The real allure of the Supreme Court clerk, says Lat, is that they are trophy purchases, “something for a firm to crow about in their recruiting materials.” Ouch. 2014] BONUS BABIES ESCAPE GOLDEN HANDCUFFS 229 clerks after they leave the Court.3 A recent study examined post- clerkship employment for 90% of Supreme Court clerks from the inception of the clerkship institution to the start of the Roberts Court First, they do well in law school. Slate is published by The Slate Group, a Graham Holdings Company. You aren't paying them that because of how many games they will help you win in AA ball (work which is infinitely more important and interesting than the work a former clerk is … Chicago is a very good school, but no better than Columbia, Stanford, Virginia, NYU, or half a dozen more I could name. But as college costs loom and boilers break down, one has to wonder whether it makes perfect sense to pay astronomical sums to young lawyers to argue and influence (or, in some cases, not argue and not influence) their former bosses—those same former bosses who have moved way beyond envy, and on into bitter, grinding resentment. As recently as early 2003, they … OK, my friends who are struggling to pay your mortgage, put away money for your kids’ college fund, wondering why the day-care lady earns more per hour than you do, and hoping duct tape and copper wire will hold the boiler together until spring, consider this (calmly, please): Later this spring, elite law firms will again be offering Supreme Court law clerks signing bonuses of $200,000 (last year’s rate) or even more for their first jobs as practicing lawyers. All of these are traits that matter to developing as a strong law firm lawyer.Not all Supreme Court clerks are great lawyers, and not all great lawyers were Supreme Court clerks. But I was never the market leader for driving it up.”. With the power to shape policy and precedent, a Supreme Court clerkship is an invaluable stepping-stone to future prosperity. They may never make it to the majors - they might blow out their rotator cuff, they might discover recreational drugs, they might not ever develop a big league curve ball. clerk's ratio of work ethic to job expectations is considerably less charitable. Hence the weekends and takeout and no-life to get you up to 2,200.). There are a lot of good lawyers out there.As for it being chump change, do the math. At which point the already puzzling economics of elite law firm cachet will have become truly incomprehensible. In my case, it would have ruined my career.” Alexander Volokh, who clerked for Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Samuel Alito in 2005 and 2006 and chose to teach law, is similarly adamant: “My Georgetown colleagues are worth $300,000, at least.”, So now law firm recruiters have to worry about finding the clerks who really want to stick around, and they may have to settle, as Phillips says, for using those first years “as a chance to persuade the others that private practice is the place to be.” Akin Gump’s Goldstein says it’s worth the gamble: “It’s such a talent-rich pool that we can’t afford to miss out on it. Clerks on the federal appeals courts are pretty bright too, yet they can be hired for a mere $50,000 bonus. Supreme Court clerks are some of America’s most talented young lawyers. At top law schools, by contrast, a Supreme Court clerkship seems to be an all but mandatory ticket for getting hired. According to the most recent figures from the National Association of Law Placement, 37 percent of associates leave large firms within the first three years, and 77 percent depart within five years. What is it about three-dozen legal rock stars that justifies paying them so much? As he testified just last month before the Senate Judiciary Committee, “Something is wrong when a judge’s law clerk, just one or two years out of law school, has a salary greater than that of the judge or justice he or she served the year before.” The fact is that if the market is working to drive associate salaries higher and higher, the lack of a market is now ensuring that a first-year associate at a law firm who clerked on the court will earn more next year than Justice Antonin Scalia ($203,000), Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald ($140,300), or a well-paid public defender ($75,000). There are certainly great U of C lawyers out there. He wanted to get back to Chicago and into meaningful practice. He has told me that the main reason to recruit them is for marketing value - it looks good to clients who aren't terribly law savvy and plays well with other attorneys within the legal community who are prestige and credential oriented - some of those superstar ex-clerks. And according to him, the hefty law clerk bonus stopped making any real economic sense several decimal points ago. To top academia, that still matters. “They can’t get through their clerkships without putting in significant hours, so you know they can put in 2,200 hours at a firm.” (Billable hours are the six-minute increments by which lawyers account for