Law Clerk Hopefuls Learn the Ropes from Judges, Former Clerks

What is the value to a young lawyer of a judicial clerkship post?

More than 100 minority and women law students from around the country are learning first hand as they are brought together with judges and former law clerks during the Ninth Annual Judicial Clerkship Program Thursday through Saturday during the American Bar Association Midyear Meeting.

A joint project of the ABA Judicial Division and the ABA Presidential Advisory Council on Diversity in the Profession, the Judicial Clerkship Program offers participating students involvement in relevant panel discussions, research and writing exercises and a variety of informal social events, all with judges and designed to introduce the realities and expectations of a law clerkship.

“I’d like to find out exactly what a judicial clerkship [post] is, what it entails and the different aspects of it,” said attendee Lee Powell Jr., a second year law student at the Detroit Mercy School of Law. “I’ve heard it can be a very rewarding experience both professionally and in contributing back to the community.”

Lee admits to a slight case of nerves at the prospect of working closely with judges over the three-day event. “I’m a bit nervous at times but it’s also humbling, and I’m inspired by judges, so that’s going to make me feel more relaxed to be around them.”

Diana Baquero, a first year law student with Northeastern University School of Law, sees the Judicial Clerkship Program as a valuable opportunity to experience the myriad resources available to help her pursue a career in public interest law. “I’m interested in using my legal skills to empower and help people. A lot of people say ‘but you don’t make that much money if you want to do public interest work.’ But I’m in it to help people, to use my tools and skills to help make changes that affect people’s lives.”

Valuable as the nine-year-old Judicial Clerkship Program is to law students, law clerks are equally, if not more, indispensable to judges, said program Chair Ramona See, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge.

“We can’t live without our clerks,” said See. “They perform an important service for us. They do research for us. They address memoranda. They’re a very important part of the legal team.”

The Judicial Clerkship Program was started in 1998 to address a desperate lack of minority law clerks, even at the Supreme Court level. Women and minority law students were not moving into the legal profession’s diversity “pipeline”.

“For 20 years we’ve been working on diversity in the legal profession and the numbers have not changed. In fact, they’ve become static,” said Ruthe Ashley, chair of the Presidential Advisory Council on Diversity in the Profession. “We’ve really looked at a way to increase the numbers within the pipeline. And one of the ways students become acquainted with the different aspects of the law profession is to have mentors, to have role models.”

The Judicial Clerkship Program, she explained, helps serve that purpose.