The first Stanford Law School graduate was chosen as a law clerk to a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States in 1949. Since then, a total of 21 alumni have become members of that unique fraternity. Their academic backgrounds are similar: they were in the top 10% of their class; they held editorial positions on the Law Review; they came with the highest faculty recommendations; and in more recent years, many were first law clerks at lower courts.

Individual Justices vary in their methods of selecting their law clerks. Some rely on a committee of former clerks to screen applicants; others leave the decision to the judgment of a trusted law professor or dean; still others personally interview candidates.

The basic duties of the law clerk have remained the same for many years-to help a Justice in his work of considering petitions and deciding cases-but several aspects of the job have changed considerably. James R. Atwood ’69, who clerked for Chief Justice Burger during the 1969 term says: “The Court must now review about 3,500 cases a year, which is twice what it was a decade ago. Largely in response to this increase in case work the Court has increased each Justice’s complement of clerks from one to two and, last year, to three (and the Chief gets an extra as well). An unavoidable result of all this is that a present-day law clerk will find himself with more paperwork and less access to his Justice than his predecessor of ten years ago.” He goes on to indicate a need for even further change. “What is more regrettable, each Justice finds himself with more decisions to make and less time in which to make them. The Court would be a better place to work-for Justices and law clerks alike-and a better law-making institution if its flow of paper were reduced. This will require new legislation by Congress, more restraint by lawyers, or both. It is a goal worth working towards.”

Atwood, like many other former clerks, considers clerking to be a valuable post-graduate experience. “To listen to the oral arguments, discuss the cases, watch the opinions evolve through successive drafts, and then hear them delivered from the bench is undoubtedly a great experience for a young lawyer.”

Raymond C. Fisher ’66 indicates another important aspect of the clerkship experience. He says that while “law school teaches an academic approach wherein you consider all sides of an issue” clerking makes you aware of the need to “make a decision and deter- 8 mine what a law will be.” He learned from the experience “the awesomeness of making up your mind, giving an opinion and living with a decision.” Fisher clerked for Justice Brennan during the 1967 term.

William H. Allen ’56 clerked for Justice Warren during the 1956 term. He believes that “the association with other Justices and with fellow law clerks, the opportunity to learn at least a little about the broad spectrum of problems of federal constitutional and statutory law-and the chance to penetrate a little way into the mystery of how judges really decide cases” is an experience that “I prize above almost any other I have had in my life.”

Clerking provides the rare chance to be engaged in the business of the most important Court in the country; it also offers the rare opportunity to establish a personal relationship with a Justice. James K. Hoenig ’63, who clerked for Chief Justice Warren during the 1963 term, has this to say: “Frequently, a rise to great heights narrows rather than broadens one’s perspective. The opposite was true with the Chief, and his tremendous sense of proportion and perspective created a lasting influence. Like all law clerks, I wanted every in forma pauperis appeal to be another Gideon case. But the Chief would often say, ‘there will be another case’. It was a kind way of saying to an overeager clerk: don’t try to cure all the world’s ills this year; there is time yet. He was not ignoring problems that cried out for solution, but rather marshalling and husbanding the resources to solve them at the right time, and in the right case. This sense of perspective often seems to be an attribute that grows along with gray hair; but, fortunately for his clerks, some of it rubs off from association with a man like the Chief and stays with you long after the specific cases and issues are forgotten.”

Another former clerk asserts the influence of Justice Douglas on his view of the judicial process. He believes the experience of working for Justice Douglas. “was very instrumental in causing me to break away from the ‘intellectual game’ view of the law which law school tended to engender and instead to approach the law in terms of the human relations and values which it regulates.” He recalls “an expression of Justice Douglas’ (which has appeared in several of his opinions), that a primary goal of the Bill of Rights is to get huge and powerful Government ‘off the backs’ of the People.”

William Lake, who clerked for Justice Harlan in 1969 offers another insight. “The personal world into which the law clerk is admitted is that of the Justice for whom he works. In this regard the law clerk’s experiences differ widely. Some members of the Court permit and encourage close personal relationships with their law clerks; others do not. But in every case the law clerk’s duties give him a glimpse of the character of a man who has some unusual qualities that have caused him to be appointed to the nation’s highest court. Whatever a Supreme Court Justice may be, he is never a dull or an ordinary man. The law clerk has the privilege of observing at close range how one extraordinary man comports himself in a position of great power.”

