Supreme Court law clerks draft opinions under close supervision

Evidence

Imagine being a recent law-school graduate and drafting judicial opinions for the U.S. Supreme Court. Farfetched as this may sound, drafting opinions would likely be one of your responsibilities if you were one of the elite group of young lawyers chosen annually to clerk for the justices of the Supreme Court. This does not mean, of course, that the clerks determine how the Court decides. As Chief Justice William Rehnquist has noted, they are not “legal Rasputins,” manipulating the justices to advance their own legal or policy goals. Nevertheless, working under the close supervision of the justice who selected them, law clerks do play a crucial role in the operations of the Supreme Court. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 905

Categorization

• SHARE: The ‘legal Rasputins’ quote by Rehnquist is a colorful detail worth sharing with someone studying judicial processes or judicial clerkship research.
• XREF: connects to: Appellate courts review lower rulings and decide by written opinions. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 571; Attorneys, not judges, draft proposed jury instructions that judges select from — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 864; Attorneys draft jury instructions that judges select among and may reject with appealable error — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1403 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Justices bargain over opinion drafts, trading requested changes for votes to join. #qualifies (0.78) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1568
• Attorneys draft jury instructions that judges select among and may reject with appealable error #exemplifies (0.72) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1403