their time. SCOTUS clerks, who otherwise would’ve made prole wages for their first three years or so post-law school while working the same obscene hours, will, figuring this bonus amortized over three year, see their annual pro forma wages raised into the six figure range, making such government service less of a hardship! The sheer bling factor is a part of it. In fact, four of the justices currently sitting on the Supreme Court launched their own careers clerking for Supreme Court justices. This will make them see the benefits of government service & not have them avoid such service for mercenary means. It makes the market for pro athletes look rational by comparison. Wish I'd had one. They aren’t necessarily dragging young lawyers out of government or public service. R, your point regarding SCt clerks being able to "close the sale in a face-to-face interview" is well-taken, but you're not hiring the clerks to woo clients (for a few years, anyway) -- their job is to write really well and help win the appellate cases they're not conflicted out of handling.And, yes it's true that it's not a lot of money on a per-partner basis, but neither are a lot of things which firms could be doing to improve retention and morale (if they were so inclined). The combination of the clerks’ skill, that they could become leading lawyers in the firm, and the reputational benefit to having them, justifiably creates this incredible demand.”, Some boutique firms have very successful appellate practices with few or no former Supreme Court clerks. He also tells me that few of these clerks remain practicing lawyers for very long, preferring an easier life of teaching, or journalism. (I.e. clerk recruiting methods. Ann said: Why not just buy two lawyers?Interesting word choice. Phillips also notes that because of their work considering possible future cases for their justice, Supreme Court clerks have been exposed to a much broader set of federal issues even than their colleagues from the federal appeals courts. Do you want to know what I say to a 26 year old kid, two years out of school who never practiced law, who gets a $200,000 signing bonus to take a job that pays $150,000 a year?I say: Good for you! Make a 1-time donation or set up a monthly donation of any amount you choose: A $200,000 bonus to Supreme Court law clerks for signing on with a law firm? If the studies are right, and you must spend three hours at work for every two hours you can bill, working 10-hour days you’d bill between 1,500 and 1,600 hours a year. More pragmatically, they pay that much in the hope that the clerks will mature into prodigious rainmakers and incredibly gifted lawyers. And whether or not those salary disparities make you weep in sympathy, it’s hard to dispute the justices’ claim that the opportunity cost of staying on the bench has become almost impossible to ignore. Most employees are expected to put in 2000 hours a year (261 days, 8 hours, two weeks vacation.) “They’re billing 1,800 hours, not 2,500, and a lot of them are probably already working on their job talks,” he says, referring to their sales pitches for the academic market. “I’m sort of glad we didn’t have that kind of bonus in my day,” says Tim Wu, who clerked for Justice Stephen Breyer in 1999 and teaches at Columbia Law School. It hears most appeals from the Provincial Court in civil and criminal cases and appeals from arbitrations. So I expect that the 2200 hours is a deliberate underestimate (lie.). On the other hand, and perhaps merely coincidentally, two years seems to have become the unofficial number for the young associates themselves, many of whom agree informally that if they stick around the law firm for that period of time, they can’t be accused of having taken the money and run. Last but not least, it helps to be a dedicated hoop jumper ever ready to jump through the next, higher hoop. When it hit $ 150,000 two years ago, it was hard to pick myself off the floor. Carter Phillips concedes that the huge bonuses have undermined what he calls a “natural sorting process,” wherein some former clerks once naturally gravitated to government service, and others left the court for academia. I still manage to work my clerkship into conversations, just like this, many moons later.) “For every one of the 36 smartest law kids,” he says, “there is another equally smart law kid who just had a bad interview [for a Court clerkship].” And if law firms make the economic decision to give bonuses to them, “they get all the benefits of a knock-off Prada purse: They perform the same function, they look great, and you know they’ll do a great job.”