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You’ve likely heard of “feeder judges” — that is, the federal judges who send the most clerks on to work for Supreme Court justices — but we suspect you’ve not yet heard about the new phenomenon of “academic feeder judges.” According to a study by Florida International University law professor Howard Wasserman, if one of your career goals is to eventually become a law professor, then your best bet may be to get a clerkship with one of the judges named in this new ranking of sorts.
Law.com has some more details on Wasserman’s study:
The paper, titled “Academic Feeder Judges,” is the first comprehensive look at which jurists have the most former clerks working in legal academia. …
“Given the intimate (if not essential) connection between clerkships and the legal academy, the time is right to identify academic feeder judges—the judges for whom significant numbers of law professors clerked at the beginning of their careers and the judges who ‘produce’ law professors from the ranks of their former clerks,” reads the paper….
In all, Wasserman and his team of researchers examined the résumés of about 10,000 full-time law professors, nearly 38 percent of whom had worked as judicial law clerks in the past, to see compile the list of which lower court federal judges had the most former clerks working as law professors (by a measure of eight or more).
Here is the ranking for the top five academic feeder judges, out of a list of just over 101, each of whom launched the careers of more than 14 academics:
Judge Guido Calabresi, Second Circuit: 42
Judge Stephen Reinhardt, Ninth Circuit (deceased): 32
Judge Stephen Williams, D.C. Circuit: 29
Judge Dorothy Nelson, Ninth Circuit: 28
Judge Richard Posner, Seventh Circuit (retired): 28
Judge Harry Edwards, D.C. Circuit: 22
Here are some additional fun facts from Wasserman’s study:
- For lower court judges appointed since 1995, Judge Merrick Garland of the D.C. Circuit leads the way, with 15 former clerks now teaching.
- Former law professors who later became judges have more former clerks working as law professors (e.g., Judge Calabresi, former dean of Yale Law; Judge Williams, former professor at Colorado Law; Judge Nelson, former professor at USC Law; and Judge Posner, former professor at Chicago Law).
- On the Supreme Court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has the most former clerks who are now working as law professors (29), followed by Justice Stephen Breyer (24), with Justice Clarence Thomas in third place (13).
- Traditional feeder judges largely overlap with academic feeder judges. Since 2004, 11 lower court judges have placed 20 or more clerks at SCOTUS, and seven of those judges now have 10 or more former clerks in legal academia.
Congratulations if you were able to land a coveted job as a law professor after you completed your judicial clerkship. Not only did your valuable clerkship experience help you get your job, but it also helped your judge earn a spot on a new ranking.
Want to Be a Law Prof? Clerk for These Judges [Law.com]
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.