Yesterday, I wrote about the lateral hiring market. Here, I want to focus on the entry-level hiring market. Since 2012, the number of entry-level hires has dipped to the low 60s and spiked to the mid 140s. Professor Sarah Lawsky has carefully tracked these numbers over the years through a series of detailed hiring spreadsheets: 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, and 2026.

Lawsky tracks how many entry-level hires completed Supreme Court clerkships. (This category does not record already hired law professors who are subsequently hired for Supreme Court clerkships.) I thought it might be worthwhile to dig into the numbers a bit more. Moreover, to continue my prior post on laterals, I wanted to track how often former SCOTUS clerks moved to other institutions. You can see the details in this spreadsheet, which tracks hires of SCOTUS clerks between 2012 and 2026. Please let me know if I am missing any names or made any errors.

How many academics has each Justice "fed"? Counting is actually a bit tricky, so I had to make some judgment calls. If a senior associate Justice hired a clerk, who was then assigned to an active member of the Court, I counted the hiring Justice. (Still, I found at least one law school bio that listed the active justice before the senior justice, a faux pas in my mind.) Likewise, for the clerks hired during the final terms of Justice Scalia or Ginsburg's tenure, and who were then reassigned, I counted them as Scalia and Ginsburg clerks. What about the clerks who were hired by Scalia or Ginsburg for a future term after their passing? In that case, I chose the active Justice that made the decision to re-hire them. With all those caveats out of the way, here is the list.

1. Justice Ginsburg (12 Clerks): Elizabeth Porter, Kate Andrias, Miriam Seifter, Robert Yablon, John Rappaport, Daphna Renan, Pamela Bookman, Hajin Kim, Payvand Ahdout, Rachel Bayefsky, Marco Basile, and Jack Boeglin.


2. Justice Breyer (8 Clerks): Jennifer Nou, Rebecca Stone, Natalie Ram, Tejas Narechania, Andrew Crespo, Farah Peterson, Brian Richardson, and Thomas Schmidt.


3. Justice Kennedy (7 Clerks): Chris Walker, Lisa Manheim, James Stern, Richard Re, Justin Walker, Daniel Epps, and Leah Litman.


4. Justice Thomas (7 Clerks): Marah Stith McLeod, Jennifer Mascott, Robert Leider, Haley Proctor, Steven Lindsay, Brian Lipshutz, and Brittney Lane Kubisch.


5. Justice Stevens (6 Clerks): Jean Galbraith, David Pozen, Jessica Bulman-Pozen, Sam Erman, Merritt McAlister, and Travis Crum.


6. Justice Sotomayor (6 Clerks): Aaron Tang, Michael Pollack, Nikolas Bowie, Kevin Arlyck, Bridget Fahey, and Kamaile Turcan.


7. Justice Souter (5 Clerks): Erin Delaney, David Han, Ann Lipton, Matthew Tokson, Mark Jia.


8. Chief Justice Roberts (4 Clerks): William Baude, Paul Crane, Matthew A. Shapiro, and Ryan Snyder.


9. Justice Alito (4 Clerks): Steven Menashi, J. Joel Alicea, Sherif Girgis, and Garrett West.


10. Justice Scalia (3 Clerks): Aditya Bamzai, Ian Samuel, and Katherine Mims Crocker.


11. Justice Kagan (3 Clerks): Daniel Hemel, Andrew Crespo, and Benjamin Eidelson.


12. Justice Gorsuch (2 Clerks): Lael Weinberger and Micah Quigley.

I have several observations.

First, during this time period, I suppose it makes sense that Justices Ginsburg and Breyer, both academics, hired so many law clerks who went onto become academics. But I was struck that Justice Kagan only hired three future academics. Perhaps her focus is not on the curious type that wants to write articles? Then again, as I've noted before, Professor Kagan didn't publish very much. She was a skilled administrator. To paraphrase John Kerry, "I was for originalism before I was against it." Who would have predicted that Justice Sotomayor would have twice as many academic clerks as Justice Kagan? Likewise, Justice Scalia, a former academic, only had three clerks hired into academia--only one of whom is conservative. Then again, I suspect ideological bias blocked many potential Scalia clerks from even considering the academy during this period. Justice Thomas has jumped ahead in the standings, but as I'll explain below, most of those placements are over the past three years.