. That's on top of a first-year's starting salary of $145,000 to $160,000. In fact, the big bonuses create an enormous incentive for young Supreme Court clerks to, well, take the money and run. He teaches at a second tier law school because, what with working his way through law school, he didn't do law review and didn't do any clerkships. Analytical skills count, especially with regard to grades, but it also matters that you can identify and nurture powerful mentors (professors and your lower court judge for recommendations), that you can close the sale in a face-to-face interview, and that you can make good strategic choices. Even in the city of Chicago, U of C grads play a prominent but not a dominant role in law firm leadership. The same law schools that wouldn't talk to him, an accomplished and serious scholar, were happy to talk to me when I flirted with teaching because my friends were doing it, although I have neither the vocation nor the temperament for being a research academic. Law Clerk salaries at Supreme Court of the United States can range from $71,524 - $114,831. And as demand for attorneys increases, the number of graduates from the nation’s top 25 law schools has remained constant. The former Tampa Bay Rays outfield prospect was among the clerks hired by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas for the 2019 ... Rice agreed to a minor league contract with a $25,000 signing bonus. Speaking as a former Supreme Court clerk, it seems crazy, and it usually will be wasted money, but it isn't always.Some Supreme Court clerks end up being good but not incredible lawyers (that would be me, before I quit law, having made partner at a big firm, to start a business). Which adds up to an awful lot of Pottery Barn sectional furniture for someone who is, on average, 26 years old and just two years out of school. A friend of mine is on the hiring committee at a firm with "aggressive" S.Ct. Your average Supreme Court clerk has superior analytical ability, but so does your average member of the law review at any top law school.Think for a second about how someone becomes a clerk. In my era, at least, it was de rigeur for the President of the Harvard Law Review to seek and get a Supreme Court clerkship.). R said... To a firm, and especially to a big firm, $200k is chump change...."That is my point. It’s hard to understand why some young associates are now being paid around $145,000 and many partners bring in a cool million and more. In my experience, however, the two places I would go to look for A list talents to build a franchise around would be the body of Supreme Court clerks and the Harvard Law Review. As some have noted on this thread, in the long run, results count. Yale is not oriented to private practice - kids self select Yale because they want to teach or perform service after spending three years in a noncompetitive, intellectual atmosphere. The signing bonus for clerks at major firms is $280,000. (Envy.). As a 3L, the associate hiring market strikes me as the most irrational, foolish, group-think-dominated labor market I've ever encountered. Jones Day declined to provide information to Bloomberg Law about the amount of its signing bonus for Supreme Court clerks. That's absurd. Former law clerks of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito listen as U.S. President George W. Bush praises their former boss on the White House complex in Washington January 25, 2006. Big law firms regularly pay signing bonuses worth as much as $400,000 to former Supreme Court clerks — nearly double the salary that each justice earns. The Supreme Court is a court of general and inherent jurisdiction which means that it can hear any type of case, civil or criminal. Law clerks from the Supreme Court's last term are being welcomed into BigLaw firms with signing bonuses of $280,000, if not more, Supreme Court Insider reported Wednesday. Others content themselves with the hope that if the clerks stay for even a few years and bill their 2,000 hours, they will still break even on the proposition. In my case, it would have ruined my career. All contents © 2021 The Slate Group LLC. Adam - The "closing the sale" aspect matters because what they do for you years down the road is what justifies the expenditure. No amount of money would make it worth being away from my family for 60 to 70 hours a week. And for those who say that you have to be a former Supreme Court clerk to do this sort ... they noted, offer substantial signing bonuses of $400,000 to ... $400K for SCOTUS Clerks: A Bonus … Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan has increased its clerkship signing bonus to $105,000. I also don't know why you'd focus on HLR folks to the exclusion of Yale and Chicago, especially Chicago folks who are plugged into the FedSoc/conservative appellate judge network. Judicial clerks wishing to explore a career at Gibson Dunn should submit an application directly via our applicant portal. In short, the demand for lawyers is increasing, and the supply wants their weekends back. All the same, paying that $200,000 signing bonus gets the organization first dibs at that particular prospect. Way low. The typical Supreme Court of the United States Law Clerk salary is $95,022. I didn't mind because I really didn't have anything else to do. In our recent New York Times op-ed piece praising lavish signing bonuses for Supreme Court clerks, we wrote that the bonuses “are expected to … That's how many dollars some law firms will pay them as a signing