Where are they now? Supreme Court clerks, OT2005

Following up on posts on a ten-year retrospective on the Supreme Court clerks from October Term 2003 and October Term 2004, here's what the clerks from October Term 2005 are doing. This list is probably unreliable and has not been fact-checked in any way, except for the links provided (and these links often aren't the best source material). Note that Chief Justice William Rehnquist passed away at the beginning of the term and was replaced by Chief Justice John Roberts, and clerks for both are designated under the Roberts clerks. Also note that Justice Samuel Alito replaced Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in the middle of the term, and I did the best I could breaking down their clerks.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts

Daniel P. Kearney, Jr. (Yale 2004 / J. Roberts (D.C. Cir.)), counsel at WilmerHale

Mark W. Mosier (Chicago 2004 / Rehnquist / Tacha), partner at Covington

Ann E. O'Connell (George Washington 2004 / Rehnquist / Magill), assistant to the Solicitor General, DOJ

Michael S. Passaportis (Virginia 2004 / Rehnquist / Wilkinson), unknown

Kosta Stojilkovic (Virginia 2004 / J. Roberts (D.C. Cir.)), AUSA, E.D. Va.

Justice John Paul Stevens

Jean Galbraith (Berkeley 2004 / Tatel), professor at Penn

Daniel J. Lenerz (Stanford 2002 / S. Williams / Thompson (M.D. Ala.)), civil division, appellate staff, DOJ

Sarah Eddy McCallum (Georgetown 2002 / Walker (2d Cir.) / Rakoff), AUSA, S.D.N.Y.

Samuel Spital (Harvard 2004 / H. Edwards), partner at Holland & Knight

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor

Tali Farhadian Weinstein (Yale 2003 / Garland), AUSA, E.D.N.Y.*

Benjamin J. Horwich (Stanford 2003 / Becker / V. Walker (N.D. Cal.)), attorney at Munger Tolles**

Amy N. Kapczynski (Yale 2003 / Calabresi), professor at Yale

Sasha Volokh (Harvard 2004 / Kozinski), professor at Emory**

*Also clerked for previous term with Justice O'Connor.

**Also clerked for Justice Alito upon his confirmation.

Justice Antonin Scalia

John C. Demers (Harvard 1999 / O'Scannlain), VP & assistant GC, Boeing

Scott P. Martin (Columbia 2004 / Kozinski), partner at Gibson Dunn

D. John Sauer (Harvard 2004 / Luttig), partner at Clark & Sauer

Evan A. Young (Yale 2004 / Wilkinson), partner at Baker Botts

Justice Anthony Kennedy

David M. Cooper (Stanford 2004 / J. Roberts (D.C. Cir.)), counsel at Quinn Emanuel

Randy J. Kozel (Harvard 2004 / Kozinski), professor at Notre Dame

Jeffrey A. Pojanowski (Harvard 2004 / J. Roberts (D.C. Cir.)), professor at Notre Dame

Zachary S. Price (Harvard 2003 / Tatel / Blake (D. Md.)), professor at Hastings

Justice David H. Souter

Jeanne C. Fromer (Harvard 2002 / Sack), professor at NYU

Meaghan McLaine VerGow (Harvard 2004 / Garland), counsel at O'Melveny

Jon D. Michaels (Yale 2003 / Calabresi), professor at UCLA

Allison Orr Larsen (Virginia 2004 / Wilkinson), professor at William & Mary

Justice Clarence Thomas

Chantel Febus (George Washington 2002 / E. Jones / Lamberth (D.D.C.)), counsel at Proskauer

James C. Ho (Chicago 1999 / J. Smith (5th Cir.)), partner at Gibson Dunn

John M. Hughes (Chicago 2004 / Luttig), partner at Bartlit Beck

Ashley E. Johnson (Vanderbilt 2004 / Luttig), counsel at Gibson Dunn

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Lori Alvino McGill (Columbia 2003 / Tatel), partner at Quinn Emanuel

Joshua Civin (Yale 2003 / Reinhardt), counsel,  Montgomery County Public Schools

Rebecca Deutsch (Yale 2002 / Katzmann / Rakoff (S.D.N.Y.)), assistant general counsel for law and policy, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Anna-Rose Mathieson (Michigan 2003 / Boudin), partner at California Appellate Law Group

Justice Stephen Breyer

Danielle Gray (Harvard 2003 / Garland), partner at O'Melveny

Kathryn E. Judge (Stanford 2004 / Posner), professor at Columbia

Jonathan Kravis (Yale 2004 / Garland), AUSA, D.D.C.

John H. Longwell (Georgia 1999 / D. Ginsburg / V. Walker (N.D. Cal.)), counsel, ING

Justice Samuel Alito

Adam G. Ciongoli (Georgetown 1995 / Tatel / Bea), counsel, Campbell Soup Company

Horwich (from O'Connor)

Hannah Clayson Smith (BYU 2001 / Thomas (S. Ct.) / Alito (3d Cir.)), counsel, The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty

Volokh (from O'Connor)

A few thoughts:

The law professor drought is over! Well, last year, I wondered about a sharp drop-off in academic placements, from 14 for OT2003 to just 3 for OT2004. They're back! Nine are teaching at top flight law schools.

Who needs to become a partner? I count 6 former clerks working at law firms in an attorney or counsel role rather than as partner.

Otherwise, it's the usual mix of government or public interest lawyers, private practitioners, and academics one might otherwise expect.

Fictional Attorney of the Month: Rudy Baylor

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In 1997, Francis Ford Coppola directed a cinematic version of John Grisham's novel, The Rainmaker. The all-star cast is led by Matt Damon as Rudy Baylor, a newly minted lawyer from Memphis who escaped a life of poverty and lands the case of a lifetime.

Rudy takes a job as an ambulance chaser--literally visiting victims in the hospital to try to get clients--before running into Deck Shifflet, played by Danny DeVito. Rudy finds an insurance case involving Donny Ray, a 22-year-old dying of leukemia whose claims had been denied. Deck helps him out, and the two take on a powerful insurance company and its suite of attorneys.

The film has a number of roles and smaller story lines that slowly intertwine in Rudy's development. It offers not simply a very realistic look at the hard life of a novice plaintiff's attorney scrapping for fringe cases and confronting a powerful and slippery defense team, but also the ethical and moral questions that a new attorney confronts in his own life and in the practice of law generally. It is not exactly an uplifting film for the young lawyer. But Rudy's tenacity, skill, and introspection are worth of thoughtful examination.

California bar votes to cut exam from three days to two

In March, I covered the news that the California bar was considering cutting the length of the bar exam from three days to two. Today, Above the Law reports that the bar's board of trustees has unanimously approved the change, which should take effect July 2017.

The proposal (PDF) called for five one-hour essay questions and a 90-minute performance test on one day, and the 200-question multistate bar exam (MBE) on another day. The essays and the multiple choice component would each receive half the weight in the final score.

This post has been updated.