Law Clerk Handbook, Revised Third Edition
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In Chambers: Effective Writing Tips for the Judicial Interns and Law Clerks
IN CHAMBERS: EFFECTIVE WRITING TIPS FOR THE JUDICIAL INTERNS AND LAW CLERKS © 2017 The Writing Center at GULC. All Rights Reserved.1 Working for and with a judge can be an exciting but intimidating challenge. In many respects, law school is great preparation, and many of the skills you have learned will be invaluable. However, many challenges you will face in chambers can seem quite foreign at first, and there is surprisingly little guidance out there on how to address them. This handout is intended to fill some of those gaps. A lot of the guidance contained in this handout will, like so many things in law, vary depending on facts and circumstances. For example, this handout is intended to be useful both for full-time clerks as well as summer interns and school-term externs. Of course, the roles of each of these positions differs in some respect, so keep that in mind as you read. In addition, as is elaborated further later on, every judge is different. No matter what, respect his or her wishes at all times and never take anything contained herein or elsewhere as advice to the contrary. This handout assumes you have received an assignment from your supervisor in chambers and that you are having a hard time with next steps. The goal is not so much to tell you how to write it (there is simply too much variation out there for that), but, instead, to provide some guidance as to what types of questions you can ask and what next steps might look like. -
A Streamlined Model of Tribal Appellate Court Rules for Lay Advocates and Pro Se Litigants
American Indian Law Journal Volume 4 Issue 1 Article 4 12-15-2015 A Streamlined Model of Tribal Appellate Court Rules for Lay Advocates and Pro Se Litigants Gregory D. Smith J.D. Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/ailj Part of the Courts Commons, and the Indian and Aboriginal Law Commons Recommended Citation Smith, Gregory D. J.D. (2015) "A Streamlined Model of Tribal Appellate Court Rules for Lay Advocates and Pro Se Litigants," American Indian Law Journal: Vol. 4 : Iss. 1 , Article 4. Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/ailj/vol4/iss1/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Publications and Programs at Seattle University School of Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in American Indian Law Journal by an authorized editor of Seattle University School of Law Digital Commons. A Streamlined Model of Tribal Appellate Court Rules for Lay Advocates and Pro Se Litigants Cover Page Footnote Gregory D. Smith, [J.D., Cumberland School of Law, 1988; B.S., Middle Tennessee State University, 1985; Special Courts Certification, National Judicial College, 2014], is a Justice on the Pawnee Nation Supreme Court in Oklahoma and the Alternate Judge on the Gila River Indian Community Court of Appeals in Arizona. Each court is the highest appellate court in their respective tribal nations. Both positions are part-time judgeships. Mr. Smith also has a law practice in Clarksville, Tennessee and is the part-time municipal judge for Pleasant View, Tennessee. Judge Smith has presented between 650–700 appeals for courts all over the United States. -
Clerk and Justice: the Ties That Bind John Paul Stevens and Wiley B
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by OpenCommons at University of Connecticut University of Connecticut OpenCommons@UConn Connecticut Law Review School of Law 2008 Clerk and Justice: The Ties That Bind John Paul Stevens and Wiley B. Rutledge Laura Krugman Ray Follow this and additional works at: https://opencommons.uconn.edu/law_review Recommended Citation Ray, Laura Krugman, "Clerk and Justice: The Ties That Bind John Paul Stevens and Wiley B. Rutledge" (2008). Connecticut Law Review. 5. https://opencommons.uconn.edu/law_review/5 CONNECTICUT LAW REVIEW VOLUME 41 NOVEMBER 2008 NUMBER 1 Article Clerk and Justice: The Ties That Bind John Paul Stevens and Wiley B. Rutledge LAURA KRUGMAN RAY Justice John Paul Stevens, now starting his thirty-third full term on the Supreme Court, served as law clerk to Justice Wiley B. Rutledge during the Court’s 1947 Term. That experience has informed both elements of Stevens’s jurisprudence and aspects of his approach to his institutional role. Like Rutledge, Stevens has written powerful opinions on issues of individual rights, the Establishment Clause, and the reach of executive power in wartime. Stevens has also, like Rutledge, been a frequent author of dissents and concurrences, choosing to express his divergences from the majority rather than to vote in silence. Within his chambers, Stevens has in many ways adopted his own clerkship experience in preference to current models. Unlike the practices of most of his colleagues, Stevens hires fewer clerks, writes his own first drafts, and shares certiorari decisionmaking with his clerks. -
