks participate in the process of selecting new clerks; and because the Justices themselves have particular school loyalties, gross numbers are probably more informative, but both kinds of results are presented. The class size (rounded to the nearest 25) is taken from the most recent ABA guide data on matriculating students. This is misleading in one important respect, since class size may have been different over the period of time during which the clerks were selected. The total number of clerks divided by recent class size is not a measure of the likelihood of getting a Supreme Court clerkship, but rather some indication of the relative success of schools in placing graduates as Supreme Court clerks taking into account their size.

Ranked by “Per Capita” Clerkship Placement, 2003-2013 (total number of clerks divided by recent class size (rounded to two places)

Rank	School	“Per Capita” Rate
1	Yale University	.45
2	Stanford University	.19
3	Harvard University	.18
4	University of Chicago	.13
5	University of Virginia	.07
6	Columbia University	.04
	Duke University	.04
	Northwestern University	.04
9	New York University	.03
	University of California, Berkeley	.03
	University of Georgia	.03
	University of Michigan, Ann Arbor	.03
13	Brigham Young University	.02
	Georgetown University	.02
	University of Pennslyvania	.02
	University of Texas, Austin	.02
17	Cornell University	.01
	George Washington University	.01
	University of Minnesota	.01
	University of Notre Dame	.01
	Vanderbilt University	.01

Ranked by Total Clerkship Placement, 2003-2013

Rank	School	Total number of clerks 2003-2013	Recent Class Size (rounded to nearest 25)
1	Harvard University	101	575
2	Yale University	89	200
3	Stanford University	33	175
4	University of Chicago	25	200
	University of Virginia	25	375
6	Columbia University	16	425
7	New York University	14	475
8	University of Michigan, Ann Arbor	11	375
9	Georgetown University	10	675
10	Northwestern University	9	250
	University of California, Berkeley	9	300
12	Duke University	7	200
	George Washington University	7	550
14	University of Georgia	6	200
	University of Texas, Austin	6	400
16	University of Pennsylvania	5	250
17	Brigham Young University	3	150
18	Cornell University	2	200
	University of California, Los Angeles	2	325
	University of Minnesota	2	250
	University of Notre Dame	2	175
	Vanderbilt University	2	200

The following schools each graduated one student who secured a U.S. Supreme Court clerkship between 2003 and 2013: Boston College; Brooklyn Law School; Cardozo Law School/Yeshiva University; Creighton University; George Mason University; Lousiana State University; Ohio State University; Pepperdine University; Rutgers University, Camden; Seton Hall University; University of Kansas; University of Utah; University of Wisconsin, Madison.

[1] Justice Breyer, for example, taught at Harvard, and often hired Harvard clerks; the same is true for Justice Ginsburg and Columbia; and Justice Scalia and Chicago. All the BYU graduates were hired by Justice Alito. Justices Alito and Thomas are more likely to hire from “less elite” law schools, perhaps in part because they hire through conservative legal networks which value “ideological purity” more than pedigree.

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