bonus. “I’ll take the heat for creating this system. "hmmmmm 2200 divided by 15 mins/1sec...rounded up.....hmmmmm lotta lawyers I know could do that in say 14 weeks or so give or take...depends on research, travel time, some phone logs, hall conversations....a few 12 hour days....creative rounding..I'll say what I've said before on here...the basic premise that a lawyer (in degree only) fresh out of school is worth 150k is laughable...a clerk may be different due to connections etc. You could get lucky. Lat notes that these new associates just don’t bill extraordinary hours; that boutique appellate practice isn’t that lucrative; and a good many former clerks have academic aspirations. In a bidding war between boutique appellate practices at the nation’s fanciest firms, the bonus not only rises each year, but seemingly it does so exponentially. They delivered services where small differences in quality matter a whole lot in ways that can be demonstrated, and they got paid accordingly.If you think your attorneys are padding your bill and not delivering value, change firms. No one, not even a Supreme Court clerk, is worth what a big law firm pays them the first couple of years out. “I think I’m the person who came up with this cockamamie idea in the first place,” he confesses, noting that in 1986, when he had the clever idea of wooing some particularly fabulous Supreme Court clerks, the dollar amount in question was closer to $5,000 or $10,000. Former Acting Solicitor General Walter Dellinger, who heads the appellate practice at O’Melveny and Myers in Washington, says that while not all Supreme Court clerks make brilliant lawyers, and not all of his best associates were trained at the high court, “there’s a very strong overlap with extraordinary talent.” He adds: “One of the least appreciated things in the practice of law, is lawyering that rates even above truly excellent lawyering.” And if you’re working on billion-dollar cases, he says, the client is willing to pay more for truly excellent work. I wouldn't sweat gambling .2 percent of my annual earnings to pick up someone who might be a franchise player, and I bet you wouldn't either.They won't lose much money on the clerk. Supreme Court law clerks are like professional athletes; they work under the bright lights of a world stage. Ct. clerks.Since most second-year BigLaw associates make $150K to $160K, a year at the Supreme Court is now a financial boon rather than a sacrifice: $63,335 (what a SCOTUS clerk makes) + $200,000 = $263,335. Thus, the specific expertise for which they were hired is on ice for two years. Supreme Court. Next, they get a clerkship with a feeder judge. Well, Justice Anthony Kennedy is, for one. That will be $200,000 on top of a starting salary of $145,000 to $160,000. Firms compete for these clerks because they’ve “unlocked every achievement,” from going to a top law school, to clerking for a federal appellate judge, to clerking at the Supreme Court, Patrice said. But in the short run, job applicants from certified top tier law schools find it easier to get hired & partners find it easier to "sell" a credentialed young 'un to clients. Of course. Young lawyers demand more lifestyle accommodation and want to bill fewer hours. I have attorneys who range from 3-600/hr depending on who does what. Take a firm like Sidley with 1300 lawyers, and maybe 400 partners. Clerks who complete two qualifying clerkships would get an additional $20,000 bonus. It may not be the best possible way to do things, but given the importance of talent to law firms and baseball teams it isn't totally whacko either.As for why Harvard and not Yale or Chicago (and I went to none of those three law schools) - in my limited, anecdotal experience, the nonclerk superstars I have known have disproportionately been members of the Harvard Law Review. Thank you for the explanation Ann.Here's a story that combines idiot lawyers and the daylight savings time switch. Obama didn't clerk because Obama didn't want to, is the story. Clerkship bonuses have apparently increased 3,000 percent in the past 20 years, while Congress still refuses to pass legislation to provide a 16 percent increase in federal judges’ salaries. Poor Supreme Court law clerks. Finally, they get a clerkship with a Supreme Court justice. )"Would you accept the deal of getting twice your current salary -- assuming you were already working 10 hours a day -- if it meant you had to put in 50% more time?If that 50% more is all you have left of your personal life, it's not a good deal. Sidley Austin Brown & Wood’s managing partner, Carter Phillips, agrees that the Supreme Court’s selection system does single out extraordinary young lawyers. Most of them finish doing the coolest job they will ever have when they are 26 years old. Here's a story that combines idiot lawyers and the daylight savings time switch. Don't forget how it got there. BTW, for those of you who think that law is a racket & that all lawyers should be forced to do real work, instead of dreaming up posts like this, I have nothing to say. But even