Second, there are relatively few law professors who clerked on the Supreme Court. The percentage of entry-level hires with Supreme Court clerkships fluctuates. In 2012, there were seven clerks hired out of 140 reported hires: about 5%. In 2018, there were eight clerks hired out of 77 reported hires: nearly 10%. In 2026, there were four clerks hired out of 146 reported hires: about 3%. The hiring market has been fairly variable in recent years. Still, the persistent myth that you have to clerk on the Supreme Court to teach constitutional law should be retired. Very few ConLaw professors have actually clerked on the Supreme Court.

Third, the total number of hired clerks fluctuates each year, though it averages to about 5. I would wager that 100% of the clerks who apply for the entry-level market find a job somewhere. The Supreme Court pumps out about 36 clerks each year. Let's assume that around 13% of those clerks become law professors. Presumably, about 87% of Supreme Court law clerks do not go into academia, and find employment in the public or private sectors. Despite what one may think, the clerks who work to develop the law are not particularly interested in teaching it.

Fourth, the ideological imbalance of these clerks is stark, although it has corrected somewhat in recent years. Between 2012 and 2015, out of 25 entry-level hires, I count only four professors who were right-of-center: Chris Walker (Ohio State), James Stern (William and Mary), Will Baude (Chicago), and Justice Walker (Louisville). Between 2016 and 2019, there were also four right-of-center hires out of twenty total hires: Aditya Bamzai (Virginia), Steven Menashi (George Mason), Jennifer Mascott (George Mason), Robert Leider (George Mason). The rate has increased substantially from 2020 to the present with nine right-of-center hires out of twenty total hires: J. Joel Alicea (Catholic), Sherif Girgis (Notre Dame), Haley Proctor (Notre Dame), Garrett West (Alito), Steven Lindsay (Catholic), Lael Weinberger (George Mason), Brian Lipshutz (Florida), Micah Quigley (Notre Dame), and Brittney Lane Kubisch (Pepperdine).

Fifth, even as the rate of hiring has increased, left-of-center professors are still being recruited by higher-ranked institutions. Starting in 2012, there have been entry level hires of SCOTUS clerks at Harvard (5), Columbia (3), Virginia (3), Chicago (4), and more. Curiously, Yale has had zero progressive SCOTUS clerk hires, but it did hire Garrett West after he finished clerking for Justice Alito. By contrast, the bulk of the conservative hires have been at right-of-center law schools. George Mason, my alma matter, hired four SCOTUS clerks (two of whom are now federal circuit court judges). Notre Dame has hired four conservative SCOTUS clerks. Catholic has hired two.

Sixth, several schools recruited SCOTUS clerks as laterals. Jean Galbraith spent two years at Rutgers-Camden before moving to Penn in 2014. Michigan recruited Chris Walker from Ohio State, Harvard recruited Richard Re from UVA (previously at UCLA), and Harvard recruited Sherif Girgis from Notre Dame. The professor who moved around the most in the shortest span is Katherine Mims Crocker who started at William & Mary in 2019, moved to Texas A&M in 2024, and then to Cornell in 2026.

Eight, this post only considered law professors hired on the entry-level market between 2012 and 2026. I did not consider several professors who started clerkships after their first appointment. Justice Gorsuch has hired several of these academics: Stephanie Barclay (BYU, then Notre Dame, then Georgetown); Mark Storslee (Penn State, then Emory, then UNC); Christian Burset, (Notre Dame then Penn); and Tyler Lindley (BYU). Rev. Patrick Reidy began a clerkship with Justice Kavanaugh after he was appointed at Notre Dame. Professor Kerrel Murray at Columbia later clerked for Justice Jackson.

It might be useful to expand this post further back from 2012 to see earlier trends. Another time.

The post Supreme Court Clerks Who Become Law Professors (2012-2026) appeared first on Reason Magazine.