A Supreme Court clerkship not only offers an opportunity to view the workings of the Court from the inside and to develop a close association with a Justice; it can also Q have a major impact on the clerk’s subsequent career. Jared G. Carter ’62, a former Douglas clerk during the 1962 term, comments, “I enjoyed the clerkship immensely, even though it was difficult in terms of the expenditure of hours and intellectual energy. The opportunity to form a personal relationship with a Justice of the Supreme Court and to understand not only his thiQking but the methods of operation of the Court affords a much better basis for appreciating the way other institutions of government and business operate and equips a young lawyer to be able to determine the relevant ingredients in any situation in which he is counsel much better than he would otherwise be able to do without having had the clerkship experience.” He adds that although it may not be fair, “speaking generally, former clerks have a greater choice of jobs at all stages of their careers than do equally qualified lawyers who have devoted their entire career simply to practicing law.”

Charles Lettow, who clerked for Chief Justice Burger points out: “The clerkship, like attendance at a good law school, provides the clerk with a chance to test his legal and mental acumen against the best of contemporary legal minds of like vintage in the country, Le., his fellow clerks. As a result the clerk will almost inevitably set a standard of excellence in legal work for himself that he should manage to retain for the rest of his life.

“Having had the clerkship gives the ex-clerk a ‘presumption’ of having good legal skills and accordingly opens many job opportunities to him. In most cases the clerkship appears to provide only the initial foot in the door; whatever progress the person makes thereafter seems to be judged’ by his actual performance.”

Carl D. Lawson ’63 who clerked for Justice Reed during the 1965 term benefited in a special way from his clerkship experience. “The most important side-effect was that I met my wife through Dale Collinson, who was clerking for Justice White at the time I clerked.” Mr. Collinson went on to become a member of the faculty at Stanford Law School.

Bill Lake tells of another highlight of his clerkship. “One of the most interesting aspects of my clerkship was to watch the friendship between Mr. Justice Harlan and Mr. Justice Black. The two men in some ways represented opposite judicial philosophies. For years their opinions debated the difference between Mr. Justice Black’s theory that the Bill of Rights imposed absolute rules and that those rules applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment; and Mr. Justice Harlan’~ belief that a weighing of values was necessary, especially under the Due Process Clause, and his rejection of the ‘incorporation’ theory of the Fourteenth Amendment. I think each of the two men thought he had had the better of their lengthy debates in the U.S. Reports. But the surprising thing was that their differences of view did not interfere at all with their close personal regard for each other. Their chambers at the Court were adjoining, which facilitated constant interchange both between the Justices and their clerks. And when they were both stricken with what would be terminal illnesses, they had adjoining rooms at Bethesda Naval Hospital where they spent some time together daily until shortly before Mr. Justice Black’s death.

“A trait they shared while on the Court was an unusual unwillingness to join another Justice’s opinion if it expressed views just a shade different from their own. The reports are full of separate concurring or dissenting opinions written by each of them to explain exactly the course by which he thought the result should be reached. Each of them seemed to respect in the other that determination to stick to what he believed. I think it was a sign of the extreme integrity of both men, which probably helps to explain their affection for each other and certainly helps to explain the greatness they achieved on the Court.”

Whatever the benefits from clerking at the Supreme Court of the United States, there is no doubt that that form of advanced legal training is a reward in itself. As Marshall L. Small, a former Douglas clerk asserts: “Needless to say, I found my year of clerkship to be a fascinating experience, and a year well spent.”

After leaving the auspices of the Supreme Court of the United States, the majority of Law School alumni have joined law firms and are now practicing attorneys. A few have turned to careers in teaching or business. And, of course, one former Stanford clerk, William H. Rehnquist ’52, has himself become a Justice of the Supreme Court.

Many of the former clerks have kept close ties with the Law School. Eight have been members of the Board of Visitors. Others have been active in their various Law Societies, Law Fund organizations and class reunions. Warren Christopher ’49, for example, is chairman of AGENDA for Legal Education. All have also contributed their energies to the public and the legal profession.