Lessons Learned from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
LESSONS LEARNED FROM JUSTICE RUTH BADER GINSBURG Amanda L. Tyler* INTRODUCTION Serving as a law clerk for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the Supreme Court’s October Term 1999 was one of the single greatest privileges and honors of my life. As a trailblazer who opened up opportunities for women, she was a personal hero. How many people get to say that they worked for their hero? Justice Ginsburg was defined by her brilliance, her dedication to public service, her resilience, and her unwavering devotion to taking up the Founders’ calling, set out in the Preamble to our Constitution, to make ours a “more perfect Union.”1 She was a profoundly dedicated public servant in no small measure because she appreciated just how important her role was in ensuring that our Constitution belongs to everyone. Whether as an advocate or a Justice, she tirelessly fought to dismantle discrimination and more generally to open opportunities for every person to live up to their full human potential. Without question, she left this world a better place than she found it, and we are all the beneficiaries. As an advocate, Ruth Bader Ginsburg challenged our society to liber- ate all persons from the gender-based stereotypes that held them back. As a federal judge for forty years—twenty-seven of them on the Supreme Court—she continued and expanded upon that work, even when it meant in dissent calling out her colleagues for improperly walking back earlier gains or halting future progress.2 In total, she wrote over 700 opinions on the D.C. -
Code of Conduct for Staff Attorneys and Law Clerks Canon 1
NORTH CAROLINA COURT OF APPEALS CODE OF CONDUCT FOR STAFF ATTORNEYS AND LAW CLERKS CANON 1 A STAFF ATTORNEY OR LAW CLERK SHOULD CONDUCT HIMSELF OR HERSELF IN A MANNER AS TO UPHOLD AND PROMOTE THE INTEGRITY AND INDEPENDENCE OF THE JUDICIARY An independent and honorable judiciary is indispensable to justice in our society. A staff attorney or law clerk should observe, and should impart to anyone under his or her supervision, high standards of conduct so that the integrity and independence of the judiciary may be preserved and his or her office may reflect a devotion to serving the public. The provisions of this Code should be construed and applied to further those objectives. CANON 2 A STAFF ATTORNEY OR LAW CLERK SHOULD AVOID IMPROPRIETY AND THE APPEARANCE OF IMPROPRIETY IN ALL HIS OR HER ACTIVITIES A staff attorney or law clerk should not engage in any activities that would put into question the propriety of his or her conduct in carrying out the duties of his or her employment. He or she should not allow his or her family, social, or other relationships to influence his or her judgment or the performance of the duties of his or her employment. He or she should not lend the prestige of his or her position to advance the private interests of others; he or she should not convey the impression that he or she is in the position to influence the Court or any judge, nor permit others to convey the impression that they are in a special position to influence him or her. -
The 2021-2022 Guide to State Court Judicial Clerkship Procedures
The 2021-2022 Guide to State Court Judicial Clerkship Procedures The Vermont Public Interest Action Project Office of Career Services Vermont Law School Copyright © 2021 Vermont Law School Acknowledgement The 2021-2022 Guide to State Court Judicial Clerkship Procedures represents the contributions of several individuals and we would like to take this opportunity to thank them for their ideas and energy. We would like to acknowledge and thank the state court administrators, clerks, and other personnel for continuing to provide the information necessary to compile this volume. Likewise, the assistance of career services offices in several jurisdictions is also very much appreciated. Lastly, thank you to Elijah Gleason in our office for gathering and updating the information in this year’s Guide. Quite simply, the 2021-2022 Guide exists because of their efforts, and we are very appreciative of their work on this project. We have made every effort to verify the information that is contained herein, but judges and courts can, and do, alter application deadlines and materials. As a result, if you have any questions about the information listed, please confirm it directly with the individual court involved. It is likely that additional changes will occur in the coming months, which we will monitor and update in the Guide accordingly. We believe The 2021-2022 Guide represents a necessary tool for both career services professionals and law students considering judicial clerkships. We hope that it will prove useful and encourage other efforts to share information of use to all of us in the law school career services community. -
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT of INDIANA INDIANAPOLIS DIVISION ALLENN PETERSON, Plaintiff, V. JENNIFER FRENCH