that doesn’t fully account for the amount of money being thrown at Supreme Court clerks. Since all government programs, by definition, benefit The People & since the government cannot afford to pay these SCOTUS-clerk law school grads the same amounts as their classmates with similar law school records get, this is a Win/Win situation! But luring one of the 39 lawyers who have spent a year behind the scenes at the high court isn’t cheap. Major corporate law firms are now paying recent Supreme Court clerks, many of whom are only two years out of law school and can be as young as 28 years old, a $280,000 signing bonus simply for showing up to their first day of work. SC,(If I understand your comment correctly) This isn't a matter of work ethic or stamina; it's a matter of priorities. To a firm, and especially to a big firm, $200k is chump change, and if it helps you land the leader for the next generation, it's money well spent.It's not the resume value, and it's not the clerk head count that makes it make sense. Moreover, “they’re used to working hard,” Phillips says. Firms pay heftily to acquire Supreme Court clerk experience, although Jones Day declined to disclose the amount it pays when signing a clerk. reality check asks..."So how many hours does it take overall to have 2200 billable hours? The goal is to have them, when they are 40 to 50, throw off tons of money to increase the take home of the guys who hired them, who by then will be sixty and at the top of the firm's pyramid.Think of it as being like a $200,000 signing bonus for a hard throwing baseball pitcher coming out of high school. Part of what’s happening here is the extraordinary rise in lawyers’ salaries in general. The so-called “law clerk bonus” is a one-way ratchet, it seems. They’ll have fulfilled an ethical obligation. “The only question,” he says, “is whether it will be more.”. I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for me to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. Supreme Court veteran Carter Phillips of Sidley Austin remembers vividly the first time he offered a hiring bonus to a Supreme Court law clerk seeking a job … You aren't paying them that because of how many games they will help you win in AA ball (work which is infinitely more important and interesting than the work a former clerk is likely to see first year out). The signing bonuses for outgoing high-court clerks, at least at some firms, have more than tripled over the past decade. This comment has been removed by the author. If the studies are right, and you must spend three hours at work for every two hours you can bill, working 10-hour days, five days a week, you'd bill between 1,500 and 1,600 hours a year. The Washington Post (via the WSJ Law Blog) is reporting that $200,000 is now the going rate for bonuses for Sup. With so many powerful firms competing for only 36 clerks, it’s no surprise that the high court’s graduating law clerks will soon be staring down the barrel of NBA-grade salaries. It’s taking them longer to make partner than it once did, and they resent that. I used to work 60+ hours a week as a landscaper. These enormous signing bonuses have also spawned a bizarre collision of two ethical rules. For every $250,000 Supreme Court clerkship bonus, a firm could pay five clerkship bonuses of $50,000 — the going rate — to former appeals court clerks … Those couple years could purge the humanity right out of you, and then it's easy to keep going and going (like those Invasion of the Body Snatcher people linked in the previous post). "Back in the day, when I'd bill something like 2200 a year (sometimes less, sometimes more), I'd estimate my actual hours were more like 70 per week. Law firms pay a hiring bonus based on clerkships, but I can assure that they don't limit the firm hierarchy to former clerks, and they will happily fire a clerk who isn't doing the work. The firms acknowledge that times have changed. It could be worth it, depending on your values.And who knows? I think the saddest part of the story is this:"I'm sort of glad we didn't have that kind of bonus in my day," says Tim Wu, who clerked for Justice Stephen G. Breyer in 1999 and now teaches at Columbia Law School. Some Supreme Court clerks end up being good but not incredible lawyers (that would be me, before I quit law, having made partner at a big firm, to start a business). I have a friend, way smarter than I am, who publishes relentlessly in good journals, and is the leading guy in his field. and certainly that "experience" but...won't do me much good to argue upstream on this blog. "Don't forget how it got there. It's the chance to get the superstar who can build the practice group that makes paying the huge bonus a possibly rational decision. Supreme Court clerks are the ultimate status symbols for law firms that do appellate work. All they will have to remember it by is … A SCOTUS clerkship goes a long way, methinks. “Money like that leaves you no option. Corporate law firms pay Supreme Court law clerks $200,000 signing bonuses. According to a 2010 New York