4.2.12 WC: 191694 Chapter 3: My Clerkships: Judge Bazelon and Justice Goldberg Appellate court clerkships, most especially with a Supreme Court Justice, are the most coveted positions following graduation from law school. Today, many law firms pay huge signing bonuses--some as high as $250,000--to attract Supreme Court clerks. In my day, the value of such clerkships were not measured in dollars, but rather in status and prestige. In 1962, there were approximately 18 clerks serving the 9 justices; the chief justice had 3, the associate justices were entitled to 2, but Justice Douglas--who rarely used his clerk--opted for only one. Today, each justice has __ law clerks and the chiefjustice has _. The competition for these coveted positions has always been fierce. Although, theoretically, any law school graduate can apply, most of the clerkships go to a handful of elite schools, with Harvard, Yale, Chicago and Stanford generally garnering the most. (Probably because so many of the Justices attended elite schools: The current Supreme Court has 5 justices who graduated Harvard, 3 Yale and | who attended Harvard but graduated Columbia.) Some clerkships were reserved for those who met certain criteria. Justices Brennan, Frankfurter and Harlan picked only from Harvard. Justice Douglas generally picked from the West Coast, often from Washington State. Justice Black favored southerners, tennis players, and “kissin’ cousins”, but was open to accepting recommendations from certain Yale Law School professors. Chief Justice Warren favored "hail fellows well met" and athletes! Justice Clark preferred Texans. Justice Goldberg (who replaced Justice Frankfurter shortly after I graduated) liked to have one clerk with Chicago connections. I fit none of the pigeonholes, except that I was male and white--as were all the law clerks. This meant that, effectively, I was competing for 3 or 4 slots. My best shot was with Justice Black, because one of my mentors at law school was his recent cl