Case 1:16-cv-01280-TWP-MJD Document 38 Filed 03/19/18 Page 1 of 6 PageID #: <pageID> UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF INDIANA INDIANAPOLIS DIVISION ALLENN PETERSON, ) ) Plaintiff, ) ) v. ) No. 1:16-cv-01280-TWP-MJD ) ) JENNIFER FRENCH, ) MICHAEL THOMBLESON, ) ) Defendants. ) Entry Granting Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment And Directing Entry of Final Judgment For the reasons set forth below, defendants Jennifer French and Michael Thombleson’s motion for summary judgment, dkt. [29], is granted. I. Introduction Plaintiff Allenn Peterson is an inmate in the New Castle Correctional Facility (“New Castle”) in Indiana. In 2015, he had been employed as an offender law clerk in the facility’s law library when he and all of the other offender law clerks lost their jobs following a prison administration inquiry into a perceived security threat. A law library computer server had been reconfigured to allow internet access, something prohibited by prison policy. Authorities conducted an investigation to identify who had reconfigured the server, but they were unable to determine which of the offender law clerks might have done so. Unable to identify the culprit, all fifteen to twenty-five offender law clerks lost their jobs. None were disciplined or otherwise sanctioned. Mr. Peterson believes that his job dismissal was actually a retaliatory move to punish him for bringing previous lawsuits against defendants. He filed this action asserting a violation of his First Amendment free speech rights. Case 1:16-cv-01280-TWP-MJD Document 38 Filed 03/19/18 Page 2 of 6 PageID #: <pageID> II. Summary Judgment Standard Summary judgment is appropriate “if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. -
A Truth About Career Law Clerks Joseph D
Marquette Law Review Volume 98 Issue 1 Symposium: Judicial Assistants or Junior Article 4 Judges: The Hiring, Utilization, and Influence of Law Clerks A Truth About Career Law Clerks Joseph D. Kearney Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/mulr Part of the Judges Commons, Law and Society Commons, and the Legal Profession Commons Repository Citation Joseph D. Kearney, A Truth About Career Law Clerks, 98 Marq. L. Rev. 13 (2014). Available at: http://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/mulr/vol98/iss1/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Marquette Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Marquette Law Review by an authorized administrator of Marquette Law Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A TRUTH ABOUT CAREER LAW CLERKS JOSEPH D. KEARNEY* I want to begin by thanking my colleague, Chad Oldfather, and also Todd Peppers, for organizing this conference. It is an impressive feat, and I would be grateful, as dean, even if it did not present me an opportunity to unburden myself of a point that has been bothering me for some time. Let me begin that unburdening with an apology of sorts—or a refusal to give one, depending on how you look at it. It is best presented, perhaps, in a brief story. A number of years ago, one of my friends, a nationally acclaimed law professor, asked me, “If you were a Supreme Court Justice, how would you select your law clerks?” My response was that, whatever else might be the case, I would not hand the matter over, even for screening purposes, to some panel of former clerks, professors, or judges. -
Keeping the Judicial Law Clerk on Your Side
APPELLATE ADVOCACY Help the Clerk and Help Your Case Keeping the Judicial Law Clerk By Amanda E. Heitz on Your Side Although appellate Apart from the litigants and attorneys themselves, there practice articles often likely is nobody who will spend more time poring over cover how to write your briefs and the record than a judicial law clerk. At a briefs and motions for minimum, the judges deciding your case will rely on their clerks’ analyses of the record and research tifying the important legal issues and facts judges, we can forget of the issues—and many will also lean on on which an opinion will rely. Making an these clerks to propose an outcome and enemy of the law clerk may not sink your that our audience also craft language for written opinions. case, but it certainly will never help you. The role of law clerks in the judicial And keeping the law clerk on your side will includes law clerks, and process has been the subject of scholarly you give you another voice in chambers research and discussion for years. See, e.g., who can remind the judge of strong facts importantly, we need Stephen L. Wasby, The World of Law Clerks: or law that help your position. Tasks, Utilization, Reliance, and Influence, Accordingly, this article intends to pro- to help them focus on 98 Marq. L. Rev. 111 (2014); Todd C. Pep- vide practical tips from former law clerk pers et al., Inside Judicial Chambers: How perspectives that can help make you a bet- our arguments, too. -
Law & Order Code
Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California Law & Order Code ______________________________________________________________________________________ TRIBAL COURT RULES ______________________________________________________________________________________ [Last Amended: 9/11/2009; Current Through 2/25/2010] TABLE OF CONTENTS Rule 1 Applicability and Citation of the Rules ............................................................................................. 1 Rule 2 Organization of the Court.................................................................................................................... 1 Rule 3 Early Settlement Conference ............................................................................................................... 2 Rule 4 Law and Motion Calendar................................................................................................................... 2 Rule 5 Child Custody and Visitation Cases .................................................................................................. 3 Rule 6 Child Support, Spousal Support and Temporary Fees.................................................................... 6 Rule 7 Reserved................................................................................................................................................. 6 Rule 8 Setting of Cases for Trial...................................................................................................................... 6 Rule 9 Motion Practice .................................................................................................................................... -
Judicial Genealogy (And Mythology) of John Roberts: Clerkships from Gray to Brandeis to Friendly to Roberts
The Judicial Genealogy (and Mythology) of John Roberts: Clerkships from Gray to Brandeis to Friendly to Roberts BRAD SNYDER* During his Supreme Court nomination hearings, John Roberts idealized and mythologized the first judge he clerkedfor, Second Circuit Judge Henry Friendly, as the sophisticated judge-as-umpire. Thus far on the Court, Roberts has found it difficult to live up to his Friendly ideal, particularlyin several high-profile cases. This Article addresses the influence of Friendly on Roberts and judges on law clerks by examining the roots of Roberts's distinguishedyet unrecognized lineage of former clerks: Louis Brandeis 's clerkship with Horace Gray, Friendly's clerkship with Brandeis, and Roberts's clerkships with Friendly and Rehnquist. Labeling this lineage a judicial genealogy, this Article reorients clerkship scholarship away from clerks' influences on judges to judges' influences on clerks. It also shows how Brandeis, Friendly, and Roberts were influenced by their clerkship experiences and how they idealized their judges. By laying the clerkship experiences and career paths of Brandeis, Friendly, and Roberts side-by- side in detailed primary source accounts, this Article argues that judicial influence on clerks is more professional than ideological and that the idealization ofjudges and emergence of clerks hips as must-have credentials contribute to a culture ofjudicial supremacy. * Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin Law School. Thanks to Eleanor Brown, Dan Ernst, David Fontana, Abbe Gluck, Dirk Hartog, Dan -
Judicial Council Scotland
Response questionnaire project group Timeliness Judicial Council of Scotland 1. The Court System and Available Statistics 1.1 The court system in Scotland comprises a hierarchy of courts. At the top of the hierarchy is the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, which is located in London. It has an appellate jurisdiction from the Scottish courts in civil matters and, since the devolution arrangement which was introduced in 1999, in human rights issues in relation to criminal matters. Until devolution, there was no right of appeal in criminal matters to London. The senior courts in Scotland are the Court of Session (civil matters) and the High Court (criminal matters). Rather confusingly, as a result of practice before the Union of Scotland and England in 1707, they are known as the Supreme Courts of Scotland. Thus when we refer below to the Supreme Courts Programming Board, we are speaking of a Scottish rather than a UK body. The Court of Session and the High Court have both a first instance and an appellate jurisdiction. The High Court has exclusive jurisdiction to hear cases involving certain serious crimes and its judges have a sentencing power which is considerably greater than that conferred on sheriffs, who cannot impose a sentence of imprisonment which is more than for five years. At a local level there are sheriff courts, each of which has a defined geographical jurisdiction within Scotland. Sheriffs have jurisdiction in both civil and criminal matters. Almost all family cases are now heard in the sheriff court. Civil cases with a value of £5,000 or less must be heard in the sheriff court and cannot be raised in the Court of Session.