How do you get to work for U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS Pt. 1 of 3)?
Judge Kenton Skarin outside of the United States Supreme Court, where he served as a law clerk from July 2012 through July 2013, writing opinions and orders for the High Court.
Hello, my name is Judge Kenton Skarin, and I am running for Illinois Third District Appellate Court in November 2024.
People often ask me what it was like to work for the United States Supreme Court. Working at the Court was one of the honors of my life. This week, I am going to provide three short posts about that experience.
The first question is how you get the job. Each justice picks four lawyers annually to help with all the substantive work of the court. There is no permanent legal staff.
Applicants typically graduated at the top of their class from one of the nation’s best law schools, then went on to work for (and be recommended by) one of the best federal appellate judges in America. I was fortunate enough to do those things. But those are just the basic qualifications.
If you meet those prerequisites, you send in an application like you might for other legal jobs. Most applicants apply to all nine justices. Then you hope to get an interview and to be hit by lightning in a highly competitive process.
Typically, each justice narrows the field with a round of screening interviews. In the interviews, former law clerks grill applicants about supreme court cases and related topics. If you make it past screening, you get an interview with the Justice and his or her current law clerks at the Court, where you get grilled again. Once that is done, you might wait days, weeks, or even months before receiving an offer.
If you are lucky enough to get the job, the work has just started.
In my next post, I will describe how the work of the court is done. In the meantime, I am asking for your vote in November 2024.
Please subscribe and share this story with your friends. If you have a question you would like me to answer, please write it in the comments.
###