A Note to Clerkship Applicants, and Another Story

We are now at the high point of law clerk hiring season. Under the 2005 Law Clerk Hiring Plan, judges were allowed to start calling applicants to schedule interviews yesterday, Thursday, September 15, 2005, at noon (EDT). Clerkship interviews may be held starting on Thursday, September 22, 2005 -- although some judges have already started interviewing and even hiring. You can get the latest scuttlebutt on the process over at Greedy Clerks. See, e.g., here and here (comprehensive posts listing which judges have started interviewing and hiring).

(Update: In the comments to this post, a reader also recommends the Clerkship Notification Blog as an excellent source of info. A3G has added this site to her blogroll.)

A UTR reader submitted this tidbit to A3G: "Under the law clerk hiring plan the judges aren’t allowed to call applicants until noon on the 15th -- the reason for this is that some people actually did get midnight calls last year!" Some people might think, "Getting a call from a federal judge at midnight -- that's crazy!" But if you understand the critical importance of judicial clerkships -- which are incredibly eye-opening as experiences, and staggeringly important as credentials -- you'd say: "Judge Luttig can call me anytime, day or night!"

To all you clerkship applicants among the UTR readership, A3G wishes you the very best of luck. She truly wants you to be successful in your job hunt, so you can feed her delicious tidbits of judicial gossip during your clerkships. And for those of you who like to do your own internet research (like Justice Kennedy), she reminds you that UTR is a valuable resource for information and rumor about federal judges. To see where your favorite jurists have been mentioned in this blog, just go to Google and type in the following:

--site:underneaththeirrobes.blogs.com [your desired search terms]

In this post, A3G asked her readers for amusing application anecdotes from the clerkship hunt. A reader submitted one about Kevin Newsom, a member of the Elect (OT 2000/Souter) who is now the Solicitor General of Alabama. Newsom was hired by then-Alabama AG Wiliam H. Pryor, Jr., before Bill Pryor became an Article III deity. (Click here for a bio of Newsom by Feddie of Southern Appeal.)

According to one UTR correspondent, Newsom "has an excellent shot at getting a federal appellate judgeship someday, with a mind-blowing résumé and friends on both sides of the aisle, including two of his former bosses (Professor Larry Tribe and Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain (9th Cir.))." Despite his youth, Newsom has already argued before the U.S. Supreme Court multiple times. He has a reputation an amazing oral advocate, as well as an excellent brief-writer. Supreme Court briefs of his have been praised by Mike Cernovich, Doug Berman, Orin Kerr, and Jonathan H. Adler, among others. Wow...

Oh, sorry! A3G got so lost in admiration of Newsom's impeccable credentials -- which also include a stint at super-prestigious Covington & Burling -- she forget she had a story to tell about him. So here it is:

Your recounting Allison Orr's Souter story brought to mind a similar story about Kevin Newsom (former Souter clerk and Covington & Burling associate; now the Solicitor General of Alabama). Kevin had interviewed with Justice Souter, but had never heard back; he assumed he hadn't made the cut.

Some months later, Kevin was an associate at Covington & Burling and was working on a case that was pending in the Supreme Court after argument. He received a message from his secretary that "Mr. Suter" of the Supreme Court had called, along with a number. Kevin assumed that the case was about to come down and that William Suter (the Clerk of the Supreme Court) was mistakenly calling him, rather than the partner on the case, to let him know. When he called the number, Justice Souter picked up and offered Kevin his ticket to the ranks of the elect. How about that?

Yes, how about that? Pretty cool! A3G wishes that she got telephone calls like that -- instead of ones notifying her that the other side's document production has arrived and is ready for review...

(Update: Feddie has some interesting tidbits to add in the comments to this post.)

* As demonstrated by Newsom and another young member of the Elect -- former Bleeding Reinhardt Jeffrey L. Fisher (OT 1998/Stevens), who won landmark victories in Crawford v. Washington and Blakely v. Washington, while he was still an associate at Davis Wright & Tremaine in Seattle -- not all great Supreme Court practitioners are based in Washington, D.C.

But almost all of them, subject to only a handful of exceptions, clerked for the Supreme Court. Why do the rest of us even bother getting up in the morning?

Comments

[Death]

Thank you so much for the link to The Clerkhsip Notification blog!

[Mike]

Supreme Court briefs of his have been praised by Mike Cernovich, Doug Berman, Orin Kerr, and Jonathan H. Adler, among others.

If ever there was an odd man out, then I'm the odd man in this list. But thanks for the link!

[lawstudent]

Find out which judges are making calls, scheduling interviews and hiring at the Clerkship Notification Blog. This blog appeared out of nowhere on Thursday. And it's so much more helpful than the notoriously un-informative Greedy Clerks board or even the prior reigning online resource for clerkships (judicialclerkships.com). Message boards are out. Blogs are in. I only wish I'd thought of it ...

[Feddie]

Oh, and here's another interesting tidbit. Kevin and I were fraternity brothers at Samford University (Sigma Chi).

BTW, Newsom lives up to the hype. He is wicked brilliant (i.e., in the John Roberts mold). The nice thing is that he is extremely humble (also like Roberts). There is no doubt in my mind that Newsom will one day grace the Supreme Court with his presence.

[Feddie]

In about 10-15 years, he'll be Justice Kevin Newsom.