Law clerks 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 Horace Gray (March 24, 1828 – September 15, 1902) was an American jurist who served on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, and then on the United States Supreme Court, where he frequently interpreted the Constitution in ways that increa ...

in 1882. Each justice is permitted to have between three and four law clerks per Court term. The chief justice is allowed to have five law clerks per Term, but no chief justice has ever done so regularly. 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 d ...

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 chief justice, a position alluded to in the

U.S. Constitution The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, in 1789. Originally comprising seven articles, it delineates the natio ...

and 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, Secti ...

(). The current Chief Justice of the United States is

John Roberts John Glover Roberts Jr. (born January 27, 1955) is an American lawyer and jurist who has served as the 17th chief justice of the United States since 2005. Roberts has authored the majority opinion in several landmark cases, including ''Nati ...

References

Additional sources

* Baier, Paul R. (1973). "The Law Clerks: Profile of an Institution," ''Vanderbilt L. Rev.'' 26: 1125–77. * "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. *

" Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (2015). Retrieved August 15, 2016. * Newland, Charles A. (June 1961). "Personal Assistants to the Supreme Court Justices: The Law Clerks," ''Oregon L. Rev.'' 40: 306–07.
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 Chief Justice Supreme Court of the United States people