Leiter updates his Supreme Court clerk rankings

[queencruella]

there is at least one prof there who clerked for O'Connor, so you never know. She's pretty moderate. 

Yeah, but she's also pretty retired, too. 

This is true, but I was just using her to point out that not all the connections are with the ultra-conservatives, so hope is not lost for the moderates/liberals.

[J D]

there is at least one prof there who clerked for O'Connor, so you never know. She's pretty moderate. 

Yeah, but she's also pretty retired, too. 

This is true, but I was just using her to point out that not all the connections are with the ultra-conservatives, so hope is not lost for the moderates/liberals.

The thing is, though, those connections probably change with the membership of the court.  Remember, you're not exactly applying to the Supreme Court as an institution; you're applying to an individual justice, who has his/her own idiosyncratic preferences, his/her own ideal characteristics for what makes a good clerk.  The fact that certain schools dominate the race for these positions, while others of similar rank do not, is likely only a reflection of a justice's reserving a special place in his/her heart for graduates of that school.

[queencruella]

That is a good point, JD.  I think ND sends people to a lot of feeder judges as well, but I don't know whether they feed to any of the more liberal judges.