Law clerk A law clerk or a judicial clerk is a person, generally someone who provides direct counsel and assistance to a lawyer or judge by researching issues and drafting legal opinions for cases before the court. Judicial clerks often play significant ...

s have assisted the justices of the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

in various capacities since the first one was hired by Justice Horace Gray in 1882. Each Associate Justice is permitted to employ four law clerks per Court term; the Chief Justice may employ five. Most persons serving in this capacity are recent

law school A law school (also known as a law centre or college of law) is an institution specializing in legal education, usually involved as part of a process for becoming a lawyer within a given jurisdiction. Law degrees Argentina In Argentina, ...

graduates (and typically graduated at the top of their class). Among their many functions, clerks do legal research that assists justices in deciding what cases to accept and what questions to ask during oral arguments, prepare

memoranda A memorandum ( : memoranda; abbr: memo; from the Latin ''memorandum'', "(that) which is to be remembered") is a written message that is typically used in a professional setting. Commonly abbreviated "memo," these messages are usually brief and ...

, and draft

orders Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood * Heterarchy, a system of organization wherein the elements have the potential to be ranked a number of ...

and

opinions An opinion is a judgment, viewpoint, or statement that is not conclusive, rather than facts, which are true statements. Definition A given opinion may deal with subjective matters in which there is no conclusive finding, or it may deal with ...

. After retiring from the Court, a justice may continue to employ a law clerk, who may be assigned to provide additional assistance to an active justice or may assist the retired justice when sitting by designation with a lower court.

Table of law clerks

The following is a table of law clerks serving the

associate justice Associate justice or associate judge (or simply associate) is a judicial panel member who is not the chief justice in some jurisdictions. The title "Associate Justice" is used for members of the Supreme Court of the United States and some sta ...

holding Supreme Court seat 4 (the Court's fourth associate justice seat by the

order of precedence An order of precedence is a sequential hierarchy of nominal importance and can be applied to individuals, groups, or organizations. Most often it is used in the context of people by many organizations and governments, for very formal and state o ...

of the inaugural associate justices) which was established on September 24, 1789 by the 1st Congress through the

Judiciary Act of 1789 The Judiciary Act of 1789 (ch. 20, ) was a United States federal statute enacted on September 24, 1789, during the first session of the First United States Congress. It established the federal judiciary of the United States. Article III, Sec ...

(). This seat is currently occupied by Justice

Elena Kagan Elena Kagan ( ; born April 28, 1960) is an American lawyer who serves as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. She was Elena Kagan Supreme Court nomination ...

Notes

References

Additional sources

* Baier, Paul R. (1973). "The Law Clerks: Profile of an Institution," ''Vanderbilt L. Rev.'' 26: 1125–77. * "Finding Aid to the Papers of William O. Douglas,
Library of Congress
(2014, rev'd Dec. 2014), p. 138, list of clerks. * Freund, Paul A., "Historical Reminiscence, Justice Brandeis: A Law Clerk's Remembrance", 68 ''Am. Jewish Hist.'' 7 (1978). * "Georgia Law Alumni Who Have Clerked for a U.S. Supreme Court Justice,
Advocate
Spring/Summer 2004 (listing 6 names). * Judicial Clerkship Handbook
USC Gould Law School
2013-2014, p. 33, Appendix B. * Mason, Alpheus T. (1946). ''Brandeis: a Free Man's Life''. New York, NY: Viking Press. List of law clerks, p. 690. , . * Mersky, Roy M. (1958). ''Louis Dembitz Brandeis, 1856–1941: a Bibliography''. List of law clerks, p. 11 (New Haven, CT: Published for the Yale Law Library by the Yale Law School)(44 pp). * Newland, Charles A. (June 1961). "Personal Assistants to the Supreme Court Justices: The Law Clerks," ''Oregon L. Rev.'' 40: 306–07. * Small, Marshall L. (2007)

''Journal of Supreme Court History'' 32.
News of Supreme Court clerks
University of Virginia Law School, list of clerks, 2004-2018.
University of Michigan clerks to the Supreme Court, 1991-2017
University of Michigan Law School Web site (2016). Retrieved September 20, 2016. * Ward, Artemus and David L. Weiden (2006). ''Sorcerers' Apprentices: 100 Years of Law Clerks at the United States Supreme Court''. New York, NY: New York University Press. , .

External links

Supreme Court of the United States
official website
SCOTUS Justices: How Do Their Clerks Help Them?
Marcia Coyle of the National Law Journal, by PBS NewsHour, via youtube {{SCOTUS horizontal Seat 04 Supreme Court of the United States people