Times article, the signing bonus at a private firm for an attorney coming out of a Supreme Court clerkship can be to $250,000. (It was a kind of reverse Faulty Towers "He's from Barcelona").It's called "credentialism". Several former clerks who have signed up with firms suggest precisely the opposite: It gives them the freedom to pay off their loans and then teach or work at the Justice Department after a few years. They are competing not only with other firms, but with talent oriented businesses like hedge funds, investment banks and consulting firms like McKinsey. If Lat is correct about this, the boutique firms are buying former Supreme Court clerks when they might be better off investing in something more enduring, like new leather sofas for their lobbies. No wonder the justices are bitter. But even Phillips acknowledges that the rates in this bidding war have his partners back in Chicago swallowing hard. throwing buckets of money at them). And if the clerks are happy, their firms are satisfied, and the clients are OK with it, who’s really harmed by these astronomical rates? While private firms are making a calculated gamble in paying up for clerks, they aren't that crazy. Think that some of these soon-to-be former SCOTUS clerks & their families still feel that Execs in Corporate America are overpaid?To paraphrase the inelegant, but effective, Clinton expression: "It's the marketplace, stupid. To some extent, as noted, firms pay that much to show that they could attract them (sort of a good looking date syndrome applied to business). Nine months of work, day and night, can translate into a massive signing bonus at a large law firm – reportedly as much as $300,000, on top of a six-figure salary. Some of my classmates who didn't pursue or didn't quite get Supreme Court clerkships ended up being more successful practicing lawyers than I ever was, and even way back then they would have been easier to recruit. "For those who think that the Marketplace is irrational, for class-envy types, & for those who think that the private sector should pay a higher percentage of its ill-got gains to the government, just look at this as a law-firm & ultimately their Big Oil, Big Pharma, & Big Finance clients, subsidy for a government program: SCOTUS clerkships. But there are 400,000 more reasons that those law clerks are like the pros. (Please no posts from the irony deficient who would note that law school students are actually falling over themselves for these clerkships knowing that they are a lifetime badge of honor. As Chief Justice John Roberts pointed out recently, that $360,000 beats the heck out of the $212,100 he’s taking home for, well, chief justice-ing the entire nation. Attrition rates are soaring. There must be noneconomic factors pushing these numbers up. They will bill them out at several hundred dollars an hour, keep them for a least a couple of years, and even at those nosebleed salaries, break even quicker than you think.If you want a purer example of where Supreme Court clerk appreciation is irrational, take a look at law schools. His description of the average S.Ct. Dellinger, it should be noted, is a former Supreme Court clerk himself, from the pre-bonus era. The Supreme Court’s Rule 7 bars any former clerk from participating “in any professional capacity in any case” before the High Court for two years after they leave. Some turn into good attorneys, there's no way of knowing if any of them will be great, however. It’s one thing to insist that service to one’s country should be its own reward. On his legal gossip blog, Abovethelaw.com, David Lat tracks lawyer salaries with the glee most of us reserve for American Idol. This is all from anecdotal observation, and your mileage may vary. It's a small school to start with, and with the draw off to academia and nonprofits there just aren't that many Yale Law grads fighting their way to the top of big law firms. And now that the court’s term is over, the battle is on for the outgoing clerks. After two years in private practice, they can pay down or even pay off their law school debts and leave the firm holding the bag. The Huge Signing Bonuses Offered To Ex-Supreme Court Clerks Have Reached An All-Time High Thomas Goldstein, who recently started the Supreme Court litigation section at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer Feld, confirms that in the major markets, no large firm can expect to pay less than $200,000. Generally, judicial clerks who join us directly after completing a judicial clerkship receive class credit for their clerkship(s) and a competitive clerkship signing bonus. The problem I have with R's analysis is that it presumes that the superstars a firm needs are determined more by analytical merit than by business-generating ability, which involves a set of skills which overlaps with, but is not the same as those which lead to SCT clerkships.I think about how Tom Goldstein built his practice, and it was about his business hustle, and not whether he won or lost the cases ... Where did I say anything about analytical ability?