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

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 turn on question ...

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. Most persons serving in this capacity are recent

law school A law school (also known as a law centre/center, college of law, or faculty of law) is an institution, professional school, or department of a college or university specializing in legal education, usually involved as part of a process for b ...

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 (: memorandums or memoranda; from the Latin ''memorandum'', "(that) which is to be remembered"), also known as a briefing note, is a Writing, written message that is typically used in a professional setting. Commonly abbreviation, ...

, and draft

orders Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * A socio-political or established or existing order, e.g. World order, Ancien Regime, Pax Britannica * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood * H ...

and

opinions An opinion is a judgement, Point of view (philosophy), viewpoint, or Proposition, statement that is not conclusive, as opposed to facts, which are truth, true statements. Definition A given opinion may deal with subjectivity, subjective matters ...

. 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 An 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 ...

holding Supreme Court seat 6 (the Court's sixth associate justice seat by order of creation), which was established on February 24, 1807, by the 9th Congress through the

Seventh Circuit Act of 1807 The Seventh Circuit Act of 1807 was a significant piece of legislation that expanded the federal judiciary in the United States. Enacted on February 24, 1807, this act created the Seventh Circuit and added a seventh seat to the Supreme Court. ...

(). This seat is currently occupied by Justice

Amy Coney Barrett Amy Vivian Coney Barrett (born January 28, 1972) is an American lawyer and jurist serving since 2020 as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. The fifth wom ...

References

Additional sources

* Baier, Paul R. (1973). "The Law Clerks: Profile of an Institution," ''Vanderbilt L. Rev.'' 26: 1125–77. * Boskey, Bennett, "Justice Reed and His Family of Law Clerks," 69 ''Ky. L. J.'' 869 (1980–81). * "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. * 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 Seat 06