The conservative law school growing its influence with the Supreme Court

Annie Ortega, a third-year student who recently took a weeklong class taught by Barrett, praised the “ideologically diverse” school. She is president of the school’s chapter of the Federalist Society but said she has lively conversations with her many liberal friends at the school.

“Going to a law school where I was going to hear both sides of the conversation was really important, and is something that I found to be true in my class,” she added.

Joshua Mannery, a recent graduate who leans liberal and served as president of the student bar association, said that while he did not feel excluded, “I do think anybody who says it’s more conservative is not wrong in saying that.”

‘Cream of the crop’

Each of the nine Supreme Court justices hires four clerks a year. It is considered the most prestigious post a recent law school graduate can obtain.

“These are considered the cream of the crop, the best in the legal profession,” said Aliza Shatzman, president of the Legal Accountability Project, a group she formed to help improve transparency in the clerkship process amid concerns about workplace bullying and harassment.

During the year, the clerks work on all the biggest cases before the court on issues like abortion, guns, voting rights and LGBTQ rights. Once the clerkship is completed, the clerks are in high demand in the legal profession, with big law firms offering eye-popping signing bonuses. Many clerks go on to high-profile careers, whether in corporate law, academia or in some cases politics. Later in their careers, they are often earmarked as potential judicial appointees. Of the current nine justices, six clerked at the court, as have several prominent senators, including Republicans Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Josh Hawley, R-Mo.

In the coming nine-month term that officially starts on Monday, two recent Notre Dame Law School graduates, Kari Lorentson and Elizabeth Totzke, are both clerking for Barrett. And two law professors from the school, Christian Burset and Patrick Reidy, the latter of whom is a Catholic priest, are clerking for justices Neil Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, respectively.

They are following in the footsteps of four other Notre Dame graduates who clerked at the high court in the last five years, all for conservative justices. Two other Notre Dame professors also clerked at the Supreme Court in recent years, both with Gorsuch, who appears to sometimes favor hiring academics to work for him.

In an appearance at Notre Dame last year, Kavanaugh spoke about what he looks for in his clerks.

“It’s got to be people who are comfortable with my general approach,” Kavanaugh said. “I have had two spectacular Notre Dame law clerks. They just worked so hard.”

Nicole Garnett, a longtime Notre Dame professor who clerked for conservative Justice Clarence Thomas and is a longtime friend of Barrett’s, chairs the school’s clerkship committee. In an interview, she downplayed connections with the conservative justices.

“I think that drawing any conclusions about Supreme Court clerkships is probably a category error because it’s such a needle-in-a-haystack, lightning-strike kind of thing,” she said.

In 2023, Notre Dame was ranked fourth in the country at placing students in clerkships at all levels of the court system. Overall, Notre Dame ranked 20th in the most recent U.S. News & World Report law school rankings.

The traditional elite law schools dominate Supreme Court clerkships, with many justices hiring clerks from the same law schools they themselves attended and maintaining close links with faculty members. About two-thirds of clerks come from five schools: Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Columbia and the University of Chicago. Barrett, who graduated from Notre Dame Law School, is the only member of the current court not to have a law degree from Harvard or Yale.

Within that context, Notre Dame is scrapping with other law schools for the remaining clerkships and has performed well. In the last five years, more graduates of Notre Dame Law School have been clerking at the high court than from many other high-ranking law schools, including Duke University, the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University. Another conservative-aligned law school that is making inroads is George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School in Virginia, which has also placed some graduates in Supreme Court clerkships.

While Supreme Court clerkships are the most sought-after, similar roles with federal appeals court judges are also important, in part because many people who later obtain clerkships at the high court have previously worked for a lower court judge.

Notre Dame is making inroads on that front too. Of the most recent graduating class of 187 students, about 20% moved on to clerkships of some type.