Four University of Chicago Law School alumni will clerk for U.S. Supreme Court justices during the 2019-20 term. At least one Law School graduate has clerked on the High Court for at least part of each term since 1972, but this year’s numbers are notable because they coincide with record growth in overall clerkship employment among Law School graduates.
Kelly Holt, JD’17, and Stephen Yelderman, JD’10, will clerk for Justice Neil Gorsuch; Mica Moore, JD’17, will clerk for Justice Elena Kagan; and Caroline Cook, JD’16, will clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas. They will follow Madeline Lansky, JD’16, who is clerking for Thomas this term, and Aimee Brown, JD’14, who is clerking for Justice Samuel Alito and now-retired Justice Anthony Kennedy. All six alumni clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals before earning their Supreme Court spots.
“These are four extraordinary lawyers who were each tremendously successful students at the Law School and whose futures couldn’t be brighter,” said Lior Strahilevitz, the Sidley Austin Professor of Law, who co-chairs the faculty clerkship committee with Jonathan Masur, the John P. Wilson Professor of Law. “Supreme Court justices are hardly alone in noting the remarkable quality of our graduates. Throughout the federal and state judiciaries, Chicago students and alumni are in especially high demand.”
It is typical for the Law School to have multiple alumni clerking on the Supreme Court at once: In 37 of the past 47 years, two or more clerks on the Supreme Court have been graduates of the Law School. In 15 of those years, four or more Supreme Clerks have been Chicago alumni—including in 1993, when there were eight, and 1994, when there were seven. There were four at one time as recently as 2017.
Law School alumni traditionally have done well securing clerkships on the lower courts, too, but expanded efforts to counsel aspiring clerks have further boosted those numbers in recent years. In 2018, 27 percent of students entered state or federal clerkships immediately after graduation—the highest figure in recent memory, and more than double the 12.9 percent who entered clerkships immediately after graduation in 2013.
“More and more of our students come to law school hoping to clerk,” said Masur, “and they’re right to want to. Clerkships are great jobs, great learning experiences and great opportunities to find a lifelong mentor. They can also jump-start a student’s career. Our goal as a clerkship committee is to tell students about the advantages of clerking and then to help find a clerkship for each and every student who wants one.”
The faculty clerkship committee expanded several years ago to include Profs. Genevieve Lakier, John Rappaport and Daniel Hemel. Every member of the committee is a former clerk, and they share their deep knowledge of the experience, the judges and the application process with students, guiding them during law school and, often, for several years after.
The Law School also works to expose students to the judiciary through programs like the Edward H. Levi Distinguished Visiting Jurist lecture series. Since the program began in 2013, more than two dozen judges have visited the Law School, delivering lunch talks and often meeting with a small group of students and faculty. Recent visiting jurists have included Merrick Garland, Chief Judge of the D.C. Circuit; Michelle Friedland of the Ninth Circuit, Timothy Tymkovich, Chief Judge of the Tenth Circuit; Cheryl Krause of the Third Circuit; Jeffrey S. Sutton of the Sixth Circuit; John Z. Lee of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, and Beryl Howell, chief judge of the US District Court for the District of Columbia.
—Prof. Jacqueline Stewart
