Justice Kennedy's OT 2005 Clerks

Article III Groupie continues to revise and supplement her prior posts profiling the Supreme Court clerks for the upcoming Term. She has made changes to the write-ups for Sasha Volokh (see here), as well as those for John Demers and Evan Young (see here), among others. She also revised her post about the SOC clerks, to note the possibility -- which several readers pointed out to her -- that Chief Justice Rehnquist, if he does retire, would still be entitled to at least one law clerk.* (This fact may allay some of the anxiety that is perhaps being experienced by WHR's three hires for next Term.)

But A3G would prefer not to engage in such ex post facto updating. If you have any info about the Supreme Court law clerks for OT 2005 who have not yet been profiled, please email A3G sooner rather than later, so she can include your contributions the first time around.

Okay, you've all been very patient -- which A3G appreciates, because she has been very busy. Now it's time for your reward: the UTR celebrity profiles of the four hunks selected by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy as his law clerks for the next Term. Please join A3G in a round of thunderous applause for a most impressive quartet: AMK's clerks for the October Term 2005!

1. David M. Cooper (Stanford '04/Garland)

Tidbits:

(a) Dave graduated first in his class from Stanford Law School,** where he was "a moot court rockstar";
(b) his moot court success should come as no surprise, given his successful parliamentary debate career as a Harvard undergraduate (video clip of him debating about cannibalism available here);
(c) he was a student in the Supreme Court litigation clinic of Goldstein & Howe, the Supreme Court litigation boutique of Tom Goldstein, young superstar of the One First Street bar;
(d) he's from Northport, New York, on Long Island's North Shore;
(e) even though David Cooper is "a very smart little man" with "a mind-blowing resume," he is "generally quite nice and humble" and "a pretty low-profile person";
(f) he has "an encyclopedic knowledge of movies," as well as "an amazing tennis game"; and
(g) he's a fan of the New York Giants, "although though there's a special place in his heart for the coaching genius of Bill Belichick."

2. Randy Kozel (Harvard '04/Kozinski)

Tidbits:

(a) Randy secured his clerkship with Justice Kennedy in early January 2004 (which makes him one of the earliest clerks picked for the OT 2005 batch);
(b) he "may very well be the most disturbingly efficient human being on planet Earth";
(c) he is "an animal on the basketball court," expected to dominate the weekly clerk games at the highest court in the land;
(d) he is also an excellent football player, a member of the winning Harvard Law Review team in the 2002 Harvard Law Review/Yale Law Journal football game;***
(e) he has is rumored to have a tattoo on his left shoulder that reads "Virtus";
(f) he has a weakness for all things Wisconsin-related, including the University of Wisconsin basketball team;
(g) he has a bobblehead doll of Bucky Badger, the Wisconsin mascot, whom he consulted frequently when selecting articles for the Harvard Law Review; and
(h) speaking of law reviews, he has debated Judge Posner on the topic "Are Law Reviews Really Rubbish?" (A3G can't help thinking: With Bucky Badger running the show at Gannett House, Judge Posner may have a point...)

3. Jeffrey Pojanowski (Harvard '04/Roberts)

Tidbits:

(a) he's originally from Ramsey, New Jersey, and went to Princeton for college;
(b) after college, he spent a year working for the Wheelchair Foundation, "an international humanitarian organization that distributes wheelchairs to handicapped people in impoverished nations";
(c) during his 1L year at Harvard Law School, he joined up with some classmates to from "the hard-rocking cover band, Dr. Teeth" -- and "punk rock will never be the same" for those who attended their "glorious concert at Cambridge's own cheeseball dive, The Hong Kong";
(d) he spent the summer after his 1L year in Albania, working for the OSCE (and he kept a blog about his experiences there);
(e) he is the first of what will surely be many law clerks that judicial hottie John G. Roberts, Jr., feeds to the Court (assuming Judge Roberts doesn't get there first himself); and
(f) on August 27, he will be marrying the lovely Sarah Bennett (with whom he is pictured at right, at last month's Law Review banquet -- click on the thumbnail image for a closer look at their excellent teeth).

4. Zachary S. Price (Harvard '03/Blake (D. Md.) '03-'04/Tatel Tot '04-'05)

Tidbits:

(a) he did his undergraduate work at Stanford, majoring in philosophy;
(b) he is a former Fulbright Scholar;
(c) he is married to Jennifer Gayle Cohen, a resident in internal medicine at Johns Hopkins;
(d) he is "a pretty quiet guy"; and
(e) "Zach Price was on a moot court team with two current members of the Elect, Michael Scoville and Henry Whitaker."

More on this tidbit: "The other team members were Lindsay Harrison, a law clerk to Judge Alan S. Gold (S.D. Fla.); Amber Holley, now at O'Melveny & Myers; and John Couriel, now at Davis Polk (and one of Zach's groomsmen, incidentally). They lost in the semifinals, but Zach's work was brilliant and he was a wonderful team player."

********************

Sensational! Article III Groupie sends her congratulations and best wishes to David Cooper, Randy Kozel, Jeff Pojanowski, and Zachary Price. As the law clerks to Justice Kennedy, the swing vote in many a case, these four men may find themselves holding the balance of power at One First Street next Term. A3G urges them to use their power wisely. And since Justice Kennedy does his own internet research, would you mind bookmarking Underneath Their Robes on his web browser?

* The clerks to retired justices assist the active justices in the work of the Court. This explains why Justice Stevens for a time hired only three clerks of his own -- he got help from the clerks to two of his retired colleagues, Justice White and Justice Blackmun.

** Number two in the class: Kathryn E. Judge, currently clerking for Judge Richard A. Posner, and soon to be profiled in these pages as a future clerk to Justice Breyer. For more details about the academic accolades of David and Kathryn, click here (pdf).

Might David Cooper and Kathryn Judge become the next WHR and SOC, who were #1 and #3 in their Stanford class? A3G dearly hopes that Kathryn makes it to the federal bench someday. Then she could be called "Judge Judge" -- or, if she goes all way to the Supreme Court, "Justice Judge." (There is, of course, already a jurist known as "Judge Justice" -- Judge William Wayne Justice, of the Western District of Texas.)

*** The Harvard Law Review team that year also included several other members of the Elect: Jeff Pojanowski, Randy's AMK co-clerk; D. John Sauer, the incoming Scalia clerk; Matt Stephenson and Michael Scoville, current clerks to Justice Kennedy; and Henry Whitaker, a current clerk to Justice Thomas.

Comments

[ali]

in the English court of appeal there is a Lord Justice Judge

You commented about the number of clerks Justice Stevens has. Though I can't speak about the current number of clerks he has, Justice Stevens has a history of having fewer clerks than the rest of the Court. There was a joke (not really a joke) in "The Official Lawyers Handbook," published in the early 1980's, that Stevens' clerks were overworked because he only had two of them, and Blackmun's clerks were overworked because he only had four of them.

[boi]

nice job a3g